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Show 117 The serf looks upon all human relations as hostile; he fears dying; he lives under the threat of illness, pain and corporal punishment; he suffers imprisonment and employer censure; he loses his poor possessions and worries about the possibility of losing his basic tight to the land under the hacienda system; hunger stalks him and the supernatural elements, through the pishtacos, rigidly regulates his behavior. The endoculturation process, from birth to death, conditions him to a behavior that produces extreme timidity as a child and as an adult, inhibitions with respect to social contact with strangers. The serfs hide behind an active social and conceptual incommunicativeness that acts as an effective first-line defense mechanism and makes the organized communities extraordinarily conservative. The system of defensive ignorance imposes such an impenetrable barrier of resistance against innovation and technical assistance programs that it is difficult to perceive the possibility and significance of external sources of social change or acculturation. In order that this Andean society be transformed into a dynamic and creative society, a program of integral community development must be implemented that looks toward the disappearance of feudal control mechanisms responsible for the shaping of the serf's personality. Huizer, Gerrit. "Desarrollo de la comunidad y reforma agraria," America Indigena, XXVII No. 2 (April, 1967), pp. 283-300. English Summary: Community development programs which take place in areas with a semi-feudal social structure often encounter a strong obstacle in the distrust and resentment of the peasant population. Where, however, basic changes in the social structure, such as agrarian reform, are being introduced, the peasants have more confidence and show a great willingness to participate actively in programs for their improvement as part of national development. This is demonstrated throughout the comparison of various projects in which the author was directly or indirectly involved or interested. A rather difficult village improvement project in an area dominated by large landholdings in El Salvador is compared, among others, with the Cornell-Vicos project in Peru, where community development techniques successfully helped the Indian peasants to take over a former hacienda. The positive influence of agrarian reform on the willingness of people to participate in development programs can be best seen from the effects of large scale programs such as the agrarian reform which was carried out in Guatemala in 1952-1954 |