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 rural collective identities ethnicity and class is taking place. From a constructivist view on identity and conflict, focusing on narratives and discourses of collective actors, we argue that a new phase of disarticulation between indigenous and peasant identities is taking place. This process is politically-rooted and influenced by governments culturalist policies and, at the same time, responds to a strategic reappropriation logic adopted by social groups striving to gain an advantage in the competition for resources and power. Moreover, the work illustrates the conceptual and procedural risks of a state-building model that institutionalizes the link between identity and resource allocation systems, opening the way for an ethnicization of citizenship, and a potential rise in ethnically-based social conflicts. Key Words: Identity, narrative, conflict, state-building, social movements, Bolivia. ***** 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 a strictly representative model of democracy to another based on the trinitarian formula of participative, representative and communitarian democracy1, and the implementation 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 the strengthening of a development path aimed at the reduction of inequalities and extreme poverty. The leading role of the rural sectors as articulator force of change in the new political process makes it a key social space for understanding the current transformation.2 The Bolivian rural corporative system is historically rooted in two identitarian pillars peasant and indigenous that correspond to two sociological 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 a complex semiotic and narrative map that has been rearticulating itself over the last

2 The Indigenous Peasant Otherness __________________________________________________________________ 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 dynamics to the state-building process. Starting from a constructivist theoretical approach to identity and conflict,3 and focusing on collective narratives and discourses, we argue that a new phase of disarticulation between indigenous and peasant identities is emerging through new ethnically-based narrative constructions. This identityreshaping process depends on an endogenous appropriation of exogenously-driven changes, i.e. it is politically-rooted and influenced by governments 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 that institutionalizes the link between ethnic identity and resource allocation systems, and illustrates the conceptual and procedural problems created by an ethnicization of 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 action within processes of social transformation. In this sense, the cultural dimension that lies within every identity gains political strength. Every political identity is culturally rooted. But only a few cultural identities acquire a political connotation, when they develop a set of normative narratives4 and collective action strategies related to issues of control, management, access to resources and decision-making spaces, and thus to power. The political component of identities has both a strategic and dynamic dimension, i.e. it makes the collective subject holder of this identity a political agent, a subject with agency and will. This link between political identity and agency classifies social movements as one of the most important collective subjects with culturally-based political identities. In Bolivia, both peasant and indigenous groups have deeply politicized collective identities arising from their dependency and linkages to the corporative systems that organize them. Their political bases also explain the processes of articulation and disarticulation5 between these two identities, which mainly depend on ideological and strategic issues. The recent historical trajectory of the two identitarian 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 occurs under the intellectual and political leadership of the Katarismo, a young and

Lorenza Belinda Fontana

__________________________________________________________________ educated aymaras7 indianist movement allied with the new peasant syndicalized vanguard 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 intellectual and 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 have an endogenous origin wherein the social groups themselves build a discourse, an organizational 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 whose link lies in the characteristics of the agency platform from which identity-shaping processes and alliances originate. In the first case, with the Katarism, the platform is ideologically rooted, i.e. the articulation is the result of an ideological and intellectual anxiety. In the second case, with indigenism and capesinization, the nature of the platform is rather functional and political, i.e. it is a strategy of social groups to politically position themselves in the face of mutable contexts and challenges. Both campesinization and indigenization are in the first place exogenous narrative constructions, although they are endogenously reappropriated and remolded by these same social groups. This reappropriation is evidence of the strength of the agency of social subjects. Indeed, the very social movements exist only insofar as they participate in this meaning-making process.10 The Katarismo, as well as the peasant trade unions and the indigenist organizations, are movements capable of questioning the identitarian definition of the State hegemonic power and to bring about a more or less innovative strategic reappropriation of dominant narratives. 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 modern nation-state construction project with strong underlying socialist and classist ideological bases; likewise, indigenization resulted from a new culturally-driven policy adopted by the governments in power (first with neoliberalism and then with neodevelopmentist indigenism11), strongly supported by international actors such as cooperation agencies and the academic community. In particular, during the 1990s, two reforms were introduced by the neoliberal governments that contributed to 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 Agrarian Reform (INRA) Law (1996), which allowed the legalization of the Native

