The Indigenous State: Race, Politics, and Performance in Plurinational Bolivia

by Nancy Postero

Overview

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more.

In 2005, Bolivians elected their first indigenous president, Evo Morales. Ushering in a new “democratic cultural revolution,” Morales promised to overturn neoliberalism and inaugurate a new decolonized society. In this perceptive new book, Nancy Postero examines the successes and failures that have followed in the ten years since Morales’s election. While the Morales government has made many changes that have benefited Bolivia’s majority indigenous population, it has also consolidated power and reinforced extractivist development models. In the process, indigeneity has been transformed from a site of emancipatory politics to a site of liberal nation-state building. By carefully tracing the political origins and practices of decolonization among activists, government administrators, and ordinary citizens, Postero makes an important contribution to our understanding of the meaning and impact of Bolivia’s indigenous state.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520294035
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	05/05/2017
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	242
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Nancy Postero is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. She is the author of Now We Are Citizens: Indigenous Politics in Post-Multicultural Bolivia.

Table of Contents

List of Figures vi

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction: The "Cultural Democratic Revolution" of Evo Morales 1

Part 1 Refounding the State

1 The Emergence of Indigenous Nationalism in Bolivia: Social Movements and the MAS State 25

2 The Constituent Assembly: Challenges to Liberalism 41

3 Wedding the Nation: Spectacle and Political Performance 64

Part 2 Development and Decolonization

4 Living Well? The Battle for National Development 91

5 Race and Racism in the New Bolivia 116

6 From Indigeneity to Economic Liberation 137

7 Charagua's Struggle for Indigenous Autonomy 158

Conclusion: Between Politics and Policing 178

Notes 189

Credits for Previously Published Materials 194

References 195

Index 219