Who is Marching for Pachamama? An Intersectional Analysis of Environmental Struggles in Bolivia under the Government of Evo Morales Kaijser, Anna Published: 2014-01-01 Link to publication Citation for published version (APA): Kaijser, A. (2014). Who is Marching for Pachamama? An Intersectional Analysis of Environmental Struggles in Bolivia under the Government of Evo Morales General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. LUND UNIVERSITY • Users may download and print one copy of any publication from the public portal for the purpose of private study or research. • You may not further distribute the material or use it for any profit-making activity or commercial gain PO Box 117 • You may freely distribute the URL identifying the publication in the public portal ? 221 00 Lund +46 46-222 00 00 Who is Marching for Pachamama? An Intersectional Analysis of Environmental Struggles in Bolivia under the Government of Evo Morales Anna Kaijser DOCTORAL DISSERTATION by due permission of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University, Sweden. To be defended at Världen, Geocentrum I, Lund 9 May 2014, at 13:15 Faculty opponent Professor Andrew Canessa Department of Sociology, University of Essex, Great Britain 1 Who is Marching for Pachamama? An Intersectional Analysis of Environmental Struggles in Bolivia under the Government of Evo Morales Anna Kaijser 3 Copyright: Anna Kaijser Cover: Artwork by Lisa Wallin, after a photo by Rossmary Jaldin Faculty of Social Science, Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies ISBN 978-91-979832-6-6 Printed in Sweden by Media-Tryck, Lund University Lund 2014 En del av Förpacknings- och Tidningsinsamlingen (FTI) 4 One: Natural resources are not God given but must be wrested from previous economies and ecologies in violent extractions. Two: such violence leaves none of us unscathed. Three: This assault is no neighborhood storm. It gathers force from afar, entangling multiple local-to-global scales. For more on this, dear reader, please read on. Anna Tsing (2005) Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection p.50 5 6 Contents Abstract 11 Acknowledgements 13 Chapter 1 Beginning the March 17 Setting up a dialogue 19 Research context, aims and questions 20 Situating the study 22 Why Bolivia? 22 The larger picture: global environmental politics 23 Disciplinary home 25 Thesis structure 27 Chapter 2 Exploring Power, Constructing Knowledge 29 What can be known and by whom? Knowledge as situated 29 Who gets to speak about nature? Understanding power 31 Discourse - the power of knowing 33 Subject formation 36 Emergent indigeneities 38 Strategic mobilizations of indigenous identity 41 Intersectionality: sensitive analysis of power dynamics 43 Figurations: embodying intersectionality 47 Generating knowledges 49 What is a field? Aspects of “being there”. 49 Doing ethnographic research 52 Making sense of the material 55 Engaging figurations 56 Writing as a method 59 7 Reflections upon my role as a researcher 60 Concluding remarks 64 Chapter 3 Negotiations of Bolivianness: Situating the proceso de cambio 65 Initiating the proceso de cambio 65 MAS’ political project 67 Internal opposition 68 Contests over national identity 70 Who is Bolivian? 71 The indigenous as emerging national subject 74 A language for indigeneity-making? 77 Intersecting subjectivities 78 Chapter 4 Vivir bien or Simply Live Better? Utopias and Tensions in Environmental Meaning-Making under MAS 83 Articulating the environment in the proceso de cambio 84 Politics of territory and resources 86 Construction of indigenous territorial rights 87 Resource nationalism 89 MAS’ climate change positioning 91 Bringing a national position to international forums 93 Speaking for the people? 95 Shifting tactics of negotiation 97 The TIPNIS conflict 99 The territoriality of coca 101 Mobilizations for and against the highway 103 Wider implications of the TIPNIS conflict 107 Divergent mobilizations of indigeneity 110 Global recognition of indigenous subjectivity 110 Access to indigeneity in an indigenous state 112 8 Chapter 5 “Our voice is the voice of the snow-capped mountains which are losing their white ponchos.” The Charisma of the Endangered Glacier 115 What intersects in the endangered glacier? 116 Glacier retreat in the Andes: embodying climate change 118 Encounters of glacier knowledges 119 Narrating the landscape 122 The endangered glacier in MAS’ climate positioning 124 What does the endangered glacier do? 125 The charisma of glaciers 128 Situating the endangered glacier 129 Valuable and consumable 130 Concluding discussion 132 Chapter 6 From the Loma Santa to the Green Lungs: The Ecological Indigenous as Cosmopolitan Subject 135 What intersects in the ecological indigenous? 