Engaging Modernity: the political making of indigenous movements in Bolivia and Ecuador, 1900–2008

Abstract

Most analyses of the recent indigenous mobilisations in Bolivia and Ecuador (as well as other Latin American countries) have sharply divided the new indigenous politics from earlier class-based political projects of the left. The emergence and mass-appeal of indigenous movements, in these analyses, are rooted in ethnic and cultural cleavages between indigenous peoples and the rest of Bolivian and Ecuadorean society. This article argues that a political interpretation of indigenous movements in these countries gives a more coherent explanation for their historical trajectories as well as their present situation, in particular their high degree of articulation with other popular political actors. Its historical section describes the emergence of indigenous movements in Bolivia and Ecuador as part of an engagement with modernity that began in the first half of the twentieth century as part of the cross-ethnic projects of unions and radical parties of the traditional left and put indigenous communities into positive relationships to the modernizing Bolivian and Ecuadorean states.

Notes

I would like to thank Eric Hershberg for invaluable discussion, feedback and guidance at every stage of the writing of this essay. Max A Cameron and an anonymous reviewer also commented on an earlier draft of the paper; I am grateful for their insightful and challenging criticisms and suggestions.

1 X Albó, Pueblos Indios en la Política, La Paz: CIPCA, 2002, p 60.

2 Quispe has, in fact, at times expressed a desire to create an independent, racially defined Aymara state, and at one point in 2004 extended an invitation to rebellious Aymaras in Peru to join their Bolivian brethren in a new Aymara nation. It is presumably because he knows that such a project would find scant support among his constituents that he has not made it a permanent part of his political discourse. See JA Lucero, ‘Barricades and articulations: comparing Ecuadorian and Bolivian indigenous politics’, in A Kim Clark & M Becker (eds), Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecuador, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007, pp 220–221.

3 See, for example, N Grey Postero, ‘Articulations and fragmentations: indigenous politics in Bolivia’, in N Grey Postero & L Zamosc (eds), The Struggle for Indigenous Rights in Latin America, Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2004; Grey Postero & L Zamosc, ‘Indigenous movements and the Indian question in Latin America’, in Grey Postero & Zamosc (eds), The Struggle for Indigenous Rights in Latin America; F Hylton & S Thomson, Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics, New York: Verso, 2007; DL Van Cott, The Friendly Liquidation of the Past: The Politics of Diversity in Latin America, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000; Van Cott, From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Politics of Ethnic Diversity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; D Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; and L Zamosc, ‘The Indian movement in Ecuador: from politics of influence to politics of power’, in Grey Postero & Zamosc, The Struggle for Indigenous Rights in Latin America.

4 H Arendt, On Revolution, New York: Viking Press, 1963, p 54.

5 T Asad, ‘Conscripts of Western civilization’, in CW Gailey (ed), Dialectical Anthropology: Essays in Honor of Stanley Diamond, Vol 1, Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 1992; and D Scott, Conscripts of Modernity: The Tragedy of Colonial Enlightenment, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.

6 Asad, ‘Conscripts of Western civilization’, p 335.

7 Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, pp 34, 283.

8 Van Cott, From Movements to Parties in Latin America, p 2.

9 Van Cott, The Friendly Liquidation of the Past, pp 24–25.

10 Ibid, p 8; and Van Cott, From Movements to Parties in Latin America, p 228. See also Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, ch 7.

11 Hylton & Thompson, Revolutionary Horizons; C Conaghan, ‘Ecuador: Correa's plebiscitary presidency’, Journal of Democracy, 19 (2), 2008, p 57; and T Korovkin, ‘The indigenous movement and left-wing politics in Ecuador’, paper presented at the left-turns conference in Vancouver, organised by Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia, Spring 2007, p 1.

12 Grey Postero & Zamosc, ‘Indigenous movements and the Indian question in Latin America’, pp 12, 24.

13 Grey Postero, ‘Articulations and fragmentations’, pp 204–206; and Zamosc, ‘The Indian movement in Ecuador’, pp 132, 143–144.

14 X Albó, ‘From MNRistas to Kataristas to Katari’, in Steve Stern (ed), Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18^th to 20^th Centuries, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987; Albó, Pueblos Indios en la Política; B Gustafson, ‘Paradoxes of liberal indigenism: indigenous movements, state processes, and intercultural reform in Bolivia’, in D Maybury-Lewis (ed), The Politics of Ethnicity: Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002; Korovkin, ‘The indigenous movement and left-wing politics in Ecuador’; Th Macdonald, Jr, ‘Ecuador's Indian movement: pawn in a short game or agent in state reconfiguration?’, in Maybury-Lewis, The Politics of Ethnicity; and G Grandin, The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004, p 4.

15 Albó, Pueblos Indios en la Política, p 20. Few people would share Albó's uncritical interpretation of gender relations in Aymara communities.

16 Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, p 57.

17 Albó, Pueblos Indios en la Política, pp 180–181; B Larson, ‘Capturing Indian bodies, hearths and minds: “el hogar campesino” and rural school reform in Bolivia, 1920s–1940s’, in MS Grindle & P Domingo (eds), Proclaiming Revolution: Bolivia in Comparative Perspective, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003; J Dandler & JA Torrico, ‘From the National Indigenous Congress to the Ayopaya Rebellion: Bolivia, 1945–1947’, in Stern, Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World; L Gotkowitz, ‘Revisiting the rural roots of the revolution’, in Grindle & Domingo, Proclaiming Revolution; and M Becker, ‘State building and ethnic discourse in Ecuador's 1944–1945 Asamblea Constituyente’, in Clark & Becker, Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecuador.

