Ethnic rights and the dilemma of extractive development in plurinational Bolivia

Abstract

The Bolivian constitution of 2009 has been classified as one of the most progressive in the world regarding indigenous rights. The indigenous principles of Suma Qamaña/Vivir Bien/Good Living on the harmonious relationship between humans and nature are established in the constitution. Nonetheless, these rights clash with the constitutionally recognised rights of the nation state to extract and commercialise natural resources (mainly hydrocarbons and mining) under the banner of redistributive justice, welfare reforms and the common good, in this study labelled the dilemma of extractive development. The article is based on ethnographic fieldwork and combines a political economy perspective on the extractive dilemma, while similarly examining the tensions between ethnically defined rights in relation to broader human rights in terms of values and norms related to welfare and conditions of living. The ethnic identity is multifaceted in Bolivia. Large segments of the indigenous population prefer to identify in class terms. The class-ethnicity tensions have altered throughout history, according to changing socio-economic, cultural and political settings. A central argument is that, during Evo Morales' presidency, class-based human rights in practice tend to be superior to the ethnically defined rights, as a reflection of the dilemma of extractive development.

Keywords:

• Bolivia
• constitutionalism
• ethnic rights
• extractivism
• identity politics
• indigeneity
• indigenous peoples
• resource governance
• social rights

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to express gratitude to all colleagues and informants in Bolivia during fieldwork, particularly Elizabeth Huanca, Oscar Vega, Fernando Galindo and Xavier Albó, also the anonymous peer-reviewer of the journal and René Kuppe for inspiring comments.

Note on contributor

Rickard Lalander is Associate Professor of and holds a PhD in Latin American studies from the University of Helsinki. Currently he works as a researcher and teacher in the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University and the Department of Political and Economic Studies at the University of Helsinki. He has published broadly on democracy, identity politics, social movements and environmental issues in the Andean countries and is author of the books Suicide of the Elephants? Venezuelan Decentralization between Partyarchy and Chavismo (2004) and Retorno de los Runakuna. Cotacachi y Otavalo (2010), and editor and co-author of Venezuelan Politics and Society in Times of Chavismo (2006).

ORCID

Rickard Lalander http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2581-2588

Notes

1. Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, Constitución Política del Estado (La Paz: Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, 2009), Preamble.

2. The constitutional reform of Bolivia was strongly influenced by the 1989 ILO (International Labor Organization) Convention 169 on the rights of the indigenous peoples and further inspired by the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007).

3. Henry Veltmeyer, ‘Bolivia: Between Voluntarist Developmentalism and Pragmatic Extractivism’, in The New Extractivism. A Post-Neoliberal Development Model or Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century? Henry Veltmeyer and James Petras, eds (London and New York: Zed Books, 2014), 80–113, quote at 83.

4. See, for instance, Arturo Escobar, ‘Latin America at a Crossroads. Alternative Modernizations, or Post-Development?’ Cultural Studies 24, no. 1 (2010): 1–65; Kepa Artaraz, Bolivia. Refounding the Nation (London: Pluto Press, 2012).

5. Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, Constitución Política del Estado.

6. Nancy G. Postero, Now We Are Citizens. Indigenous Politics in Postmulticultural Bolivia (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007); John-Andrew McNeish, ‘Extraction, Protest and Indigeneity in Bolivia: The TIPNIS Effect’, Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 8, no. 2 (2013) 221–42; Lorenza Belinda Fontana, ‘Indigenous Peoples vs Peasant Unions: Land Conflicts and Rural Movements in Plurinational Bolivia’, The Journal of Peasant Studies 41, no. 3 (2014): 297–319.

7. Rickard Lalander, ‘Rights of Nature and the Indigenous Peoples in Bolivia and Ecuador: A Straitjacket for Progressive Development Politics?’ Iberoamerican Journal of Development Studies 3, no. 2 (2014): 148–72.

8. Irène Belliera and Martin Préaud, ‘Emerging Issues in Indigenous Rights: Transformative Effects of the Recognition of Indigenous Peoples', International Journal of Human Rights 16, no. 3 (2012): 474–88.

9. Markus Kröger and Rickard Lalander, ‘Ethno-Territorial Rights and the Resource Extraction Boom in Latin America: Do Constitutions Matter?’ Third World Quarterly 37, no. 4 (2016): 682–702.

10. Marc Becker, ‘Indigenismo and Indian Movements in Twentieth-Century Ecuador’ (paper presented at the Congress of LASA (Latin American Studies Association), Washington, 1995).

11. George Gray Molina, ‘Ethnic Politics in Bolivia: “Harmony of Inequalities” 1900–2000’ (Working paper, Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity/CRISE, University of Oxford, 2007).

12. Ibid., 6.

13. Leonel Cerruto, Interview, El Alto, 23 November 2015.

14. Xavier Albó, Movimientos y poder indígena en Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú (La Paz: CIPCA, 2009), 36.

