Revista Europea De Estudios Latinoamericanos Y Del Caribe European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies
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REVISTA EUROPEA DE ESTUDIOS LATINOAMERICANOS Y DEL CARIBE EUROPEAN REVIEW OF LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN STUDIES Number 85 October 2008 National Resources and Local Politics Testing Democracy’s Promise: Indigenous Mobilization and the Chilean State 3 Patricia Rodriguez and David Carruthers Ethnic Self-regulation and Democratic Instability on Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast: The Case of Ratisuna 23 Ken Henriksen Retos y perspectivas de la gobernanza del agua y gestión integral de recursos hídricos en Bolivia 41 Sergio Antonio Ruíz e Ingo Georg Gentes - - - - - Farmers, Markets and Contracts: Chain Integration of Smallholder Producers in Costa Rica 61 Ruerd Ruben and Fernando Sáenz The Rise and Fall of Mexico’s Green Movement 81 Jordi Díez Troublesome Construction: The Rationale and Risks of IIRSA 101 Pitou van Dijck Review Essay/Ensayo de reseña Searching for Work, Striving for Justice: New Perspectives on Latin American Migrations to the United States 121 Robert V. Kemper Reseñas/Book Reviews (See page 2 for list of books reviewed) 133 Libros recibidos/Books received 157 Publicaciones/Publications 159 Resúmenes/Abstracts 161 Direcciones de los autores/Authors’ addresses 166 Lineamentos para autores/Guidelines for authors 172 Orden de suscripción/Subscription order 174 See the inside back cover for a list of indexing services CEDLA: Keizersgracht 395-397; 1016 EK Amsterdam; Países Bajos / The Netherlands Tel +31 20 525 3498; Fax +31 20 625 5127 Our articles are published online on our website one year following publication. http://www.cedla.uva.nl 1 2 | Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe 85, octubre de 2008 Reseñas/Book Reviews Conquest: The Destruction of the American Indios, by Massimo Livi Bacci (Linda A. Newson) 133 Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecuador, edited by A. Kim Clark and Marc Becker (Willem Assies) 134 State and Society in Conflict; Comparative Perspectives on Andean Crises, edited by Paul W. Drake and Eric Hershberg (Ton Salman) 137 Women and Politics in Chile, por Susan Franceschet (Andrea Cerda) 140 Newsrooms in Conflict: Journalism and the Democratization of Mexico, by Sallie Hughes (Jordi Díez) 142 The Enclave Economy. Foreign Investment and Sustainable Development in Mexico’s Silicon Valley, by Kevin P. Gallagher and Lyuba Zarsky (Leendert de Bell) 144 Digital Poverty: Latin American and Caribbean Perspectives, edited by Hernan Galperin and Judith Mariscal (Edward A. Riedinger) 146 An East Asian Model for Latin American Success. The New Path, by Anil Hira (Juan Podestá) 147 Community Rights and Corporate Responsibility: Canadian Mining and Oil Companies in Latin America, edited by Liisa North, Timothy David Clark and Viviana Patroni (Barbara Hogen- boom) 149 Partnerships in Sustainable Forest Resource Management: Lessons from Latin America, edited by Mirjam A. F. Ros-Tonen, with Heleen van den Hombergh and Annelies Zoomers (Anthony Hall) 151 The Jewish Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean: Fragments of Memory, edited by Kristin Ruggiero (Barak Kalir) 152 The Caribbean City, edited by Rivke Jaffe (Geert Custers) 154 La Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamerica- The European Review of Latin American and nos y del Caribe incluye artículos dentro de los Caribbean Studies includes articles within the campos de las ciencias sociales (antropología, fields of the social sciences (anthropology, ar- arqueología, demografía, ecología, economía, chaeology, demography, ecology, economy, geo- geografía, ciencias políticas, sociología) e histo- graphy, political science, sociology) and history. ria. Se da preferencia a artículos concisos que Preference is given to concise articles that reflect contengan investigación empírica substancial y/o substantial empirical research and/or that are que presenten innovaciones teóricas con respecto theoretically innovative with respect to major a debates importantes en tales campos o proble- debates within these various fields or to problems mas de interpretación histórica. of historical interpretation. Las ideas expresadas en los artículos por sus The ideas expressed by the respective authors in autores, no reflejan necesariamente el punto de the articles do not necessarily represent the view- vista de la Revista, su consejo editorial o las insti- point of the Review, its editorial board or the tuciones que lo publican. institutions that publish it. Para los lineamientos editoriales para autores, For the editorial guidelines for authors, see the referirse a la sección final. section in the back. 2 European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 85, October 2008 | 3-21 Testing Democracy’s Promise: