Unfolding the Crease in Liberal Republican Citizenship: An Introduction to the Post-colonial Critique of Andres Guerrero (in Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 63) (original) (raw)
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Feminists Law, 2012
The legal or constitutional normative changes are coming to be tools, not the solution. Nina Pacari (2011) As a historical indigenous woman leader, attorney, and now Magistrate in Ecuador's Constitutional Court, Nina Pacari speaks to the lessons learned, and to both the limitations and possibilities of constitutional transformation. In this sense, Breny Mendoza is correct in arguing: "social justice cannot de decreed." Yet for those of us involved in Latin America in the present processes of sociopolitical transformation, the role of State, constitutions and law in helping to push social justice and build a radically distinct society cannot be denied. Still, they are certainly not enough. Moreover, as monocultural and westernized institutions historically conceived with relation to dominant interests, states, constitutions, and laws are always riddled with limitations and contradictions, even when reconceived in the realm of the "Left turn", decolonial struggles, and progressive politics. The problem then, as we are learning in Ecuador and Bolivia, is midway between Breny's cautions of not expecting too much from constitutions, law, and State, including their capacity for structural change and for "decouple(ing) from the logic of neoliberal capitalism,", and the hope, installed in the Constituent Assemblies and the Constitutions themselves. Such hope alludes to the possibility of transgressing and dismantling the coloniality of power and initiating an intercultural and plurinational social project. However, it does not assume or portend that decolonization can or should be written into law.
El Pueblo and Its Problems: Democracy of, by, and for Whom?
In response to those calling for philosophical dialogue across the Americas, this paper considers the historical emergence of the concept of el pueblo (“the people”) as the subject and object of democracy. The first section makes a linguistic claim: the genuinely communal nature of “the people” clearly appears when considering el pueblo because it is unambiguously singular, grammatically speaking. The second section makes a historical claim: the microhistory of a largely indigenous pueblo in Mexico’s Yucatán enables us to begin unpacking the complex concrete, historical, and genealogical dimensions of el pueblo. The brief concluding section suggests that historically contextualizing and concretizing el pueblo provides conceptual support for some of the premises that underwrite Latin American philosophies of liberation, including that of Enrique Dussel.
Demanding Change: The Collective Challenges of the Juntas Vecinales of El Alto
The Juntas Vecinales of El Alto portray a telling picture of the current process of societal change in Bolivia. Formed to attend the collective needs of indigenous migrants striving to settle down on the outskirts of the capital, the Juntas Vecinales have grown as an intrinsic part of El Alto becoming significant socio-political actors and part of the indigenous social movements propelling the process of change in Bolivia. Their traditional function of supervising public policy by ressuring service providers to attend their demands is commonly known as the practice of social control. A function that was institutionalized in the nineties with neoliberal inspired citizenship reforms of decentralization. The dynamic relation between the informal and formal branches of social control is particularly evident in El Alto as the Federation of Juntas Vecinales and the legal supervising institution called the Vigilance Committee hold each branch. This paper presents a case study on the formal and informal actions and activities that define the current role of the Juntas Vecinales in relevance to their history and to the political and social context of Bolivia today. My main finding presents an unanimous rejection of the formal branch of social control and the predominance of traditional methods of pressure actions as the only means of attending rassroots demands.
Este volumen se plantea el necesario reto de reflexionar sobre la vigencia de la utopía cardenista. No se detiene nostálgicamente en el legado, precisamente porque los autores creen que lo ocurrido en México durante 1934-1940 sacudió de tal forma al estado posrevolucionario mientras –con la bandera de un nacionalismo agrario y obrero– volvía política pública la Constitución de 1917, que valía la pena revisitarlo. Desde las representaciones de lo nacional hasta el credo implícito: primero el suelo, luego el subsuelo, los autores aquí congregados no se limitan a estudiar aspectos particulares –el concepto de expropiación y deuda, las normales rurales, el periodo como gobernador de Michoacán, el cine y la literatura, o las consecuencias políticas de un neocardenismo–. Al contrario, aquí se busca una nueva invitación al debate sobre un periodo de la historia que, aunque el neoliberalismo busca sepultar, continúa vivo y es más que nunca necesario. Entre otras cosas, porque fue el último momento en la historia mexicana en que mantener un estado de derecho y vivir de acuerdo a las leyes de la constitución eran centrales al propio proyecto nacional; el último momento en que hubo un pacto tácito entre el gobierno y los ciudadanos.