Los Viajes de intercambio y las ferias. Relatos y vigencia del trueque en la Puna jujeña (Argentina)

Abstract

References to barter at Andean region are frequently described as interchange of goods and services system, related to historical processes as well as present ones. However, studies that focusses on recovering practices and visions for Argentinian Puna are not so common. So, in this text we pretend to contribute with a wide vision about barter among agricultural producers at the Jujuy Puna (northwest extreme of Argentina, at the border with Chile and Bolivia) from ethnographic descriptions and depth interviews. This task entail to identify references to barter that happened to have two instances: an historic one, when men undertake journeys from Puna to valley, and the actual one, that takes place at different kinds of fairs. Although barter is appreciated as a positively cultural element for identity, it’s a practice that is being reconfigured and giving ground.