Bolivia: Indigenous Women, Neo-extractivism and the Continuities of the Process of Change

• In Event: 3183 - Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 07. Economic Practices and Institutions

Abstract

In the last decade, Bolivia has made significant strides against colonial legacy and neoliberalism. Paradoxically, in pursuing economic growth the Bolivian state has re-perpetrated the international division of labor through a new extractivist model of development. Moreover, tensions have emerged between indigenous communities and the self-proclaimed indigenist state due to the state’s rent seeking behavior. Although these paradoxes have received significant attention, one substantial aspect still underexplored and undertheorized is how these tensions have affected the socio-political relations at the intersections of class, race and gender where indigenous women in Bolivia occupy a unique position. A critical analysis of the connections between social reproduction and production and how extractive capitalism relies on and exacerbates racist and patriarchal relations is also absent. Using five integrated and complementary theoretical frameworks, this study analyzes how the coincidental and conflicting economic interests between extractive capital and the Bolivian state leads to accumulation by dispossession that affects Indigenous women in particular ways. This study also explores the relation between a state-sponsored national indigeneity and local indigeneity, particularly when indigeneity intersects with gender. This study poses the following questions: 1. How does neo-extractivism affects the lives of indigenous women? 2. How does the state shape relations between neo-extractivism and indigenous women? 3. How do indigenous women organize to challenge the impact of state-led extractivism on their lives and their communities? To address these questions, this study uses a multi-sited ethnography in two Indigenous peasant communities in Oruro, Bolivia where a great majority of mining projects are located. This research contributes to the existing literature on sociology and development and in the intersecting fields of globalization, ethnic exclusion, gender studies, and indigenous studies.

Author

• Gisela victoria Rodriguez, Portland State University