Complementing rationalities: The new Aymara petty bourgeoisie in Bolivia

Abstract

This article discusses the case of a segment of the Aymara indigenous population experiencing relative upward social mobility. It posits the thesis that this sector of the petty bourgeois class is the unexpected and unintended result of the economic crisis of the 1980s, the flexible labor market of the 1990s, the expansion of Asian trade in the national economy and, above all, the ability of these agents to translate, reinterpret and articulate two rationalities regarded as opposites: the traditional-affective and the instrumental.