Diversity and Democracy in Bolivia: SOURCES of INCLUSION in an INDIGENOUS MAJORITY SOCIETY
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Diversity and Democracy in Bolivia: SOURCES OF INCLUSION IN AN INDIGENOUS MAJORITY SOCIETY Bret Gustafson | Washington University in St. Louis May 2017 I. INTRODUCTION and an inherently unstable system of political incorporation—sometimes democratic, often not— Bolivia is a country of ten million people, of whom that relied on institutionalized subordination of a over half speak one of 36 indigenous languages— large segment of the population. either instead of or in addition to the national language of Spanish. Despite economic expansion In 1994, during a period of liberalizing economic in recent years, high levels of poverty and economic reforms, the political parties of the traditional inequality persist. The legacies of colonialism ruling elite responded to rising social mobilization shaped a contemporary history of neo-colonial of subordinated groups by reforming the nation building that institutionalized exclusion Constitution to recognize the “pluricultural” of the largely indigenous, largely labouring reality of the country—a reality, until then, that majority along ethnic, racial and linguistic lines. was largely denied. Part of a wider “multicultural” Despite complexities of identity categories and or “intercultural” turn in Latin America, this a heterogeneous array of middling classes, this official recognition of difference began to unsettle pattern yielded a social and conceptual distinction conventional idioms and structures of exclusion. between wealthier, lighter-skinned criollo Bolivians In the 2000s, various social movements mobilized and the less prosperous urban and rural populations to deepen this transformative turn, paving the way of predominantly indigenous origins. Lines of for the election of the country’s first president of economic inequality were further reinforced by indigenous origin in 2005. Four years later, in 2009, institutional and discursive racism; elite antipathy the new government of Evo Morales oversaw the toward indigenous languages and cultural forms; writing of an entirely new constitution. This is paper is part of a new publication series from the Global Centre for Pluralism called Accounting for Change in Diverse Societies. Focused on six world regions, each “change case” examines a specific moment in time when a country altered its approach to diversity, either expanding or eroding the foundations of inclusive citizenship. The aim of the series – which also features thematic overviews by leading global scholars – is to build global understanding of the sources of inclusion and exclusion in diverse societies and the pathways to pluralism. Diversity and Democracy in Bolivia Beyond multicultural recognition, the new II. STATE, PEOPLE AND Constitution spoke of “decolonization” and included broad-based assertions of cultural rights, indigenous NATION: ORIGINS AND rights, social and economic rights and protections RESPONSES TO DIVERSITY against discrimination. Even so, implementation of these progressive and inclusionary laws and policies Pre-colonial Era has proved challenging, as Bolivia’s long-standing dependence on natural resource extraction and For many thousands of years prior to the Spanish export complicates the real politics of rule. invasion, the Andes was home to populations of Quechua and Aymara peoples numbering in This pluralism change case traces the past and the several millions, as well as to other Andean present struggles over exclusion and inclusion in peoples who had developed complex agricultural Bolivia. After a general historical overview, the case and political systems. At the time of the Spanish examines the gradual opening of the “multicultural invasion much of the Andes was incorporated into era”, the ongoing challenges of the “decolonizing” the expanding Inca Empire. In the Amazonian and project and the limits posed by the country’s Chaco lowlands, several other groups of indigenous resource-based economic model. While Bolivia is a peoples, speaking myriad other languages, lived in unique country with its own historical imperatives, more and less complex societies. The most populous an effort is made to highlight lessons learned from included the Guaraní of southeastern Bolivia, the this case, with a particular focus on the possibilities Besiro (or Chiquitano) peoples in eastern Bolivia and limits of using the law as an instrument of and the Moxeño peoples of the Amazon, an Arawak change as well as strategies for social movements group. and practitioners. The Spanish invasion came from two directions. The first wave, from the north, spread south through the Andes of Peru into what is now highland Bolivia, absorbing Andean (Quechua and Aymara) peoples into regimes of labour, tribute and