Empirical research into social vulnerability - and into strategies that allow people to persist or secure their existence - has most often concerned itself with peripheral, poorly-developed regions with a long history of shortages; frequently even ones in which a failure to solve socio-political problems over decades or even centuries, manifests itself in a permanent crisis. One such region is north-western Peru, presented in this article by the authors who have proceeded on the assumption that the socioeconomic development of the country's mountainous areas (including Frías, the district selected for study) not only reflects a peripheral location as regards central areas of Peru and the department of Piura, but is also an outcome of the workings of political and environmental factors that do not help sustain (or in many cases even obstruct) processes of development.