18 P Drake & E Hershberg, ‘The crisis of state–society relations in the post-1980s Andes’, in Drake & Hershberg (eds), State and Society in Conflict: Comparative Perspectives on Andean Crises, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006, p 5.

19 Albó, ‘From MNRistas to Kataristas’, p 382; A Isaacs, Military Rule and Transition in Ecuador, 1972–92, London: Macmillan Press, 1993, pp 13–16; Larson, ‘Capturing Indian bodies, hearths, and minds’, p 203; and A Pallares, ‘Contesting membership: citizenship, pluriculturalism(s), and the contemporary indigenous movement’, in Clark & Becker, Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecuador, p 142.

20 Gotkowitz, ‘Revisiting the rural roots of the revolution’, p 166.

21 Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, pp 54, 60.

22 Ibid, pp 64–65.

23 Grey Postero & Zamosc, ‘Indigenous movements and the Indian question in Latin America’, pp 20–25; and Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, pp 65–69.

24 A Brysk, ‘Acting globally: Indian rights and international politics in Latin America’, in Donna Lee Van Cott (ed), Indigenous Peoples and Democracy in Latin America, New York: St Martin's Press, 1994, pp 33–38; Lucero, ‘Barricades and articulations’, p 212; and Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, pp 69–71, 130–133, 215–218.

25 Macdonald, ‘Ecuador's Indian movement’, pp 184–187; and Gustafson, ‘Paradoxes of liberal indigenism’.

26 B Arditi, ‘Arguments about the left turn(s) in Latin America: a post-liberal politics?’, paper presented at the left-turns conference in Vancouver, organised by Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia, 2008, pp 14–15.

27 Ibid, p 3.

28 H Klein, Bolivia: The Evolution of a Multi-Ethnic Society, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992, p 210.

29 Larson, ‘Capturing Indian bodies, hearths, and minds’, p 192.

30 Gotkowitz, ‘Revisiting the rural roots of the revolution’; Klein, Bolivia, p 225; and A Knight, ‘The domestic dynamics of the Mexican and Bolivian revolutions compared’, in Grindle & Domingo, Proclaiming Revolution, p 67.

31 Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, pp 161–162.

32 Klein, Bolivia, p 235.

33 Ibid, p 236.

34 Albó, ‘From MNRistas to Kataristas’, pp 39–51; Hylton & Thomson, Revolutionary Horizons, pp 86–9; and Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, pp 167–181.

35 Klein, Bolivia, pp 275–276.

36 Grey Postero, ‘Articulations and fragmentations’, pp 195–196; Hylton & Thomson, Revolutionary Horizons, pp 97–98; and Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, pp 181–187.

37 Gustafson, ‘Paradoxes of liberal indigenism’, p 272; Lucero, ‘Barricades and articulations’, p 228; and Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, p 217.

38 Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, pp 216–218; and Grey Postero, ‘Articulations and fragmentations’, pp 197, 200.

39 C Hale, ‘Does multiculturalism menace? Governance, cultural rights and the politics of identity in Guatemala’, Journal for Latin American Studies, 34 (3), 2002, pp 485–524.

40 Grey Postero, ‘Articulations and fragmentations’, pp 201–204; and Hylton & Thomson, Revolutionary Horizons, pp 99–100.

41 Hylton & Thomson, Revolutionary Horizons, pp 101–102.

42 Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, p 89.

43 M Baud, ‘Liberalism, indigenismo, and social mobilization’, in Clark & Becker, Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecaudor, p 76; A Kim Clark & M Becker, ‘Indigenous peoples and state formation in modern Ecuador’, in Clark & Becker, Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecuador, p 10; and E Ayala Mora, ‘Ecuador since 1930’, in The Cambridge History of Latin America, Vol 8, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp 687–689.

44 Baud, ‘Liberalism, indigenismo and social mobilization’, p 80.

45 Becker, ‘State building and ethnic discourse’.

46 W Waters, ‘Indigenous communities, landlords, and the state: land and labor in highland Ecuador, 1950–1975’, in Clark & Becker, Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecuador, pp 124–127; and Mora, ‘Ecuador since 1930’, pp 706–707.

47 Isaacs, Military Rule and Transition in Ecuador; and Waters, ‘Indigenous communities, landlords and the state’, pp 126–127.

48 Waters, ‘Indigenous communities, landlords and the state’, pp 132, 136.

49 Ibid, pp 133, 137.

50 Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, pp 95–97.

51 Korovkin, ‘The indigenous movement and left-wing politics in Ecuador’, p 2; and Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, pp 99–102, 106–109.

52 Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, p 134.

53 Korovkin, ‘The indigenous movement and left-wing politics in Ecuador’, pp 3–4; Lucero, ‘Barricades and articulations’, pp 211–212; Macdonald, ‘Ecuador's Indian movement’, pp 176–178; and Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America, pp 109–151.

54 Zamosc, ‘The Indian movement in Ecuador’, pp 142–143.

55 Macdonald, ‘Ecuador's Indian movement’, pp 181–184; and Zamosc, ‘The Indian movement in Ecuador’.

56 Macdonald, ‘Ecuador's Indian movement’, p 185.

57 Ibid, pp 187–188; and Zamosc, ‘The Indian movement in Ecuador’.

58 Korovkin, ‘The indigenous movement and left-wing politics in Ecuador’, p 1.

59 A Guillermoprieto, ‘A new Bolivia?’, New York Review of Books, 10 August 2006, p 38.