Paper short abstract:

The Ese eja people of the Peruvian Amazon have addressed the monitoring of resources in an increasingly smaller territorial area by enlisting the aid of children. I present ethnographic evidence for an informal monitoring system that contradicts mechanisms described in common-property literature.

Paper long abstract:

As indigenous people become circumscribed by new land tenure arrangements, property regimes may shift to adapt to new social and environmental contexts. In these situations, as in the case of the Ese eja people of the Peruvian Amazon, people have to carry out resource management activities in much closer proximity to others. One outcome is that overlapping property regimes may emerge, complicating the institutional arrangements designed to govern these resources. In particular, monitoring mechanisms are affected, as people need to scrutinize a wide range of resource management activities taking place simultaneously within communal lands. The Ese eja have addressed these challenges by enlisting the aid of an unexpected group of people: children. Using ethnographic research, I present evidence for an informal monitoring system that contradicts monitoring mechanisms described in the common-property literature. Ese eja children are "invisible" and non-accountable monitors that actively collect information about the activities of others and relay information to female kin. Women then sort through the information and decide what course of action to take in a process that depicts how informal arrangements can influence outcomes taking place in formal realms. This case also illustrates how ethnographic methods have the potential of uncovering varied and complex local-level arrangements that merit examination.