The Santa Cruz Autonomía Movement in Bolivia: A Case of Non-Indigenous Ethnic Popular Mobilization? (original) (raw)
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In Bolivia, the well‐known indigenous mobilizations of the last decade have given rise to the mobilization of a regional opposition, particularly in the south-eastern department of Santa Cruz. The regionalist autonomy movement not only opposes the nationalization of the country’s natural resources – of which the largest share is located in the south‐east – but also indigenous autonomy for fear of a de-facto discrimination of non‐indigenous Bolivians. In its discourse, the movement draws on the construction of regional identities that are increasingly contrasted with indigeneity and implicitly, or even explicitly, racist. This paper examines this lesser‐known movement and its construction and reconstruction of the Cruceño identity category in Santa Cruz over time. Following a short overview of the economic, political, and demographic situation in Santa Cruz, this paper covers the construction of identity categories from Santa Cruz’ colonization in the sixteenth century until the end of the twentieth century. It then presents and analyzes the events and discourses of the protest cycle between 2000 and 2005 from the perspective of Santa Cruz and examines the departmental elites’ struggle against the new constitution and the discourses and actions filed in support. The conclusion discusses the developments, focusing particularly on the contestation of identity categories and their relation to the Bolivian nation as a whole.
This article examines recent changing dynamics of indigeneity in Bolivia. It argues that despite competing definitions of the indigenous on the basis of attributes as diverse as skin color or vocation, the category is invested with meaning and used as a basis for collective action. Yet, debates surrounding the constitution of 2009 show that clearly defined attributes are necessary for such action to have a lasting effect. Overall, the mobilization has not led to the manifestation of ethnic categories, as observed elsewhere, but to increased contestation. The case suggests a fruitful analytical distinction between attributes, meaning, and action in ethnic dynamics.
'We are all originarios': Political Conflict and Identity in Contemporary Bolivia
PhD Thesis, University of Sussex, 2019
This thesis examines a local political conflict in contemporary Bolivia. Within the Quechua-speaking highland indigenous community of Bolívar province there exist multiple overlapping forms of political authority, including the municipal government, peasant union and the ayllu authorities who claim to pre-date the Spanish conquest. Ironically, the national project of the governing ‘Movement Towards Socialism’ (MAS) party to reform the Bolivian state and provide inclusion to the country’s ‘indigenous majority’ has coincided with an intensification of conflict between them. While examining the substantive content of their disagreements, this thesis also explores how legal and institutional changes which purport to advance the decolonisation of Bolivian society have served to further conflict among local leaders.
The Indigenous in the Plural in Bolivian Oppositional Politics
Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2005
This article examines how currents of Bolivia's indigenous movement are gravitating to the city and to the centre of national political life, capitalising on popular sentiment against the political status quo, economic privatisation and violations of national sovereignty. The Movement Toward Socialism led by Evo Morales does not promote a separatist ethno-national project; instead, it uses regional, national and international coalition building to equate indigenous with nonindigenous issues through resonant political analogies that frame Bolivia's national crisis of political legitimacy in terms of indigenous rights, while making common cause with diverse urban popular sectors who, if not indigenous, recognise their indigenous cultural heritage as a crucial background to their own struggles against disenfranchisement.
Revolutions in Bolivia. Papers from the conference in March 2018 arranged by the Anglo-Bolivian Society and the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, 2019
In December 2009, Charazani was one of eleven municipalities in Bolivia to vote in local referendums to begin a process of becoming in an indigenous autonomy or Autonomía Indígena Originario Campesina (AIOC). My research studied how the autonomy project arose in Charazani, and why it has still not come to fruition. Charazani’s autonomy project was derailed by conflicts between the local branches of the highland indigenous peoples’ federation, CONAMAQ, and the peasant union, the CSUTCB (Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia). I examine the conflict as between different ideals of nationalism and autonomy. The first vision, embodied by CONAMAQ (Consejo Nacional de Ayllus y Markas del Qullasuyu), is the nationalism of the plurinational constitution, which disconnects the nation from the state, and conflates it with ethnicity. The second vision, of the peasant union, inherited from the National Revolution, is a nationalism of the Bolivian state, defining autonomy as the autonomy of the Bolivian state from foreign interference. Through Charazani’s autonomy project I discuss how class, ethnicity and different visions of autonomy and the nation clash within the plurinational state.
Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, 2020
While Bolivia grabbed global attention at the turn of the new millennium for militant indigenous mobilizations, the second decade of the 21st century witnessed the deepening of conflicts between different indigenous sectors. In addition to provoking heated debates on what it means to be indigenous, this has raised questions on the utility of the concept of indigeneity as it has been understood thus far to analyze the new political dynamics. In response to these processes and the analytical challenges they present, this article maps out the existing currents in Bolivian indigenous politics, their mutual disagreements, the meanings they give to indigeneity, and their impact on the politics of the Morales government and its critics. It argues that there are two distinct indigenous visions with different political agendas and priorities: a ‘revivalist’ current that focuses on the restoration of ancestral cosmovisions and represents the dominant canon, and an ‘expansionist’ current that prioritizes the struggle against structural racism and gives expression to a new tendency in Latin American indigenous politics. The article is based on nearly two years of ethnographic research in the city of El Alto.
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 2014
Over the last two decades Latin America has been a laboratory for the implementation of new models of state and citizenship. In Bolivia the (neo)liberal multicultural paradigm dominant in the 1990s has recently been replaced by a plurinational paradigm, which implies a deepening of the decentralization process and the strengthening of rights for traditionally marginalized social sectors. This paper describes the process of construction of a plurinational ‘imagined community’ and, in particular, of one of its core narratives: The ‘indigenous native peasant’. I argue that the negotiation of this collective identity and its inclusion as one of the core ideas in the new constitution is the result of a contingent strategy in response to a highly conflictive scenario, which has not been, however, able to trigger a change in the way people identify themselves. Yet in recent years, social movements’ identities have been shaped by centrifugal forces. These forces should be understood as the ...
Migrants' voices: Negotiating autonomy in Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Latin American Perspectives, 2010
The regional autonomy movement based in Santa Cruz draws on long-standing regional divisions, and it has solidified amid the breakdown of the elite-led political party system and the national election of Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Toward Socialism—MAS). Critics and national government supporters view regional autonomy as a defensive stance taken by elites against the redistributive policies, expansion of indigenous sovereignty, and widening popular democracy under the MAS. But lowland regional leaders and elites have begun to present autonomy as inclusive and popular in order to broaden support and challenge the Morales government. Largely removed from debates over autonomy are migrants to the rapidly urbanizing city of Santa Cruz who in many cases experience uneven integration into host communities. Despite the autonomists’ efforts at fostering inclusion and popular buy-in, highland migrants’ support for autonomy is weak, while lowland migrants generally favor autonomy and skilled highlanders—more integrated into Santa Cruz—tend to support it conditionally. Migrants of all three groups perceive class disparities within the city to be as salient as regional and ethnic divisions.
Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2014, volume 32, pages 518 – 534
Over the last two decades Latin America has been a laboratory for the implementation of new models of state and citizenship. In Bolivia the (neo)liberal multicultural paradigm dominant in the 1990s has recently been replaced by a plurinational paradigm, which implies a deepening of the decentralisation process and the strengthening of rights for traditionally marginalised social sectors. This paper describes the process of construction of a plurinational ‘imagined community’ and, in particular, of one of its core narratives: the ‘indigenous native peasant’. I argue that the negotiation of this collective identity and its inclusion as one of the core ideas in the new constitution is the result of a contingent strategy in response to a highly conflictive scenario, which has not been, however, able to trigger a change in the way people identify themselves. Yet in recent years, social movements’ identities have been shaped by centrifugal forces. These forces should be understood as the result of a process of collective actors’ adaptation to institutional and regulatory reforms and contribute to explaining the increase of new intrasocietal conflicts linked to the redefinition of citizenship and territorial boundaries.