Territorial dynamics and social differentiation among peasants in the northern highlands of Ecuador

This article addresses the process of social differentiation among peasants who were beneficiaries of the 1960s agrarian reform in the northern highlands of Ecuador. Although peasants obtained access to land that was previously in the hands of the haciendas, the incipient process of social differentiation that arose at that time was not halted. Today, peasants are incorporated into a commercial dynamic through milk production for agribusiness that has deepened the process of social differentiation between communities and within them. The supremacy of economic capital in the social field leads to a crisis in the traditional practices of reciprocity and to the incorporation of productive strategies and new “habitus” of consumption that have generated profound transformations in the territory.