Manufacturing against the Odds

In Third World countries, small-scale manufacturers supply a large part of the nation's consumer goods, often meeting needs that larger operations of foreign imports cannot. Enlivened by the oral histories of women and men of rural and urban backgrounds, this book depicts the struggle of artisan and small-scale manufacturing enterprises in La Paz during the political and economic crises of the 1980s in Bolivia. The authors question the concept of the "informal market" (with its connotation of residualness, marginality, and illegitimacy) and other dualistic and linear models of industrialization and development. They develop an alternative model based on the interaction between external factors and the internal dynamics of productive traditions, rural-urban migration, ethnicity, gender, and class, showing the diversity and flexibility of capitalism in Latin America.