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The Indigenous Peasant ‘Otherness’:

Land Conflicts, Identity-shaping and State-building

in Contemporary Bolivia

Lorenza Belinda Fontana

Abstract Bolivia is a laboratory in the construction and management of a Plurinational State.In this framework, a new phase in the reshaping of two ingredients of ruralcollective identities – ethnicity and class – is taking place. From a constructivistview on identity and conflict, focusing on narratives and discourses of collectiveactors, we argue that a new phase of disarticulation between indigenous and

peasant identities is taking place. This process is politically-rooted and influenced by government‟s culturalist policies and, at the same time, responds to a strategicreappropriation logic adopted by social groups striving to gain an advantage in thecompetition for resources and power. Moreover, the work illustrates the conceptualand procedural risks of a state-building model that institutionalizes the link

between identity and resource allocation systems, opening the way for anethnicization of citizenship, and a potential rise in ethnically-based social conflicts.

Key Words: Identity, narrative, conflict, state-building, social movements,Bolivia.

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1. Introduction Since the large electoral victory of Evo Morales in 2005, Bolivia has been

living an exceptional and complex moment of transition: the movement from astrictly representative model of democracy to another based on the trinitarianformula of „ participative, representative and communitarian democracy‟1, and theimplementation of a new inclusive development strategy. This process includes the

promotion of direct participation in public affairs and the integration of traditional practices of indigenous groups within formal institutional structures, as well as thestrengthening of a development path aimed at the reduction of inequalities andextreme poverty. The leading role of the rural sectors as articulator force of changein the new political process makes it a key social space for understanding thecurrent transformation.2 The Bolivian rural corporative system is historicallyrooted in two identitarian pillars – peasant and indigenous – that correspond to twosociological categories – class and race – two organizational and political traditions – syndicalism and traditional indigenous organization – and two ideological

streams – Marxism and indigenism. The borders between the two worlds draw acomplex semiotic and narrative map that has been rearticulating itself over the last



The Indigenous Peasant „Otherness‟ __________________________________________________________________ 2

few decades, passing through moments of radicalization and rapprochement, phases of alliance and conflict.

Drawing on fieldwork focusing on land conflicts between indigenous and peasant organizations, this work aims to explore the ways in which identities are being reshaped in the Bolivian rural world and the relationship of these dynamicsto the state-building process. Starting from a constructivist theoretical approach toidentity and conflict,3 and focusing on collective narratives and discourses, weargue that a new phase of disarticulation between indigenous and peasant identitiesis emerging through new ethnically-based narrative constructions. This identity-reshaping process depends on an endogenous appropriation of exogenously-drivenchanges, i.e. it is politically-rooted and influenced by government‟s culturalist

policies and, at the same time, responds to a strategic reappropriation logic of social groups seeking to gain advantage in the competition for power and

resources. Moreover, this work shows the risks of a state-building effort thatinstitutionalizes the link between ethnic identity and resource allocation systems,and illustrates the conceptual and procedural problems created by an ethnicizationof citizenship, as well as the potential rise in ethnically-based social conflicts.

2. Indigenous Peasant Identities: Between Articulation and

Disarticulation

Identities, as well as narratives, are the legitimating means of collective actionwithin processes of social transformation. In this sense, the cultural dimension that

lies within every identity gains political strength. Every political identity isculturally rooted. But only a few cultural identities acquire a political connotation,when they develop a set of normative narratives4 and collective action strategiesrelated to issues of control, management, access to resources and decision-makingspaces, and thus to power. The political component of identities has both astrategic and dynamic dimension, i.e. it makes the collective subject holder of thisidentity a political agent, a subject with agency and will. This link between

political identity and agency classifies social movements as one of the mostimportant collective subjects with culturally-based political identities.