15. Pedro Portugal Mollinedo, Internet Interview, 10 February 2016.

16. Deborah Yashar, Contesting Citizenship in Latin America. The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 168–9.

17. Albó, Movimientos y poder indígena, 36–40; Yashar, Contesting Citizenship.

18. Almut Schilling-Vacaflor, ‘Prior Consultations in Plurinational Bolivia: Democracy, Rights and Real Life Experiences', Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 8, no. 2 (2013): 202–20, quote at 207.

19. For instance: Albó, Movimientos y poder indígena, 43–67.

20. See, for instance, Fernando Luis García Yapur, Luis Alberto García Orellana, and Marizol Soliz Romero, ‘MAS legalmente, IPSP legítimamente’. Ciudadanía y devenir Estado de los campesinos indígenas en Bolivia (La Paz: PIEB, PNUD, 2014).

21. I choose to use native throughout the text, and not the concepts of ‘first peoples' or ‘aboriginal’ that are sometimes used while translating the Spanish ethnic concept of originarios.

22. See Fontana, ‘Indigenous Peoples vs Peasant Unions', 305–7; García Yapur, García Orellana and Soliz Romero, ‘MAS legalmente, IPSP legítimamente’.

23. For example, García Yapur, García Orellana and Soliz Romero, ‘MAS legalmente, IPSP legítimamente’.

24. Since December 2013, CONAMAQ is divided with one faction supporting the Morales government and the other in opposition. In late 2010 CIDOB divided and presently there are two CIDOBs, one pro-government and the other oppositional.

25. Fontana, ‘Indigenous Peoples vs Peasant Unions', 305–7.

26. Pedro Portugal Mollinedo, Internet Interview, 10 February 2016.

27. Albó, Movimientos y poder indígena, 39.

28. Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia/CSUTCB, Estatuto Orgánico de la CSUTCB, Santa Cruz, 30 July 2010, http://comisionorganica-csutcb.blogspot.se/2012/09/estatuto-organico-de-la-csutcb-aprovado.html

29. Artaraz, Refounding the Nation, 45.

30. Karin Monasterios, Pablo Stefanoni, and Hervé do Alto, Reinventando la nación en Bolivia: movimientos sociales, Estado y poscolonialidad (La Paz: Plural editores, 2007), 28. However, Choquehuanca was not a militant of the historical Indianismo movement. Rather he was formed through non-governmental organisation (NGO) activism.

31. For instance: Eduardo Gudynas, ‘Buen Vivir: Today's Tomorrow’, Development 54, no. 4 (2011): 441–7; Kepa Artaraz and Melania Calestani, ‘Suma Qamaña in Bolivia. Indigenous Understandings of Well-being and Their Contribution to a Post-Neoliberal Paradigm’, Latin American Perspectives 42, no. 5 (2015): 216–33; Rickard Lalander, ‘Entre el ecocentrismo y el pragmatismo ambiental: Consideraciones inductivas sobre desarrollo, extractivismo y los derechos de la naturaleza en Bolivia y Ecuador’, Revista Chilena de Derecho y Ciencia Política 6, no. 1 (2015): 109–52.

32. Catherine Walsh, ‘The Plurinational and Intercultural State: Decolonization and State Re-Founding in Ecuador’, Kult 6 (2009): 65–84.

33. Schilling-Vacaflor, ‘Prior Consultations in Plurinational Bolivia’.

34. Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, Constitución Política del Estado, Chapter VII; Andrew Canessa, ‘Conflict, Claim and Contradiction’, Critique of Anthropology 34, no. 2 (2014): 153–73, quote at 167.

35. Eduardo Gudynas, Extractivismos. Ecología, economía y política de un modo de entender el desarrollo y la Naturaleza (Cochabamba: CLAES and CEDIB, 2015); Lalander, ‘Entre el ecocentrismo y el pragmatismo ambiental’.

36. Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, Ley Marco de la Madre Tierra y Desarrollo Integral para Vivir Bien (La Paz: Asamblea Legislativa del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, 2012).

37. Lalander, ‘Entre el ecocentrismo y el pragmatismo ambiental’, 126–7.

38. Nicole Fabricant, ‘Good Living for Whom? Bolivia's Climate Justice Movement and the Limitations of Indigenous Cosmovisions', Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 8, no. 2 (2013): 160.

39. Shepard Krech Ill, The Ecological Indian: Myth and History (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1999).

40. Astrid Ulloa, The Ecological Native. Indigenous Peoples Movements and Eco-Governmentality in Colombia (New York: Routledge, 2005).

41. Edwin Armata Balcazar and Walter Limache Orellana, Group Interview, La Paz, 18 December 2015.

42. Álvaro García Linera, Geopolítica de la Amazonía. Poder hacendal-patrimonial y acumulación capitalista (La Paz, Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, 2012), 58–65.

