Abstract
Inscribed within an ancient national tradition, rural emigration in the interandean vallies of Bolivia is gaining importance. The country 's contemporary crises and the immigration policies of the host countries maintain the flux trend towards Argentina while enabling new destination targets: the United States, and more recently Israel and Japan. In these Bolivian lands, the emigration derived income provides the driving force of family economies and triggers development of the local territory. At the same time, emigration induces a process of socio-economic differenciation in peasant communities which weakens the food-system and increases family nutritional risks in the populations marginal to this migration system. In addition to these mutations there is a strong socio-cultural destructuring which affects community-cohesion in local societies.