Based upon the study of a conflict that erupted between Bolivian immigrants in Buenos Aires over the concept of “slave labor” in the city’s sweatshops, the present article deals with the relationship between (western) rights and Aymara or Andean cultural forms. How are these work relations qualified when they involve Bolivian/Andeanworkers and owners (or administrators)? Aymara culture problematizes the concept of labor exploitation and vice versa. The present article focuses on the transnational migratory circuit and heterogeneous circulations (of people, money, objects, knowledge and practices) that it contains in order to better comprehend this conflict. Based upon an analysis of the lived, networked experience of rights and Aymara cultural traces, I propose to interlink and juxtapose the social, cultural economic and political logics and institutuions that are constituitive components of these processes of circulation.
Rights; Aymara Culture; Labour exploitation; Migratory circuit