In Bolivia, both peasant and indigenous groups have deeply politicizedcollective identities arising from their dependency and linkages to the corporativesystems that organize them. Their political bases also explain the processes of articulation and disarticulation5 between these two identities, which mainly dependon ideological and strategic issues. The recent historical trajectory of the twoidentitarian ingredients of rural Bolivia could be divided into three main periods

based on the kind of articulation/disarticulation dynamics observed:1) The nationalistic revolution of 1953 promotes a disarticulator wave

through a process of massive syndicalization and the construction of a cohesive

narrative of its members in terms of class and mestizaje („campesinization‟);6

2) Between the 1970s and the 1990s, a new phase of articulation occursunder the intellectual and political leadership of the Katarismo, a young and




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educated aymaras7‟ indianist movement allied with the new peasant syndicalizedvanguard of the Highlands; 8

3) Beginning in the 1980s, with the return of democracy, the fracture

between peasant and indigenous reopens with the rise of the indigenist intellectualand political current, which catalyzes the claims of indigenous peoples but, unlike Katarismo, distances itself from peasant syndicalism.9

While the articulation moments between indigenous and peasant identities havean endogenous origin – wherein the social groups themselves build a discourse, anorganizational apparatus and a political strategy that binds the two universes,emphasizing their compatibilities and building reality from them – by contrast,disarticulation moments are generally hetero-directed.

To explain these differences, we hypothesize the existence of a relationship

between articulation and endogeneity and disarticulation and exogeneity whoselink lies in the characteristics of the agency platform from which identity-shaping processes and alliances originate. In the first case, with the Katarism, the platformis ideologically rooted, i.e. the articulation is the result of an ideological andintellectual anxiety. In the second case, with indigenism and capesinization, thenature of the platform is rather functional and political, i.e. it is a strategy of socialgroups to politically position themselves in the face of mutable contexts andchallenges.

Both campesinization and indigenization are in the first place exogenous

narrative constructions, although they are endogenously reappropriated andremolded by these same social groups. This reappropriation is evidence of thestrength of the agency of social subjects. Indeed, the very social movements existonly insofar as they participate in this meaning-making process.10 The Katarismo,as well as the peasant trade unions and the indigenist organizations, are movementscapable of questioning the identitarian definition of the State hegemonic power andto bring about a more or less innovative strategic reappropriation of dominantnarratives.

The difference between pro-active and reactive identity-building processes is

that the latter depend on exogenous factors. In particular, campesinization was promoted by a wave of political renovation at the national level and a modernnation-state construction project with strong underlying socialist and classistideological bases; likewise, indigenization resulted from a new culturally-driven

policy adopted by the governments in power (first with neoliberalism and then with„neodevelopmentist indigenism‟11), strongly supported by international actors suchas cooperation agencies and the academic community. In particular, during the1990s, two reforms were introduced by the neoliberal governments that contributedto altering the mainstream approach to the indigenous issue: the Popular Participation Law (1995), which formalized a bureaucratic distinction between

peasant and indigenous communities, and the National Institute of AgrarianReform (INRA) Law (1996), which allowed the legalization of the Native




Communitarian Lands (TCOs) , i.e. vast territorial extensions assigned on an ethnic basis. Ethno-development policies expanded after the election of Evo Morales andthe passage of the new Constitution in 2009, which instituted a Plurinational State,a community-based economic model, and new normative frameworks thatestablish, for example, the co-existence of an ordinary and a communitarian justicesystem, thereby strengthening ethnically-based criteria of positive discriminationand aggravating the problems of identity distortion and manipulation that thisentails. Some telling examples come from the processes of indigenous identityrevitalization and ethnogenesis, which end up generating local conflicts andreinforcing the disarticulation wave between indigenous and peasant groups.

3. The Land Conflict in Apolo

The conflict in Apolo, an Amazonian region in northwestern Bolivia, is an

interesting example of a new disarticulating polarization that has arisen among theoriginally homogeneous indigenous peasant population, rooted in a process of ethnogenesis. The inflexion point came soon after the approval of the INRA law in1997, with the foundation of the Leco Indigenous People Organization (CIPLA)and its effort to revitalize indigenous identity among the local population. Thisimplied a reconfiguration of local equilibriums with the emergence of a newcollective subject, whose creation could be interpreted as an endogenous answer tohetero-driven incentives. The conflict is fueled by opposite and incompatiblevisions on the temporality marked by this inflexion point.

For the peasants, the „ before‟ was the time in which the Leco people did notexist, while the „after‟ time is when the „false Lecos‟ appear. An epoch in whichLecos were „real‟ and „true‟ is acknowledged – in the Preincaic – but afterwardsthey became extinct. This would imply the definitive dearth of the people and thusthe organization that now „identifies itself‟ and „names itself‟ as the Leco possessesno real or true existence. It is „false‟, „supposed‟, a sort of hologram withoutsubstance. Consequently, it is unacceptable for contemporary Lecos to claimrecognition or collective rights. Moreover, the peasants perceive the Lecoemergence as a threat and consider themselves the legitimate inhabitants of Apolo,

raising primordialist arguments that link the peasant identity with blood, originsand other meta-ethnic types of narrative frames.