4 The Indigenous Peasant Otherness __________________________________________________________________ Communitarian Lands (TCOs) , i.e. vast territorial extensions assigned on an ethnic basis. Ethno-development policies expanded after the election of Evo Morales and the passage of the new Constitution in 2009, which instituted a Plurinational State, a community-based economic model, and new normative frameworks that establish, for example, the co-existence of an ordinary and a communitarian justice system, thereby strengthening ethnically-based criteria of positive discrimination and aggravating the problems of identity distortion and manipulation that this entails. Some telling examples come from the processes of indigenous identity revitalization and ethnogenesis, which end up generating local conflicts and reinforcing 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 the originally homogeneous indigenous peasant population, rooted in a process of ethnogenesis. The inflexion point came soon after the approval of the INRA law in 1997, with the foundation of the Leco Indigenous People Organization (CIPLA) and its effort to revitalize indigenous identity among the local population. This implied a reconfiguration of local equilibriums with the emergence of a new collective subject, whose creation could be interpreted as an endogenous answer to hetero-driven incentives. The conflict is fueled by opposite and incompatible visions on the temporality marked by this inflexion point. For the peasants, the before was the time in which the Leco people did not exist, while the after time is when the false Lecos appear. An epoch in which Lecos were real and true is acknowledged in the Preincaic but afterwards they became extinct. This would imply the definitive dearth of the people and thus the organization that now identifies itself and names itself as the Leco possesses no real or true existence. It is false, supposed, a sort of hologram without substance. Consequently, it is unacceptable for contemporary Lecos to claim recognition or collective rights. Moreover, the peasants perceive the Leco emergence as a threat and consider themselves the legitimate inhabitants of Apolo, raising primordialist arguments that link the peasant identity with blood, origins and other meta-ethnic types of narrative frames. Those people that now are Lecos come from the peasant movement. They got dressed up as chunchos12, as louts, theyve got photos taken and, with those pictures, started to say that there are Lecos here! But there arent! The government is listening to the 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 theyve done. And with that they think that they are native, and we are not. But of course we are native!13

Lorenza Belinda Fontana

__________________________________________________________________ Lecos also refers to before and after times, but they interpret the inflexion point as a moment of liberation, through a lgique 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 the remnant of the Preincaic skeleton, but one which includes other elements that differ from the past. Moreover, for the Lecos, an issue of identity legitimacy is at stake. Since the peasant identity is a result of colonization, it has to be considered abusive, with less legitimacy than the indigenous identity, the latter thus becoming the only legitimated one. Peasants would thus be oppressed, dominated by their very own self-identification and should go through a process of emancipation to find their true identity, i.e. the Leco. From that day in which we started to rescue all our routines and customs, we are true indigenous brothers with identity (...). The misunderstanding problem with the peasant brother is that they are also indigenous, they are native, but they dont recognize their true identity yet.15 Both peasants and indigenous establish their own historical truth through a discursive interpretation of the inflexion point, which corresponds to the ethnogenesis 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 that introduces incentives for the indigenization of collective identities. At the same time, it is the result of the two groups instrumental use of identities to guarantee access to economic resources (particularly the land) and spaces of power and legitimacy. 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 and endogeneity/exogeneity, this work explores the dialectic relationship between identities-shaping and state-building. First, evidence is raised against essentialist and static interpretation of identities, highlighting their instrumental and fluid aspects, as well as the agency potentialities both of social groups and of dominant actors (State, international cooperation, academic community) in identity-shaping processes. Secondly, the study emphasizes the fragilities of ideological and institutional designs that link identities with resources allocation systems. A normative framework that moves towards an ethnicization of citizenship raises theoretical and procedural problems; this includes, among others, the operationalization of identity-based differences and the definition of criteria of ethnic authenticity. The introduction of incentives for self-identification

6 The Indigenous Peasant Otherness __________________________________________________________________ according to ethnically-based categories makes identity a target for social groups and 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 ethnic conflicts. From a broader perspective, the new phase of the Bolivian transition, after the failure of the corporatist and the neoliberal projects, could be seen as the latest answer, under a culturalist flag, to structural problems arising from the unsolved weaknesses of the modern nation-state and of its essentials (particularly, the citizenship principle), which are rooted in the colonial past. In this sense, the process we are observing in contemporary Bolivian history points to some of the key unresolved challenges of modernity: unfinished democratic transitions and incomplete nation-states, crisis of development paradigms, and fragilities of multicultural societies.