137 From virgin land to TIOC: recognition and resistance 138 The creation of a national park 140 Defining indigenous territory 141 Territory and indigenous subjectivity 142 Mobilization of indigeneity in territorial struggles 143 Turning to the TIPNIS conflict 145 The ecological indigenous in the TIPNIS conflict 146 Articulations across scales 146 Linking indigenous subjectivity to environmental concerns 147 Divergent mobilizations of the ecological indigenous 150 The charisma of the ecological indigenous 153 International recognition of the ecological indigenous 153 Awkward indigeneity 155 9 Challenging essentialization 155 Recognizing structural conditions 156 Feminist critique 157 Concluding discussion 160 Chapter 7 Ending the March 163 Exploring environmental struggles in contemporary Bolivia 164 Tensions and resistance 165 Analyzing intersectional power dynamics through figurations 166 Meaning-making across scales 167 The significance of the particular 168 The desperate hope of utopias 169 What we cannot not use 171 References 173 Cited interviews 189 10 Abstract Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) took office in Bolivia in 2006, riding on the wave of fierce popular protests against previous, neoliberal regimes. Morales was depicted as the country’s first indigenous president. His government promised a radical transformation of national politics and re- branded Bolivia as a “plurinational state”. Under MAS, indigenous subjectivity has moved from a marginalized position to center stage, and become a key condition for political legitimacy. This development is reflected in environmental politics. In international forums, the Bolivian government has claimed to represent a green indigenous alternative, a “culture of life”, as opposed to a Western, capitalist “culture of death”. However, on home ground, critics have accused MAS of coopting aspects of indigenous identity for its own interests and not applying its green agenda within the national borders. The national economy is dependent on intense extraction and export of natural resources, a trend which has not diminished under Morales. Thus, the first Bolivian government to frame itself as indigenous now stands behind initiatives for resource extraction and infrastructural expansion. This raises questions about whose rights are privileged when different actors express conflicting claims based on indigeneity. In this thesis, two salient themes are explored: MAS’ positioning in international climate change negotiations, and the conflict around the plans to construct a highway across the TIPNIS national park and indigenous territory. Drawing on poststructural and postcolonial feminist theory, I analyze intersecting processes of power in Bolivian environmental struggles by unwrapping two figurations: the endangered glacier and the ecological indigenous. These have become emblematic, and are mobilized by various actors for different purposes. Situating these figurations in national and international discourses, I show how they may shift in meaning and both reinforce and challenge relations of power. 11 The research material was generated through ethnographic fieldwork and collection of written texts. Through this study of contemporary Bolivia, I shed light on how power dynamics play out in the framing of environmental problems and their solutions; questions which should be central to research on environmental issues in all contexts. 12 Acknowledgements Writing a doctoral thesis is at times a very lonely endeavor, but while only my name appears on the cover of this book, many people have contributed to it in innumerable and invaluable ways. Anne Jerneck, my main supervisor: you have provided endless energy and support, always had time for dirty drafts and never let me escape half-way. Thank you! Annica Kronsell, I am so glad to have had you as my second supervisor. Thank you for engaging in my work, for involving me in collaborations and co-writing, and for thinking intersectionally with me. My home department, LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies) has been an encouraging working environment with great colleagues and good spirit. I especially want to thank Lennart Olsson and Stefan Anderberg for believing in my project, and Cecilia Kardum-Smith, Amanda Elgh, Barry Ness and Ann Åkerman for all your help and patience. Lena Christensen, working with you has been inspiring and fun. This study was realized as part of LUCID (Lund University Centre of Excellence for Integration of Social and Natural Dimensions of Sustainability), an interdisciplinary research program