Working to Do and Working to Be: Adolescent Girls’ Labor and Identity in a Rural Migrant Community in Bolivia

For rural adolescent girls in the Bolivian Andes, adolescence is not a “protected” transitional life stage but a gendered laboring condition. This article explores the lived experiences of adolescent girls in a rural Quechua community in Cochabamba, drawing on the initial phase of a longitudinal Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) project (2023–2024). By integrating Silvia Federici’s theory of social reproduction with Axel Honneth’s recognition theory, the study conceptualizes a “laboring subjectivity” defined by a ch’ixi reality where two dimensions of labor exist in constant, dynamic interaction. The findings reveal these dimensions of labor: “Working to Do,” which encompasses the invisible, naturalized reproductive and agricultural work and unremunerated affective work required to sustain family life as a form of cultural pedagogy; and “Working to Be,” which refers to the subjective labor girls perform to negotiate recognition. Through this structural arrangement, Honneth’s spheres of love, rights, and social esteem are systematically compromised, creating a distinct recognition deficit as girls carry adult responsibilities without structural protection. Ultimately, this article argues that seasonal migration to regions such as El Trópico functions as an existential terrain where girls seek the symbolic and economic recognition denied within the local rural order. By centering adolescent girls as active laboring subjects, the research challenges Western developmental biases in youth studies and offers a nuanced reframing of the nexus between labor, mobility, and identity formation in the Global South.