Sálvese Quien Pueda : Emergencies and In(ter)Dependencies among Micro-Entrepreneurs in Neoliberal Andean Peru

Informal micro-entrepreneurs in Cusco, Peru, were heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the following political and economic crises. This article shows how families making a living from ‘independent’ businesses navigate the necrocapitalist dynamics of contemporary neoliberalism. Discussing what it means to be ‘independent’ in a context of precarity, inadequate public health care and racialised inequalities, I argue that entrepreneurship in Cusco is not an individualistic affair, but inherently interdependent in the sense that business practices are dependent upon inter-relational webs of mutual dependencies and gendered practices of collective care and more-than-human reciprocity. By discussing the creative and relational more-than-economic practices through which people respond, resist, and reimagine life, the article shows how neoliberalism in Cusco is actively being reconfigured. Finally, I suggest that everyday practices of collective and more-than-human care are a form of worlding with ethical and political implications.