Bolivia’s Contentious Politics of ‘Normas y Procedimientos Propios’

Abstract

Bolivia’s Constitution recognizes the right of indigenous peoples to govern themselves in accordance with their own ‘norms and procedures.’ This article examines the conflicts over the interpretation of local history, culture, and identity that have emerged within indigenous municipalities engaged in the autonomy process as they seek to define their ‘norms and procedures’ and to translate them into the design of institutions of self-governance. The central argument of the article is that the process of defining norms and procedures has opened deep and in some cases possibly irreconcilable conflicts within indigenous municipalities. Based on research conducted since 2009 in five indigenous municipalities, the article draws particular attention to the ways in which indigenous leaders mobilize different understandings of history and seek to construct and project historically based identities in efforts to generate legitimacy for competing visions of what contemporary institutions of self-governance should look like. In the context of local struggles over access to state resources, the definition of indigenous ‘norms and procedures’ – and the process of indigenous autonomy itself – has become much more contentious than many indigenous peoples or outside observers had ever expected.

Keywords:

• Indigenous autonomy
• Bolivia
• essentialism
• construction of tradition

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and International Development Research Centre for financial support for the research on which this article is based. The author also wishes to thank Nancy Postero and three anonymous reviewers for suggestions on a previous draft. A previous version of this paper was presented at the Interdisciplinary Seminar on Class and Ethnicity in the Andes at the Institute for the Study of the Americas, London, UK, 27 February 2012, organized by Thomas Grisaffi.

Notes

[1] Many of these problems are explicitly recognized in a recent publication by the Ministry of Autonomy, albeit in summary form only (2012, 27–30).

[2] Quantitative analysis of 2001 census data indicates that indigenous people represent more than 80 per cent of the population in 173 out of 337 municipalities (51 per cent) (Colque 2009, 48).

[3] For critical analysis of the LPP, see Medieros (2001), Postero (2007), Cameron (2009).

[4] The requirements for a ‘certificado de ancestralidad’ are listed in Supreme Decree No. 231, announced by President Morales on 2 August 2009 at the public event in Camiri that officially launched indigenous autonomy in Bolivia.

[5] I thank anthropologist Jonathan Alderman for sharing these observations on Charazani.

[6] For example, an internal survey conducted by Fundación Tierra in 2011 found that 80 per cent of 569 interviewees in the Departments of Chuquisaca, Potosí and Santa Cruz had no knowledge of indigenous autonomy.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

John D. Cameron

John D. Cameron is at the Department of International Development Studies, Room 339, Henry Hicks Building, Dalhousie University, Halifax, N.S., B3H 4H6, Canada (Email: [email protected]