Rural Social Networks along Amazonian Rivers: Seeds, Labor and Soccer among Communities on the Napo River, Peru†

Research on Amazonian communities has focussed more often on rural-urban linkages than on links among rural communities. This is unsurprising, given the low density of population, limited intercommunity commerce, and importance of direct city-market relations. Social relations among rural communities are also important in shaping rural livelihoods and lifeways. We report on the findings of a large-scale census of communities in the Napo River basin in northeastern Peru (n=174). Data were gathered on intervillage crop seed acquisition and cooperative labor sharing as two key inputs in agriculture, and on intervillage soccer matches, which are integral to rural social life. We analyze the socio-spatial networks of each practice, paying attention to settlement patterns, community ethnicity, and differential access to the uplands. We find that seeds and labor flow along soccer network lines. Rural social networks appear to be structured strongly by ethnicity (homophily) and reflect important complementarities between upland and lowland communities (weak ties).