43. See for instance: Fundación Tierra, Marcha indígena por el TIPNIS; McNeish, ‘Extraction, Protest and Indigeneity’. The 2011 march was neither the first nor the last march in defence of TIPNIS. In 2012 a similar manifestation was realised, but did not succeed in attracting the participation and media coverage of the 2011 march.

44. Ibid. Quotation in Spanish originally published in Fundación Tierra, Marcha indígena por el TIPNIS. La lucha en defensa de los territorios, Comunicaciones (La Paz: El País S.A. 2012), 56.

45. Página Siete, ‘El Vicepresidente descarta carretera por el TIPNIS', 4 January 2014, http://www.paginasiete.bo/nacional/2014/1/4/vicepresidente-descarta-carretera-tipnis-10441.html; Álvaro García Linera, Los desafíos del proceso de cambio en Bolivia (Conference at the Centro Cultural de Cooperación Floreal Gorini, Buenos Aires, 27 June 2013), http://www.centrocultural.coop/videos/la-patria-grande-alvaro-garcia-linera--1-.html

46. Página Siete, ‘Bolivia se sumó a la corriente de explotar áreas protegidas', 24 June 2015, http://www.paginasiete.bo/nacional/2015/6/24/bolivia-sumo-corriente-explotar-areas-protegidas-60974.html

47. Evo Morales Ayma, Decreto Supremo No 2366, Presidential Decree, Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, La Paz, 2015.

48. El Día, ‘Gobierno busca anular la “intangibilidad” del Tipnis', 28 June 2015, http://eldia.com.bo/index.php?cat=1&pla=3&id_articulo=174956

49. David Hill, ‘Bolivia Opens Up National Parks to Oil and Gas Firms', The Guardian, 5 June 2015,

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/andes-to-the-amazon/2015/jun/05/bolivia-national-parks-oil-gas

50. Observatorio de Industrias Extractivas y Derechos Colectivos/OIEDC, ‘Evo: En la consulta previa se pierde mucho tiempo’, 13 July 2015, http://oiedc.blogspot.se/2015/07/evo-en-la-consulta-previa-se-pierde.html

51. Página Siete, ‘Indígenas de 50 pueblos dieron aval para tareas de exploración’, 3 October 2015, http://www.la-razon.com/economia/Gobierno-indigenas-pueblos-dieron-aval-tareas-exploracion_0_2355964414.html

52. René Orellana Halkyer, Interview, La Paz, 31 January 2014. Orellana holds a PhD in sociology and was earlier the main spokesperson of Bolivia in climate summits. He was also co-author of the Law of Mother Earth.

53. Evo Morales Ayma, Discurso presidencial 639 (Ministerio de Comunicación, Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, La Paz, 7 August 2015, http://www.comunicacion.gob.bo/sites/default/files/media/discursos/Discurso%20Presidencial%2007-08-15.pdf

54. Rebecca Hollender, ‘Capitalizing on Public Discourse in Bolivia – Evo Morales and Twenty-first Century Capitalism’, Consilience: The Journal of Sustainable Development 15, no. 1 (2016): 50–76.

55. Schilling-Vacaflor, ‘Prior Consultations in Plurinational Bolivia’, 207.

56. Canessa, ‘Conflict, Claim and Contradiction’.

57. McNeish, ‘Extraction, Protest and Indigeneity’; Fabricant, ‘Good Living for Whom?’.

58. Interview, Rurrenabaque, 16 November 2015.

59. Cerruto, Interview, El Alto, 23 November 2015.

60. Damian Condori, Interview, Sucre, 10 January 2011.

61. Anders Burman, ‘“Now We Are Indígenas”: Hegemony and Indigeneity in the Bolivian Andes', Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies 9, no. 3 (2014): 247–71.

62. Author's analysis of public discourses and observations during fieldwork (2010–2015). See also: Nancy Postero, ‘Protecting Mother Earth in Bolivia: Discourse and Deeds in the Morales Administration’, in Amazonía. Environment and the Law in Amazonia: A Plurilateral Encounter, James M. Cooper and Christine Hunefeldt, eds (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2013), 78–93; Fabricant, ‘Good Living for Whom?’

63. Jorge Viaña Uzieda, Interview, La Paz, 20 January 2014.

64. Lalander, ‘Entre el ecocentrismo y el pragmatismo ambiental’.

65. McNeish, ‘Extraction, Protest and Indegeneity’, 238.

66. Author's observation and interviews, November–December 2015.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas [grant award 2012–1828] as part of the project ‘Rights of Nature – Nature of Rights: Neo-constitutionalism and Ethno-ecologist Resistance in Bolivia and Ecuador’ for the period 2013–2016.