colonial production. The colonial mining economy predominated and silver wealth from famous mines like Potosí in Bolivia helped build Spain and Europe. The second wave came from the south and east, up from Buenos Aires and surging onto the plains of what is now southeastern Bolivia. The colonial system relied on slavery, warfare and the encomienda (indigenous land and labour allotments) to subjugate people and 2 Accounting for Change in Diverse Societies Global Centre for Pluralism Diversity and Democracy in Bolivia control territory in largely agrarian economies. obligations and violent technologies of control were As elsewhere in Latin America, indigenous distributed accordingly. Colonialism’s legacies— populations declined drastically due to the violence from institutionalized racism to implicit forms of of conquest, beginning a slow recovery only by the exclusionary incorporation, such as differential late eighteenth century.1 The colonial foundations schooling—continue to shape contemporary of extractivism (mining) and large-scale agriculture struggles for inclusion today. remain central to the Bolivian economy today—and to its dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. Independence Era, 1780s–1940s Colonial Origins and the “Coloniality” Cycles of indigenous rebellion were an intrinsic of Power, 1500s–1800s component of resistance in the colonial period, as were emergent forms of accommodation and To understand Bolivia’s current political struggles, adaptation by indigenous social formations and one must first understand the colonial forms of leadership structures. Yet accommodation and rule that have left their imprints on contemporary adaptation never implied the dismantling of the Latin American society. An institutional and core of colonial rule. The colonial structure of power discursive regime of racialized labour control consistently reasserted itself against indigenous underwrote colonization. The category of indio efforts to carve out autonomous spaces of self-rule. (Indian) was a legal designation for those who The most notable of these revolts were those of had forced labour obligations and limited rights Tupac Amaru in Peru and Tupak Katari in what is and a racial designation. Indio were understood now Bolivia, which swept the Andes in the 1780s to be biologically (by blood) distinct from, as well and nearly toppled the colonial regime.3 as inferior and subject to, criollo (locally-born Spaniard) or español (Spaniard born in Spain), The indigenous rebellions of the 1780s signaled both of which were legal and social designations. a deeper crisis of colonial rule. Yet when criollo Negros (Blacks), another legally designated group, elites waged an armed struggle for independence were subject to outright slavery. Many new racial from Spain between 1809 and 1825, these wars had categories quickly emerged from rape and inter- little impact on the status of indigenous peoples. marriage, leading in some cases to designations of Independence played out as a struggle between mestizaje (understood as “mixing” between Spanish criollo interests against Spanish rule. This struggle and Indian peoples) or mulataje (“mixing” between led to the creation of Bolivia, a territory carved out Spanish and Black peoples).2 There were, to be sure, between the old Spanish jurisdictions of Peru and some elite accommodations between indigenous Argentina. Although indigenous peoples had, in populations and the colonial leadership strata, some cases, joined these criollo-led armies both as given the regime’s dependence on native labour. recruits and as semi-autonomous forces, the rupture But for the most part, colonial rule rested on legally with Spain did not result in independence for the codified hierarchies of race and gender, and rights, region’s labouring indigenous population. Instead, Global Centre for Pluralism Accounting for Change in Diverse Societies 3 Diversity and Democracy in Bolivia the new Republic of Bolivia transformed indios the labouring indigenous population was a shared from labouring subjects of the Crown into labouring concern. subjects of the new state. The economies of mining (centred in the Andes) and hacienda agriculture Amidst renewed expansion in the early twentieth (in the valleys, the high plain, or Altiplano, and century of Bolivia’s extractive industries—in this originally in the Bolivian east) remained as the case, oil—came the bloody fratricidal Chaco War basis of the “national” economy. Though no longer with Paraguay (1932–35).7 By creating conditions under Spain’s direct control, colonial practices of for a rupture in the dynamics of exclusion and the forced labour for indigenous communities in mines instrumentalization of Bolivia’s indigenous peoples, and on plantations continued. This de facto racial the Chaco War is often viewed as a watershed apartheid