This text investigates a development project which introduced field agriculture into contemporary rural communities in the Lake Titicaca Basin of Bolivia. The project was an example of applied archaeology, based on excavations of the pre-Hispanic fields, whose remains are found throughout the lake basin. Despite considerable enthusiasm for the rehabilitation project from researchers and NGO workers, the reconstructed fields were eventually abandoned. By exploring the symbolic and cultural aspects of the project, this book examines how academics and NGO workers represented raised fields as sustainable development, indigenous knowledge and appropriate technology.