Those people that now are Lecos come from the peasantmovement. They got dressed up as chunchos12, as louts, they‟vegot photos taken and, with those pictures, started to say that thereare Lecos here! But there aren‟t! The government is listening tothe lies that the supposed Lecos have presented. Right now I can

put some leaves on, I take some pictures of myself and I am

Leco! This is what they‟ve done. And with that they think thatthey are native, and we are not. But of course we are native!13




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Lecos also refers to „before‟ and „after‟ times, but they interpret the inflexion point as a moment of liberation, through a lógique de rupture14 with a past of repression and cultural domination. The „after‟ time is a new present in which the

oppressed gain a new form and substance. Indeed, the Leco identity is not just theremnant of the Preincaic skeleton, but one which includes other elements thatdiffer from the past. Moreover, for the Lecos, an issue of identity legitimacy is atstake. Since the peasant identity is a result of colonization, it has to be consideredabusive, with less legitimacy than the indigenous identity, the latter thus becomingthe only legitimated one. Peasants would thus be oppressed, dominated by their very own self-identification and should go through a process of emancipation tofind their true identity, i.e. the Leco.

From that day in which we started to rescue all our routines andcustoms, we are true indigenous brothers with identity (...). Themisunderstanding problem with the peasant brother is that theyare also indigenous, they are native, but they don‟t recognizetheir true identity yet.15

Both peasants and indigenous establish their own historical truth through adiscursive interpretation of the inflexion point, which corresponds to theethnogenesis moment, and, from that, they build dogmatic narratives of Self and

Other based on the dichotomy of false vs. true.This phenomenon partially depends on a hetero-directed political process thatintroduces incentives for the indigenization of collective identities. At the sametime, it is the result of the two groups‟ instrumental use of identities to guaranteeaccess to economic resources (particularly the land) and spaces of power andlegitimacy. In this sense, identity-based narratives become a political tool,functional to the development of the conflict.

5. Final Remarks

Through the concepts of articulation/disarticulation andendogeneity/exogeneity, this work explores the dialectic relationship betweenidentities-shaping and state-building. First, evidence is raised against essentialistand static interpretation of identities, highlighting their instrumental and fluidaspects, as well as the agency potentialities both of social groups and of dominantactors (State, international cooperation, academic community) in identity-shaping

processes. Secondly, the study emphasizes the fragilities of ideological andinstitutional designs that link identities with resources allocation systems. Anormative framework that moves towards an ethnicization of citizenship raisestheoretical and procedural problems; this includes, among others, theoperationalization of identity-based differences and the definition of criteria of „ethnic authenticity‟. The introduction of incentives for self-identification




according to ethnically-based categories makes identity a target for social groupsand charges with an ethnic connotation the social ontology of the Self and Other.This increases the risk of social instability, opening the Pandora box of ethnicconflicts.

From a broader perspective, the new phase of the Bolivian transition, after thefailure of the corporatist and the neoliberal projects, could be seen as the latestanswer, under a culturalist flag, to structural problems arising from the unsolvedweaknesses of the modern nation-state and of its essentials (particularly, thecitizenship principle), which are rooted in the colonial past. In this sense, the

process we are observing in contemporary Bolivian history points to some of thekey unresolved challenges of modernity: unfinished democratic transitions andincomplete nation-states, crisis of development paradigms, and fragilities of multicultural societies.

Notes

1 „Democracy is implemented in the following ways that would be developed bylaw: 1. Direct and participative, through referendum, citizens‟ legislative initiative,recall elections, assembly, cabildo and previous consultation, among others. (...) 2.Representative, through representatives‟ elections through universal, direct andsecret vote, according to the law. 3. Communitarian, through the election,

