Introduction: Negotiating Indigeneity

Abstract

This special issue of LACES considers the politics of indigeneity in Bolivia. The authors add to the scholarship assessing the complex political positions of indigenous people in Latin America by considering three interrelated ways in which ‘politics’ and ‘indigeneity’ are related. First, they consider the broad power relations in which indigenous actors are immersed, focusing on enduring structures of racism and inequality, governance and state-building, what Ranciére might call ‘policing’. Second, they examine the role of indigenous people as political actors making claims for recognition and inclusion. Such contested forms of citizenship can be thought of in Ranciérian terms as ‘politics’. Finally, they consider how the category of indigeneity is constructed and enacted, and how it produces specific forms of power and knowledge. How is indigenous identity constructed in relation to the past and what narratives of history are useful? What forms of representation are employed and who speaks for indigenous people? The articles demonstrate that at times indigeneity acts as a tool of emancipation and resistance, but at others serves as a tool of governance.

Keywords:

• Indigeneity
• politics
• representation
• citizenship
• Latin America

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nancy Postero

Nancy Postero is at the Department of Anthropology, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0532 (Email: [email protected]).