Over the last fifty years, the production and consumption of
chicken meat have soared in Bolivia. This article analyzes the political,
economic, and cultural developments that have led to the popularity of
chicken meat in this country. It also asks who has benefited from this
success story. The author relies on data from one year of multisited ethnographic
fieldwork in Bolivia to provide an account of the history of
industrial chicken meat production in the country. This article particularly
focuses on the role that national elites and their political entanglements
have played in the development of the poultry sector.
Marketing campaigns playing on desires to join Western modernity
have fostered a taste for industrial chicken meat. Constant overproduction
has kept market prices low, so that chicken has become available
for the masses. The supply of cheap chicken meat also has been on the
political agenda. This article concludes that the expansion of industrially
produced chicken meat has mostly favored the upper and middle
classes, leaving the poorer population with products that are cheap but
of doubtful quality. Under the guise of a “sovereign” supply of cheap
meat, an immense business opportunity has been created.