designation and normative regulation of authorities and representatives throughnorms and procedures, typical of the native indigenous peasant peoples andnations, among others, according to the law‟ (Art. 11 of the Bolivian Constitution).2 Álvaro García Linera, La Potencia Plebeya. Acción Colectiva, Indentidades Indígenas, Obreras y Populares en Bolivia (La Paz: CLACSO/Comuna, 2010), 28.3 Fredrik Barth, Los Grupos Étnicos y sus Fronteras (México DF: Fondo deCultura Económica, 1976); Michel Baud and Koonings Kees, Etnicidad Como Estrategia en América Latina y el Caribe (Quito: Abya-Yala, 1996); ManuelCastells, The Power of Identity, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. II (Cambridge MA and Oxford UK: Blackwell, 1997); Carlos IvánDegregori, „Movimientos étnicos, democracia y nación en Perú y Bolivia‟. In Laconstrucción de la nación y la representación ciudadana en México, Guatemala, Péru, Ecuador y Bolivia, ed. Claudia Dary, (Guatemala: FLACSO, 1998), 159-225; Vievienne Jabri, Discourses on Violence: Conflict Analysis Reconsidered (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996).4 We define normative narratives as those narratives that hold a certain amount of deontic power. These narratives appears to be particularly important at theindividual and social level since they carry with them a more or less explicit

potential (prescription) in terms of action. Paraphrasing John Searle (“What is anInstitution?” Journal of International Economics 1, 2005), normative narratives

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create desire-independent reasons for action. In this sense, normative narrativescould be defined also as the discursive basis of institutions, a sort of prepositional

core that justifies the norm.5 We define articulation as the process of compatibilization and mutualinterdependence between two or more identities, often in a functional way withrespect to a political and historical context.6 For an historical, anthropological and sociological analysis of this period seeSilvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Oprimidos Pero No Vencidos (La Paz:Aruwiyiri/Yachaywasi, 1984); José Gordillo, Campesinos Revolucionarios en Bolivia. Identidad, Territorio y Sexualidad en el Valle Alto de Cochabamba, 1952-1964 (La Paz: Plural, 2000); Jorge Dandler, El Sindicalismo Campesino en

Bolivia: Los Cambios Estructurales en Ucureña (1935-1952) (Mexico DF:Instituto Indigenista Interamericano, 1969); Fernando Calderón and Jorge Dandler ed., Bolivia: La Fuerza Histórica del Campesinado. Movimientos Campesinos y Etnicidad (Cochabamba: CERES-UNRISD, 1984); Javier Sanjines, El Espejismodel Mestizaje (La Paz: IFEA/PIEB, 2005); Álvaro García Linera, Potencia Plebeya. 7 One of the main indigenous groups of the Andean region of South America.8 For an historical, anthropological and sociological analysis of this period seeSilvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Oprimidos Pero No Vencidos; lbó and Barrios 1993;

Xavier Albó and Barrios Raúl, ed., Violencias Encubiertas en Bolivia (La Paz:CIPCA/Aruwiyiri, 1993); Álvaro García Linera, ed., Sociología de los Movimientos Sociales en Bolivia. Estructuras de Movilización, RepertoriosCulturales y Acción Política (La Paz: Plural, 2004); Álvaro García Linera, Potencia Plebeya 2010; Diego Pacheco, El Indianismo y los IndiosContemporaneos (La Paz: HISBOL/MUSEF, 1992).9 For an historical, anthropological and sociological analysis of this period seeRobert Andolina, Sarah Radcliffe and Nina Laurie, “Gobernabilidad e Identidad:

Indigeneidades Trasnacionales en Bolivia”, paper presented during the meeting of

the CLACSO Working Group Indigenous Movements in Latin America, (Quito,26th-28th Julio 2004); Xavier Albó and Barrios Raúl, ed., Violencias Encubiertas en Bolivia; Xavier Albó, “Movimientos y Poder Indígena en Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú” in Movimientos Socioculturales en América Latina. Cuadernos de Gobernabilidad Democrática, ed. PNUD/PAPEP (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2008); PabloStefanoni, “Qué Hacer con los I ndios...” Y Otros Traumas Irresueltos de laColonialidad (La Paz: Plural, 2010).10 Yvon Le Bot, La Grande Révolte Indienne (Paris: Robert Leffont, 2009).11 Fernando Calderón (“La Inflexión Política en el Cambio Sociocultural de

América Latina”, in Cuadernos de Gobernabilidad Democrática 2, ed. PNUD,Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2008, 66) defined the revolutionary regimes of Bolivia




and Ecuador as „neodevelopmentalist indigenism‟. Their characteristics are: thecentral role of social movements, especially indigenous ones; a search for inclusion

and egalitarian order, which includes a standard development proposal based oncommodities incomes, paired with a complicated negotiation with transnationalenterprises lead by a State that proposes itself as strong and stable, but that stillincubates chronic weaknesses; a national and anti-imperialistic rhetoric thatdominates international relations, and is used as an instrument of internal politicswhen it is time to consolidate consensus.12 Inhabitants of a silvan region far from the western civilization. It is often usedwith a negative meaning.13 Workshop with members of the Peasant Federation of the Puchahui community,Puchahui, Apolo, Franz Tamayo Province, Bolivia, 18th July 2010.14 Franz Fanon, I Dannati della Terra (Torino: Einaudi, 2000).15 Interview with the Great Capitan of the CIPLA, La Paz, 28th July 2010.

