The �indigenous native peasant� trinity: : imagining a plurinational community in Evo Morales�s Bolivia

• Localización: Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, ISSN-e 1472-3433, Vol. 32, Nº. 3, 2014, págs. 518-534
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • Over the last two decades Latin America has been a laboratory for the implementation of new models of state and citizenship. In Bolivia the (neo)liberal multicultural paradigm dominant in the 1990s has recently been replaced by a plurinational paradigm, which implies a deepening of the decentralization process and the strengthening of rights for traditionally marginalized social sectors. This paper describes the process of construction of a plurinational �imagined community� and, in particular, of one of its core narratives: the �indigenous native peasant�. I argue that the negotiation of this collective identity and its inclusion as one of the core ideas in the new constitution is the result of a contingent strategy in response to a highly conflictive scenario, which has not been, however, able to trigger a change in the way people identify themselves. Yet in recent years, social movements� identities have been shaped by centrifugal forces. These forces should be understood as the result of a process of collective actors� adaptation to institutional and regulatory reforms and contribute to explaining the increase of new intrasocietal conflicts linked to the redefinition of citizenship and territorial boundaries.