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About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
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Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
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RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
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RAI FILM
Login
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Twitter
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Menu
About
About RAI Film
Meet the team
Prices
Film Distribution
Watch on demand
Ethnographic Film Catalogue
Teaching resources
RAI Film Festival
About RAI Film Festival
Film Festival 2025
Film Festival 2025 Group passes
Film Festival prizes and awards
Film Conference 2025
Archive of past editions
Login
Facebook
Instagram
Twitter
Films
found one film
with a digital version available
x
Directors
“Sturtevant, Chuck”
x
Year of production
“2010”
x
Status
“A”
x
films with a digital version
1
x
Region
South America
1
Country
Bolivia
1
Keywords
Indigenous peoples / First Nations peoples
1
Labour
1
Migration
1
Socioeconomic conditions
1
Directors
Sturtevant, Chuck
1
x
Series
not set
1
Country of production
Bolivia
1
Year of production
2010
1
x
Status
Film
Habilito – Debt for Life
2010
52
‘
Directed by
Chuck Sturtevant
.
This documentary explores many of the conflicts and tensions that arise at the point of contact between highland migrants and lowland indigenous peoples, focusing particularly on the system of debt peonage known locally as “habilito”. Habilito is used throughout the Bolivian lowlands, and much of the rest of the Amazon basin, to secure the labour of indigenous people. Timber merchants advance market goods to indigenous people at inflated prices, in exchange for tropical hardwood and other forest products. When it comes time to settle accounts, the indebted person almost always finds that the wood he has cut doesn’t fulfil his debt obligation, and he has to borrow more money to return to the forest to continue cutting. This permanent cycle of debt permits actors from outside these indigenous communities to maintain control over the extraction of wood and provides them with a free source of labour in the exploitation of these resources. This system is practised especially in remote areas where systems of patronage have replaced the state, and where colonists with a market-based economic logic come into contact with Amazonian indigenous peoples who, historically, have not employed economic logics of saving or hording. The film is a thorough account of this system from testimonies of participants who are involved in it various all levels – indigenous people who are labouring under the system, merchants who lend money and goods in exchange for timber, government officials, NGO operators and indigenous political representatives.
South America
Socioeconomic conditions
Migration
Indigenous peoples / First Nations peoples
Labour