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France (Paris) 70

CAHIERS DES SCIENCES HUMAINES

1995 - VOLUME 31, NUMBER 4

96.70.1 - French - Geneviève CORTES, Département de géographie, Université de Toulouse-Le Mirail (Gral), 32 rue des Champs-Elysées, 31500 Toulouse (France) Temporary migration to Chapare (Bolivia) and food strategies (Migrations temporaires au Chaparé (Bolivie) et stratégies alimentaires) (p. 951-967)

Study of the family economy and food systems of Quechuan farmers in the highland Pampa Churigua community in the inter-Andean valley region in Bolivia (Cochabamba) shows that temporary migration to the Chapare coca production zones is not only an economic alternative in the face of the worsening of agro-pastoral production (excessive sub-division of land, drought, agricultural policies, etc.). Coca fluxes are substantial in spite of the control of cocaine trafficking since 1986. Migration to the coca production zones is also a strategy of diversification and spatial extension of food supply methods that has become essential for the survival of farming families. In addition, this broadening of the farming area based on new complementarity of the different ecological areas enables the social group to recover an ancestral method of use of the Andean area. (BOLIVIA, TEMPORARY MIGRATION, AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION, FEEDING)

96.70.2 - French - Jean-Claude ROUX and Fernando OVIEDO, ORSTOM, calle EE.UU. 1487, CP 9214, La Paz (Bolivia) The 'cinchona men'. Demographic behaviour and extraction economy cycles in Caupolican, an enclaved region of Bolivia (1830-1880) (Les "hommes du quinquina". Comportements démographiques et cycles de l'économie extractive dans une région bolivienne enclavée : Caupolican (1830-1880)) (p. 969-986)

Indian tribute records are used to assess the consequences of two successive booms in the Caupolican area, a 100,000 sq. km region that long remained marginal. The first boom concerned a rare extraction product that was for a while the subject of profitable exports to Europe and the second was a boom in rubber, then also specific to the Amazon basin. The same phenomena occurred in both cases: labour migration, over-exploitation resulting in sales crises, temporary recovery and the establishment of an export trade structure and then a crisis at the end of the century. The rubber boom that started at the edge of the Caupolican region was both geographically and economically more substantial. It spread towards Caupolican from 1890 onwards. Both land and labour resources were recovered from the obsolete cinchona operations. In both cases, the extraction economy was incapable of catering for the new labour population, which suffered a somewhat damaging demographic impact. (BOLIVIA, HISTORY, RURAL ECONOMY, LABOUR MOBILITY, WORKING CONDITIONS)

96.70.3 - French - Jean-Baptiste MEYER, Chargé de recherche, ORSTOM, UR 5D, 32 avenue Henri-Varagnat, Bondy Cedex (France), and Jorge CHARUM, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, A.A. 241980, Santafé de Bogota (Colombia) Is the brain drain over? The lost paradigm and new prospects (La " fuite des cerveaux " est-elle épuisée ? Paradigme perdu et nouvelles perspectives) (p. 1003-1017)

The migration of scientists is a key topic in the 1990s. Scientific mobility is more than ever a crucial issue in international relations and global development. However, the "brain drain" model that was used to describe and explain the phenomenon in recent decades has served its time. It is based on economicist premises which cannot now serve as satisfactory tools for analysing the present situation in science and technology. Activities in the latter respond to specific forms of circulation and association of entities that were ignored or minimised by the macroscopic "brain drain" approach. New experience in developing countries shows how their "brain drain" features form a resource for expansion. Science policies are indeed set up which rely on originally national intellectuals with positions in foreign countries to generate technico-economic growth at home. This "brain gain" approach has different features and applications in different countries. The Caldas network in Colombia is of particular interest. Its study is linked to the recent sociology of science field and opens up new conceptual perspectives in studies of international scientific migration. (COLOMBIA, BRAIN DRAIN)

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