Notes
Democracy is implemented in the following ways that would be developed by law: 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 and secret vote, according to the law. 3. Communitarian, through the election, designation and normative regulation of authorities and representatives through norms and procedures, typical of the native indigenous peasant peoples and nations, among others, according to the law (Art. 11 of the Bolivian Constitution). 2 lvaro Garca Linera, La Potencia Plebeya. Accin Colectiva, Indentidades Indgenas, Obreras y Populares en Bolivia (La Paz: CLACSO/Comuna, 2010), 28. 3 Fredrik Barth, Los Grupos tnicos y sus Fronteras (Mxico DF: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1976); Michel Baud and Koonings Kees, Etnicidad Como Estrategia en Amrica Latina y el Caribe (Quito: Abya-Yala, 1996); Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. II (Cambridge MA and Oxford UK: Blackwell, 1997); Carlos Ivn Degregori, Movimientos tnicos, democracia y nacin en Per y Bolivia. In La construccin de la nacin y la representacin ciudadana en Mxico, Guatemala, Pru, Ecuador y Bolivia, ed. Claudia Dary, (Guatemala: FLACSO, 1998), 159225; 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 the individual and social level since they carry with them a more or less explicit potential (prescription) in terms of action. Paraphrasing John Searle (What is an Institution? Journal of International Economics 1, 2005), normative narratives
1

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__________________________________________________________________ create desire-independent reasons for action. In this sense, normative narratives could 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 mutual interdependence between two or more identities, often in a functional way with respect to a political and historical context. 6 For an historical, anthropological and sociological analysis of this period see Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Oprimidos Pero No Vencidos (La Paz: Aruwiyiri/Yachaywasi, 1984); Jos Gordillo, Campesinos Revolucionarios en Bolivia. Identidad, Territorio y Sexualidad en el Valle Alto de Cochabamba, 19521964 (La Paz: Plural, 2000); Jorge Dandler, El Sindicalismo Campesino en Bolivia: Los Cambios Estructurales en Ucurea (1935-1952) (Mexico DF: Instituto Indigenista Interamericano, 1969); Fernando Caldern and Jorge Dandler ed., Bolivia: La Fuerza Histrica del Campesinado. Movimientos Campesinos y Etnicidad (Cochabamba: CERES-UNRISD, 1984); Javier Sanjines, El Espejismo del Mestizaje (La Paz: IFEA/PIEB, 2005); lvaro Garca 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 see Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Oprimidos Pero No Vencidos; lb and Barrios 1993; Xavier Alb and Barrios Ral, ed., Violencias Encubiertas en Bolivia (La Paz: CIPCA/Aruwiyiri, 1993); lvaro Garca Linera, ed., Sociologa de los Movimientos Sociales en Bolivia. Estructuras de Movilizacin, Repertorios Culturales y Accin Poltica (La Paz: Plural, 2004); lvaro Garca Linera, Potencia Plebeya 2010; Diego Pacheco, El Indianismo y los Indios Contemporaneos (La Paz: HISBOL/MUSEF, 1992). 9 For an historical, anthropological and sociological analysis of this period see Robert 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 Alb and Barrios Ral, ed., Violencias Encubiertas en Bolivia; Xavier Alb, Movimientos y Poder Indgena en Bolivia, Ecuador y Per in Movimientos Socioculturales en Amrica Latina. Cuadernos de Gobernabilidad Democrtica, ed. PNUD/PAPEP (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2008); Pablo Stefanoni, Qu Hacer con los Indios... Y Otros Traumas Irresueltos de la Colonialidad (La Paz: Plural, 2010). 10 Yvon Le Bot, La Grande Rvolte Indienne (Paris: Robert Leffont, 2009). 11 Fernando Caldern (La Inflexin Poltica en el Cambio Sociocultural de Amrica Latina, in Cuadernos de Gobernabilidad Democrtica 2, ed. PNUD, Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2008, 66) defined the revolutionary regimes of Bolivia

