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Abstract
This article discusses the manifold contributions of Willem Assies to the social sciences and Latin American studies. It focuses on his writings on agrarian and peasant studies, social movements, and indigenous peoples. In particular, he made important contributions to our understanding of multicultural citizenship, the multiethnic state, and plurinational democracy. His writings had a major impact on those working on rural and indigenous peoples' issues, although the Dutch academic establishment largely failed to appreciate his exceptional talents. It is argued in this article that he never wavered from his early recognition of the importance of class in social analysis, while acknowledging its limitations. In his view, one of the central challenges facing the indigenous peoples' social movements was how to link indigenous issues to general national problems. To what extent had they met this challenge? His premature death prevented him from exploring this key issue further, but hopefully other scholars will take up the baton and continue to debate his ideas.
Notes
1The PhD degree was awarded by the University of Utrecht as CEDLA did not have the right to issue PhD degrees. This arrangement was possible as Banck also had a position as full professor at Utrecht University besides being a staff member of CEDLA.
2Assies was repeatedly invited back to the Colegio de Michoacán in Mexico and was offered positions in Chile and elsewhere in Latin America, but was hesitant to leave the Netherlands because of his daughter, who was still a child (Gemma van der Haar, personal communication 18 September 2010).
3This tribute does not pretend to provide a comprehensive analysis of his prolific work, especially given the limited space available and my own limitations for such as task.
4He refers to the Brazilian nuts more appropriately as Amazon nuts as these are grown in the Amazon region of Bolivia, Brazil, and other countries. This project received support from the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO) and the Tropenbos Foundation.
5For a comprehensive critique of market-led agrarian reforms, see Borras (Citation2003).
6This conference attracted around 300 people and well over 100 papers were presented in several workshops and general sessions. It had the financial sponsorship of Inter-Church Organization for Development and Cooperation (ICCO) and other NGOs. It was organized by Saturnino Borras, Jr. together with Cristóbal Kay and Max Spoor as well as several colleagues from the ISS.
7I am grateful to Gemma van der Haar for providing some additional information and clarification on this issue.
8Donna Lee van Cott had a high regard for Assies' work and she invited him to contribute a chapter to the Oxford Handbook on Indigenous Peoples' Politics.
9For a valuable overview of the evolution of land tenure and tenure regimes in rural Mexico in the context of changing power relations and accumulation regimes from colonial times to the present, see Assies (Citation2008).
10In this regard it is worth mentioning that the book Assies edited with Gemma van der Haar and André Hoekema (Assies et al. 2000) on indigenous peoples and reform of the state was a pioneering text. The book was first published in Spanish (Assies et al. 1999) and was highly influential in Mexico as well as throughout Latin America. Assies' (Citation2000b) introduction managed to synthesize the issues at stake in the wake of the constitutional reforms in Latin America and the challenges ahead. ‘The merit of the book, as Assies himself saw it, was that it was the first to chart, through case studies, what were the implications of the constitutional changes and the dilemmas it involved for indigenous peoples and the surrounding societies. In this regard, he was thrilled by what happened in Colombia, where some very noteworthy jurisprudence has been developed on the reach of the indigenous rights now enshrined in the constitution’ (personal communication by van der Haar, 18 September 2010).
11Assies' sympathy for and understanding of street children is possibly rooted in his own experience as a youngster. ‘He was a teenager in Groningen where the ‘spring’ of youth liberation arrived that was so prominent in Paris and Amsterdam in the years around 1968. In Groningen he aligned himself with the Provo movement and got himself into terrible trouble at school, getting kicked out and being placed in care after he ran away from home. Later on he was one of the co-founders of the ‘Politiek Café’ in Groningen. Unlike street children Assies himself was from a privileged background, but throughout his life he has remained sensitive and attracted to the particular energy surrounding upheaval and the struggles from the margins’ (personal communication by Gemma van der Haar, 18 September 2010).
12This paper by Assies (Citation2011) will be published in a forthcoming book edited by Adrian Pearce who kindly made it available to me. He in turn received, upon his request, the paper from Gemma de Haar, Assies' partner, who rescued the latest drafts of it from Willem's computer.
13But Assies' references to Marxism were less common in his later than his earlier writings. For some of his later references to class, see Assies and Salman (Citation2000, 303) and Assies (Citation2005b, 95). While Assies may not have called himself a Marxist he certainly knew his Marx (and in earlier years often quoted from the writings of Rosa Luxemburg) as well as the great classics of the social sciences.
14Willem Assies certainly did not share the ingrained ‘machismo’ so prevalent in Latin America and elsewhere and could collaborate well with women as well as being sensitive to their concerns.