Manos Cambiadas - Restoring reciprocity on the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica.

Can we use moments of urgency and breakdown as portals for re-imagining and repairing our social fabric? This was the question that drew a small but diverse group  of people on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica to  join together in May of 2020.  

At a time when the world appeared to stop, when fear seemed to dominate and when many were seeking a route back to “normal”….we saw the truth of the statement “…we are the ones we have been waiting for”.  Out of this ancient Knowing began the revival of Manos Cambiadas (“Changing Hands”)  a traditions based practice of mutual aid, solidarity, and shared labor.   The small group started with inviting neighbors and friends to help a member of the community with harvesting crops, preparing land, or responding to moments of need — not via transactional exchange, but through trust, reciprocity, and collective responsibility.  

Six years forward….Manos Cambiadas has been of essential support to campesino families in our Osa community, many of whom are getting older and lack the financial capital to hire help. Moreso, it has become very clear to us that this tradition is a cornerstone of our community’s relationship and trust building. 

Bioregional context

The socio-cultural landscape of the Osa Peninsula is market by thriving tourism and conservation and development industries. Over the years, it has shown that these are primarily of benefit to wealthy and external individuals and businesses at the expence of the local campesino population. For generations their sovereignty and culture have suffered greatly from these activities and the pace of change that has come with the modern day mindset coming in. 

The ecological landscape of the Osa bioregion holds >2.5 % of the Earth’s biodiversity existing in 80% of the area’s territory. The remainder of the land, primarily along the coastline, is subject to degradation, human development and continued exploitation.  

Within these dynamics, Manos Cambiadas does the slow and vital work rejuvenating the agricultural practices in our bioregion while fostering a spirit of community, collaboration, and cultural preservation.

The program addresses several interconnected challenges:

• Local farm families, usually elderly, without the financial capital to hire help for needed projects on their land.
• Newly arrived immigrants (ex-patriots) not understanding the historical local culture they are moving into or the potency of their contributions.
• Limited access to effective interventions  around “alternative” farming practices 
• Undervalued community labor and mutual aid
• Weakened circulation of local goods and services
• Social fragmentation and declining reciprocity structures
• Institutional interventions still based on horizon 1 frameworks.

It does this by continuing to build the necessary support and infrastructure one small farm or household at a time.

Objective of the Manos Cambiadas: To enhance community-based mutual aid, promote soil and water regeneration, encourage ancestral knowledge, preserve local culture and traditions and enhance relationships and greater understanding across communities such as:

1. Enhance Soil Health, Reduce Chemical Dependency & Promote Biodiversity through Organic Agriculture:  During Manos Cambiadas we involves implementation of form of regenerative practice such as biochar, composting, Micro Mountain Organisms, and more.

2. Promote a regenerative local food system:  Supporting the farmers helps to evolve the local food system to prioritizing organic crops and seed resiliency, community well-being, and economic viability.

3. Strengthen community collaboration:  Making interdependence, talents and knowledge visible within the community while fostering community ties by executing collaborative tasks during the Manos Cambiadas

5. Increase Food Security and Access to Healthier Produce:  Increase access to fresh, nutritious food through sustained local production and local distribution strategies such as the Mercado Verde & CSA boxes.

6. Empower Farmers by valuing and complementing their knowledge and skills: Recognize the knowledge of local farmers, while equipping them with the resources to practice their knowledge and skills complemented with modern day regenerative methods. 

Continuation & expansion of Manos Cambiadas

As part of ensuring continuation and structuring the Manos Cambiadas we would like to employ the funds to introduce commitment pools to the program. The commitment pool can show the multiple values that are being exchanged throughout the activities and the program and is developed by the Sarafu Network of Grassroots Economics.. It will enable us to demonstrate how ancestral traditions of mutual aid can be combined with regenerative economic tools to create locally rooted, ecologically aligned, and socially resilient economies. 

This way we’re engaging in the living experiment of restoring reciprocity as the foundation for social, economic and ecological infrastructure — rebuilding the social, cultural, ecological, and economic relationships necessary for our communities to thrive together

The commitment pool will function as a complementary mechanism within Manos Cambiados for acknowledging and rewarding not only physical labor, but also the, often, invisible work of organizing, hosting, facilitating, caregiving, communicating, and sustaining community infrastructure. By linking Manos Cambiadas with commitment pooling we envision to strengthen a  regenerative local economy where:

• participation becomes more accessible,
• local producers are supported,
• mutual aid is strengthened,
• cultural traditions are preserved,
• ecological regeneration is incentivized,
• and communities become more capable of meeting their own needs collectively

For the budget of this project click here

For an example of what this could look like please explore an example of this system in this article of Will Ruddick

For an experience story about Los Higuerones and Manos Cambiadas click here

For an example of the multiple values that flow during Manos Cambiadas and other impacts that the work of Los Higuerones generates click here

Project Timeline

July

- use social media outlets and in person activites of Higuerones to fundraise for funding round

August - November: rainy season in Costa Rica…no regularly scheduled Manos cambiadas.

-seed ROLA commmitment pool with MaEarth funding

- develop and formalize our ROLA commitment Pool,

-provide capacitación for participating farmers, volunteers and administrators on benefits and logistics of commitment pools through games developed by Grassroots Economics

-schedule upcoming season of Manos Cambiadas

-reach out to area businesses and volunteer groups to stregnthen program’s volunteer capacity

December - July

-engage in at least 2 Manos Cambiadas per month (# of MC engagements will be determined by amount of money raised and number of participants in the commitment pool).

- use each Manos Cambiadas to account for deposits and withdrawals for the commitment pool.

- intervene with any disparities or anomalies arising from pool accounting.

End of July

-close season of Manos Cambiadas with celebration and review of program’s impact