8 The Indigenous Peasant Otherness __________________________________________________________________ and Ecuador as neodevelopmentalist indigenism. Their characteristics are: the central role of social movements, especially indigenous ones; a search for inclusion and egalitarian order, which includes a standard development proposal based on commodities incomes, paired with a complicated negotiation with transnational enterprises lead by a State that proposes itself as strong and stable, but that still incubates chronic weaknesses; a national and anti-imperialistic rhetoric that dominates international relations, and is used as an instrument of internal politics when it is time to consolidate consensus. 12 Inhabitants of a silvan region far from the western civilization. It is often used with 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
Alb, Xavier, and Ral Barrios, eds. Violencias Encubiertas en Bolivia. La Paz: CIPCA/Aruwiyiri, 1993. Alb, Xavier. Movimientos y poder indgena en Bolivia, Ecuador y Per. In Movimientos Socioculturales en Amrica Latina. Cuadernos de Ggobernabilidad Democrtica. 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 tnicos y sus Fronteras. Mxico DF: Fondo de Cultura Econmica, 1976. Baud, Michel, and Koonings Kees. Etnicidad Como Estrategia en Amrica Latina y el Caribe. Quito: Abya-Yala, 1996. Caldern, Fernando, and Jorge Dandler, eds. Bolivia: La Fuerza Histrica del Campesinado. Movimientos Campesinos y Etnicidad. Cochabamba: CERESUNRISD, 1984. Caldern, Fernando. La Inflexin Poltica en el Cambio Sociocultural de Amrica Latina. In Cuadernos de Gobernabilidad Democrtica 2. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI, 2008.

Lorenza Belinda Fontana

__________________________________________________________________ Castells, Manuel. The Power of Identity, The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, Vol. II, Cambridge MA and Oxford UK: Blackwell, 1997. Dandler, Jorge. El Sindicalismo Campesino en Bolivia: Los Cambios Estructurales en Ucurea (1935-1952). Mexico DF: Instituto Indigenista Interamericano, 1969. Degregori, Carlos Ivn. Movimientos tnicos, Democracia y Nacin en Per y Bolivia. In La Construccin de la Nacin y la Representacin Ciudadana en Mxico, Guatemala, Pru, Ecuador y Bolivia, edited by Claudia Dary, 159-225. Guatemala: FLACSO, 1998. Garca Linera, lvaro, ed. Sociologa de los Movimientos Sociales en Bolivia. Estructuras de Movilizacin, Repertorios Culturales y Accin Poltica. La Paz: Plural, 2004. , La potencia plebeya. Accin colectiva, indentidades indgenas, obreras y populares en Bolivia, CLACSO/Comuna: La Paz, 2010. Gordillo, Jos. Campesinos Revolucionarios en Bolivia. Identidad, Territorio y Sexualidad 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 Rvolte Indienne. Paris: Robert Leffont, 2009. Pacheco, Diego. El Indianismo y los Indios Contemporaneos. La Paz: HISBOL/MUSEF, 1992. Rivera Cusicanqui. Silvia. Aruwiyiri/Yachaywasi, 1984. Oprimidos pero no Vencidos. La Paz:

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. Qu Hacer con los Indios... Y Otros Traumas Irresueltos de la Colonialidad. La Paz: Plural, 2010. Lorenza Belinda Fontana is PhD candidate in Political Science from the SantAnna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa (Italy). She spent the last two years in Bolivia where she carried out the field work for her PhD thesis on land conflicts

10 The Indigenous Peasant Otherness __________________________________________________________________ among social movements, with a focus on the analysis of collective narratives and identities.