Book Talk Dr. Nancy Postero

Event Start Date: February 13, 2019 1:30 PM
Event End Date: February 13, 2019 3:00 PM

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The Indigenous State: Race, Politics, and Performance in Plurinational Bolivia
Book Talk with Dr. Nancy Postero, Anthropology, University of California San Diego

February 13 | 1:30 - 2:30 pm
Reitz Union Multicultural and Diversity Affairs Room 2201
Light refreshments from 2:30-3:00 PM

Abstract:

What happens when indigenous organizations and political parties control the state? In 2005, Bolivia elected its first indigenous president, Evo Morales. Taking power in a “democratic cultural revolution”, Morales promised to create a new form of state and a “decolonized” society privileging indigenous people. This talk, drawing from the 2017 UC Press book of the same title, examines the discourses, policies, and practices of the Morales government to see how indigenous ideas and values were taken up by the state, and what difference it has made for formerly oppressed groups.

The Bolivian experiment inspired people across the world because it promised an alternative to both neoliberal economic policies and Western colonial legacies, especially racism. While the Morales government did enact policies that greatly benefitted Bolivia’s indigenous citizens, the “indigenous state” continues to be fundamentally liberal, and the country has not only continued but expanded its reliance on extractivist development and market capitalism. Indigeneity and decolonization were the rallying cries for the Morales revolution, serving as an emancipatory “politics”. Yet, as the MAS government consolidated its control and defeated its political adversaries on the Right, its support for indigenous self-determination waned. Indigeneity has been transformed from a site of emancipation to a performative site of liberal nation-state building, or “policing”.  Instead, inclusion and citizenship is now increasingly articulated through notions of class rather than ethnicity. Morales now argues for Bolivia’s “economic liberation” and the MAS government has made it clear it will sacrifice indigenous communities to its national development project.