Indigenous Mobilization and the Chilean State Patricia Rodriguez and David Carruthers In the late 1980s, following decades of authoritarianism and political violence, Latin America experienced a wave of transitions to democratic rule and social peace. Indigenous groups were prominent among the social sectors taking advan- tage of new spaces for political expression and dissent. By 1992, on the 500-year anniversary of the European conquest, indigenous organizations across the Ameri- cas had mobilized to demand the basic human and civil rights that their peoples have been denied for centuries. Striving to fulfil liberal-democratic ideals, reform- oriented governments in Latin America responded to indigenous protests with a variety of initiatives to grant constitutional recognition, improve the quality of citi- zenship, create opportunities for self-determination, and increase local control over land and natural resources. These reforms have created new opportunities for in- digenous peoples, but have also exposed contradictory agendas and sharpened con- flicts in many places, including southern Chile, ancestral home of the Mapuche Indians who are the focus of this study.1 Chile’s restored democratic government sought to create laws and institutions in the early 1990s that would improve on a history of troubled relations between the state and indigenous peoples. State officials reached out to historically margin- alized indigenous populations, promising to incorporate their demands into the formal policy realm. While some Mapuche leaders remained suspicious, others took leading roles in this process, hoping that indigenous rights, recognition, and self-determination might also yield resolution to longstanding land and natural re- source claims. This paper chronicles the dilution of that promise, revealing the ruling coali- tion’s attempts to instead implant its own policy priorities within a newly-created state institution, the CONADI (National Corporation for Indigenous Development). In practice, Mapuche demands for land and resource rights clashed with regional development schemes and the powerful financial interests behind them. When calls for indigenous recognition generated political opposition, the governing coalition seized control of the agenda, aggressively undercutting CONADI as an arena for dialogue. Policymakers employed wedge politics in Mapuche communities, pro- moting an entrepreneurship agenda among cooperative leaders, while forcefully criminalizing the militant actions of others. This approach widened the cleavages between the state and the Mapuche, exacerbated tensions between the Mapuche and private businesses, and worsened existing divisions among Mapuche commu- nities. Still, Mapuche leaders continue to seek opportunities for true reform, chal- lenging and engaging the state and its institutions. This evolving relationship be- tween the Mapuche and the Chilean state presents a vital test of the quality of con- temporary Latin American democratic consolidation. Published by CEDLA – Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation | Centro de Estudios y Documentación Latinoamericanos, Amsterdam; ISSN 0924-0608; www.cedla.uva.nl 3 4 | Revista Europea de Estudios Latinoamericanos y del Caribe 85, octubre de 2008 The paper proceeds in four parts. The first offers a brief historical background, emphasizing the land usurpation underlying today’s conflicts. The second de- scribes the new laws and institutions that brought both great hope and grievous disappointment to Mapuche communities. The third section, based on field re- search in Chile from 1998 to 2006, offers empirical illustration of the ruling coali- tion’s policy agenda in practice, analysing a set of important land, resource, and institutional conflicts. The paper concludes with an assessment of the prospects for renewing the promise of indigenous political participation in coming years. People of the Land The Mapuche history is one of fierce resistance to Incan, Spanish, and Chilean forces. Following the military conquest in the region known as Araucanía from 1860-1883, the government formed nearly 3,000 reservations, tasking Christian missionaries with evangelizing, educating, and integrating the indigenous popula- tion. These assimilationist policies challenged their cultural integrity and left them politically excluded and marginalized (Degarrod 1998). Early twentieth century governments further subdivided and distributed Indian lands to white colonists, eventually pushing the Mapuche onto about five per cent of their original territory (Muñoz Ramírez 2005). This land usurpation was culturally and economically devastating, dispossessing many families altogether, and pushing others onto small plots of the least productive land. It also deepened distrust of the country’s political centre, removing the Mapuche farther from national politics (Mallon 2004). Presidents