Image 1 – A young man navigates his motor boat between the islands of Llingua and Quinchao in Chiloé. For decades, many islanders relied on small-scale fishing (carried out on motor boats like this one) to supplement farming, shellfish-gathering, and the tending of livestock. The arrival of large-scale aquaculture companies in the 1990s and early 2000s triggered a shift to wage labor, pulling some islanders away from more traditional rural livelihoods and, by extension, their networks of labor reciprocity. Islands like Llingua and Quinchao—whose populations were mostly or entirely rural—were hit especially hard by the changes. While families with motorboats were able to sustain small-scale fishing ventures and fulfill agricultural labor-debts with neighbors, other families were drawn to low-wage jobs and a cash economy that often divorced them of their rural livelihoods and ultimately placed them in more tenuous economic circumstances. (Photo by Anton Daughters)