Ayni Real and Imagined: Reciprocity, Indigenous Institutions, and Development Discourses in Contemporary Bolivia

The last decade has seen a major shift in Bolivian politics, marked by a rejection of neoliberal governance and the ascendency of indigenous activism. Ayni (Quechua, “reciprocity”) has come to represent new possibilities for Bolivia's nascent socioeconomic order. We explore the role that NGOs play in the promotion of ayni as an alternative model of development. Drawing on historical analysis of ayni, this article compares NGO's ayni rhetoric and reciprocity as practiced in communities. We find, first, that NGO discourses around ayni both broaden and weaken the concept and, second, that they reenvision ayni in ways that are more compatible with new reciprocal practices linked to commercialization and evangelization occurring in these communities. We conclude that ayni, as reenvisioned in development discourses, helps NGOs strike a balance among the different currents of social change—economic, political, and religious—that have so profoundly changed Bolivia over the last thirty years. [alternative development, alternative economies, Andes, Bolivia, development, reciprocity, social anthropology].