Jane Collins explores a phenomenon of growing importance in developing nations--the labor scarcity that emerges as farmers in Latin America and elsewhere are forced by economic necessity to seek seasonal work away from their home communities. Such labor scarcity often results in "unseasonal" ecological damage and the deterioration of social relations. Professor Collins focuses on a particular instance in which migration has created labor scarcity: the seasonal journeys of Aymara-speaking highland peasants to east Andean valleys, where they grow coffee. Contrary to the conventional wisdom...

Jane Collins explores a phenomenon of growing importance in developing nations--the labor scarcity that emerges as farmers in Latin America and elsewhere are forced by economic necessity to seek seasonal work away from their home communities. Such labor scarcity often results in "unseasonal" ecological damage and the deterioration of social relations. Professor Collins focuses on a particular instance in which migration has created labor scarcity: the seasonal journeys of Aymara-speaking highland peasants to east Andean valleys, where they grow coffee. Contrary to the conventional wisdom...