Opinion:

People working on a steep mountain hillside to prepare soil for planting.
Turna group in action, preparing the land for planting.

Peru has a 'dugnad' too, and it’s a tradition that has been changing for centuries

OPINION: There is a tendency to treat Indigenous traditions as static, frozen in time. However, they are traditions in motion, just like the cultures they came from.

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Miluska Bravo Vela Miluska Bravo Vela Master's student, Department of International Environment and Development Studies, NMBU
Published

There are records that Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Andes engaged in collective work and reciprocal labour all the way back to pre-Inca civilisations.

This Peruvian dugnad is called minka or turna and is still the foundation of the agricultural system of Indigenous farmers today. Its practice is grounded in kinship ties, social relations, and a deep belief in mutual support.

But what is dugnad, really?

Dugnad can mean many different things, but dugnad in both Norway and the Andean mountains has changed over time. Originally, dugnad was a local and practical activity in rural areas as neighbours depended on each other economically.

In farming communities especially, mutual aid was necessary for survival and widely used for harvesting crops and maintaining shared infrastructure. As economic conditions improved, the practical necessity of dugnad declined, and now it is a symbol of cooperation, social responsibility, and a source of national pride.

Not as static as it might seem

I myself have joined a couple of dugnads in the last year, so imagine my surprise when I went to Peru to do research in two Indigenous communities to study their agricultural systems, and discovered that there too, communities have their own form of dugnad.

But just as the dugnads in Norway have changed, so have the minkas and turnas.

There is a tendency to treat traditions like these as static, frozen in time, especially when they are traditions performed by Indigenous peoples. At times, what we learn about them can feel so removed from our own ways of life that a certain mysticism takes over.

Their language, their clothes, their customs. We tend to see these communities as remnants of the past, as if they offer us a window into how humans lived thousands of years ago. Sometimes to the point of romanticising their lifestyle altogether. But this static view is not always true.

One of the communities I studied is called San Bartolomé de Tupe. They still preserve their traditional language – Jaqaru, only spoken in this community in all of Peru – alongside distinct clothing, textiles, and continued cultivation of Andean crops such as potatoes, maize, oca, olluco, and mashua.

Now, the way that they carry out their turnas is worth our attention.

Aerial view of Tupe village in a mountain valley with steep hills and patchy green vegetation.
Town of Tupe seen from above.

Change in the turna

It all starts with the field owner calling upon their compadres and comadres to work their land, with the expectation of returning the favour in the future. The occasion carries its own costumbres: participants bring food items that are tied to the host’s belt, and flowers to decorate their compadres'  heads.

Two women in red patterned clothes carry bags of crackers, sweets and soft drinks on a dry hillside trail.
Tupiña woman with crackers, candies, and sodas.

The start of the work shift is marked by the firing of a cohete, and an offering to the soil is often performed.

While collective labour remains deeply rooted in the cultivation of traditional crops in Tupe, several aspects of the turna practice have shifted. The first noticeable change is the start time. Community members remember turnas beginning at 10am and finishing around 5pm.

A new time schedule

Today, cohetes can be heard at 1 or 2pm, with work extending well past 7pm. The walk home is now in the dark. The food brought for belt decoration has also changed. Bizcocho (sponge cake) has been replaced by crackers, candies, and sodas. It was also common to eat together around 1pm, a blanket spread in the centre of the field, filled with potatoes, cheese, and maize provided by the landowner.

Now, given the late start, the meal is eaten at the end of the shift, back in the town, and the host serves soup (still accompanied by cheese and corn) at the local restaurant.  The fields have been replaced by chairs and tables.

Then there is the alcohol. Drinking during turnas has always been part of the tradition.  A pour to the land, then a shared drink among the group. Traditionally, the host’s wife would prepare chicha de jora, a fermented maize drink which requires days of preparation.

The strength of chamis

Today, chicha has been replaced by chamis, a mix of pure alcohol and local herbs boiled into a kind of alcoholic tea, finished with lemon and sugar. The host now circulates the field with her pot, toasting with each worker.

Bowls of lentil soup and plates of pasta, cheese and maize on a patterned table in a local restaurant.
Meal served after turna back in the local restaurant. Soup of lentils with pasta, cheese and maize on the side.

The amount of alcohol consumed has also shifted. What was once a shared drink at the start, during lunch, and at the end of the shift, has transformed into continuous drinking throughout the workday.

Some people explain this practice by saying that chamis gives them strength for the hard physical labour. Others are openly critical, referring to it as borrachera (drunkenness), yet continue to participate in this activity as they recognise that it is part of their tradition.

Indigenous cultures are not frozen in time

What this research revealed is that the turna in Tupe today is not the same one carried out centuries ago. New foods have appeared, chicha has been replaced by chamis, cohetes are fired later, and the extent of drinking has become something the community debates.

While the foundation of why this tradition is carried out remains, its construction is shaped by the availability of ingredients, and the personal beliefs and choices of the people who practice it. 

A woman herds several cows up a narrow stone path in a mountain village.
Tupiña woman hearding cows across the town center.

Norwegians, too, have been reshaping how dugnads are practiced. Initially used for agricultural purposes, it is now embedded in modern activities, such as fundraising for the children’s football team. But even these modern dugnads have shifted.

With longer working hours, finding time to participate in dugnads can be difficult for parents. Some even buy the toilet paper or flowers that they were supposed to help their children sell.

Depending on the financial means of the organising groups, tasks once done during dugnads are being outsourced to professional service providers. Something that has remained the same is the role of food at the end of dugnads. Whether it is rømmegrøt (sour cream porridge) or kaffe og kake (coffee and cake), they are both a reward and a means of social bonding.

Compadres and comadres continue to show up, and so do parents for their children’s teams. The dugnads and turnas, two traditions practiced on opposite sides of the world, are proof that traditions do not remain the same.

The turna, especially, makes a strong case against Indigenous cultures being frozen in time. What we see in both cases is that they are dynamic and continuously shaped by the people who practice them. They are traditions in motion, just like the cultures they came from.

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