An End to Indigeneity?: Reconceptualizing the Political Uses of Indigeneity in Bolivia Today

• In Event: Latin American Indigenous Futures

Abstract

Over the two past decades, social scientists have shown how oppressed peoples have successfully organized around the category of indigeneity to gain recognition and rights. Bolivia has been a central site for this research, as indigenous peoples began organizing and mounting public campaigns in the 1990s. This focus intensified since the 2005 election of Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, and the 2009 adoption of a constitution giving indigenous peoples important new rights, including recognition of their languages and customs, self-determination, and territorial autonomy. But at what point does indigeneity cease being a relevant framework for waging or analyzing political struggles?

This paper considers how indigeneity is being reconsidered after nearly a decade of contested indigenous state-making by Evo Morales and his MAS party. There are now signs that this discursive privileging of indigeneity may no longer hold the same power for Bolivians, particularly as local communities and movement activists begin to highlight the contradictions between administration policies and discourses. The most glaring example of this is the TIPNIS case—the proposal to build a massive highway through indigenous communal lands and territories in the Beni region. Many activists have pointed toward the “empty” political uses of “indigeneity” as Morales failed to consult with native peoples before approving the proposal to build the highway and even used state force to repress indigenous organizing. But well before TIPNIS, mass migrations of indigenous peoples from rural to urban regions has shifted “indigeneity” as many natives may be using a more fluid ethnic, class-based identity as point of reference and even as a vehicle for mobilizing for rights and resources. We consider the changing political meanings of indigeneity in this contemporary moment and ask what might be replacing it as a term of reference.

Authors

• Nancy G Postero, University of California/San Diego

• Nicole W Fabricant, Towson University