The 'indigenous native peasant' trinity: Imagining a plurinational community in Evo Morales's Bolivia

Fontana, L. (2014) The 'indigenous native peasant' trinity: Imagining a plurinational community in Evo Morales's Bolivia. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 32(3), pp. 518-534. (doi: 10.1068/d13030p)

Abstract

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 In Bolivia the (neo)liberal multicultural paradigm dominant in the 1990s has recently been replaced by a plurinational paradigm, which implies a deepening of the decentralization process and the strengthening of rights for traditionally marginalized social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.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Fontana, Dr Lorenza
• Authors: Fontana, L.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences
• Journal Name: Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
• Publisher: Pion
• ISSN: 0263-7758
• ISSN (Online): 1472-3433
• Published Online: 01 January 2014