Bibliography

Albó, Xavier, and Raúl Barrios, eds. Violencias Encubiertas en Bolivia. La Paz:CIPCA/Aruwiyiri, 1993.

Albó, Xavier. „Movimientos y poder indígena en Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú‟. In

Movimientos Socioculturales en América Latina. Cuadernos de Ggobernabilidad Democrática. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2008.

Andolina, Robert, Sarah Radcliffe and Nina Laurie. “Gobernabilidad e Identidad:Indigeneidades Trasnacionales en Bolivia”, paper presented during the meeting of the CLACSO Working Group Indigenous Movements in Latin America. Quito,26th-28th July 2004.

Barth, Fredrik. Los Grupos étnicos y sus Fronteras. México DF: Fondo de CulturaEconómica, 1976.

Baud, Michel, and Koonings Kees. Etnicidad Como Estrategia en América Latina y el Caribe. Quito: Abya-Yala, 1996.

Calderón, Fernando, and Jorge Dandler, eds. Bolivia: La Fuerza Histórica del Campesinado. Movimientos Campesinos y Etnicidad . Cochabamba: CERES-UNRISD, 1984.

Calderón, Fernando. „La Inflexión Política en el Cambio Sociocultural de AméricaLatina‟. In Cuadernos de Gobernabilidad Democrática 2. Buenos Aires: SigloXXI, 2008.




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Castells, Manuel. The Power of Identity, The Information Age: Economy, Societyand Culture, Vol. II , Cambridge MA and Oxford UK: Blackwell, 1997.

Dandler, Jorge. El Sindicalismo Campesino en Bolivia: Los Cambios Estructuralesen Ucureña (1935-1952). Mexico DF: Instituto Indigenista Interamericano, 1969.

Degregori, Carlos Iván. „Movimientos Étnicos, Democracia y Nación en Perú yBolivia‟. In La Construcción de la Nación y la Representación Ciudadana en México, Guatemala, Péru, Ecuador y Bolivia, edited by Claudia Dary, 159-225.Guatemala: FLACSO, 1998.

García Linera, Álvaro, ed. Sociología de los Movimientos Sociales en Bolivia. Estructuras de Movilización, Repertorios Culturales y Acción Política. La Paz:Plural, 2004.

––– , La potencia plebeya. Acción colectiva, indentidades indígenas, obreras y populares en Bolivia, CLACSO/Comuna: La Paz, 2010.

Gordillo, José. Campesinos Revolucionarios en Bolivia. Identidad, Territorio ySexualidad en el Valle Alto de Cochabamba, 1952-1964. Plural: La Paz, 2000.

Fanon, Franz. I Dannati della Terra. Torino: Einaudi, 2000.

Jabri, Vievienne. Discourses on Violence: Conflict Analysis Reconsidered . Manchester and New York: Marchester University Press, 1996.

Le Bot, Yvon. La Grande Révolte Indienne. Paris: Robert Leffont, 2009.

Pacheco, Diego. El Indianismo y los Indios Contemporaneos. La Paz:HISBOL/MUSEF, 1992.

Rivera Cusicanqui. Silvia. Oprimidos pero no Vencidos. La Paz:Aruwiyiri/Yachaywasi, 1984.

Sanjines, Javier. El Espejismo del Mestizaje. La Paz: IFEA/PIEB, 2005.

Searle, John. “What is an Institution?” Journal of International Economics 1, 2005,1-22.

Stefanoni, Pablo. “Qué Hacer con los I ndios...” Y Otros Traumas Irresueltos de laColonialidad . La Paz: Plural, 2010.

Lorenza Belinda Fontana is PhD candidate in Political Science from theSant‟Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa (Italy). She spent the last two yearsin Bolivia where she carried out the field work for her PhD thesis on land conflicts







among social movements, with a focus on the analysis of collective narratives andidentities.

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