Responding to a new food market demand, the Southern Altiplano region of Bolivia has become the world's largest exporter of quinoa, a traditional food of Andean populations, now consumed in many countries in the North. This thesis investigates the changes induced by the transition from subsistence agriculture to family-based export agriculture, with a particular focus on the spatial mobility of the populations and its relation to the profound changes experienced by this region. Reconstruction through life narratives of the biographies of 170 people originating from 5 rural communities facilitated a reframing of the quinoa boom in the context of the residential, professional and circulatory histories of the populations. Through study of the ...