Internal Colonialism and International Relations: Tracks of Decolonization in Bolivia 2021000872, 2021000873, 9780367260873, 9780429291401, 9781032004006

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“Internal Colonialism and International Relations: Tracks of Decolonization in Bolivia provides a very insightful analysis of a decisive political process in Latin America. By focusing on decolonization and internal colonialism as fundamental analytical categories, the book brings a quite original reading of how the persistent colonial structures of international relations can be captured, questioned and resisted. Therefore, it is essential reading for all those interested in a critical understanding of international politics and it is definitely a major contribution to the field.” — Ramon Blanco, Federal University of LatinAmerican Integration, Brazil, author of Peace as Government: The Will to Normalize Timor-Leste “Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado’s Internal Colonialism and International Relations alters the way International and Development studies approach the who, where and how of decolonization. Based on the recent experience of decolonization in Bolivia, the book warns that as long as the focus of attention is on international institutions, the state, and a homogenous indigenous subjectivity, scholars are complicit in continuing colonial violence and domination. Internal Colonialism and International Relations is an invitation to make visible local struggles and their connections to the international. The book’s call to pluriversalizing indigeneity and decoloniality is welcomed and urgent.” — Cristina Rojas, Carleton University, Canada “This is a fascinating book exploring the politics of coloniality and decoloniality in the transversal struggles around ideas of belonging, indigeneity, territory, development and material and cultural exploitation. It provides an in-depth analysis of the Bolivian case, presenting innovative conceptual tools for understanding the relationship of global connections and local frictions. A welcome read for scholars looking for alternative ways of seeing and engaging with the world of global and Latin American politics.” — Carolina Moulin de Aguiar, Professor at UFMG (Federal University of Minas Gerais), Brazil; Secretary General of ABRi (Brazilian Association of International Relations)

Internal Colonialism and International Relations

This book investigates decolonization as a local process and its connections to international relations, introducing “internal colonialism” as a crucial analytical category for internationalists. Using Bolivia as a case study, the author argues that the reshaping of colonialism and its resistance domestically is also reflected and reproduced abroad by political actors, be they the governments or indigenous movements. By problematizing postcolonial debate concerning the constitution/ reproduction of colonial logics in International Relations, the book proposes a return to the local to show how power relations are exercised concretely by the protagonists of political process. Such dynamics reveal the interrelationship between the local and the international, especially, in which the latter represents a necessary dimension to both reinforce colonialism and oppose colonial logics. Of interest to scholars and students of IR, Latin American and Andean Studies, this book will also appeal to those working in the fields of area studies, anthropology, indigenous politics, comparative politics, decolonization and political ecology. Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado is an Assistant Professor and Researcher in the International Relations Department of the Federal University of Latin America Integration (UNILA, Brazil). She holds a PhD from the International Relations Institute of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (IRI/PUC-Rio, Brazil). She has been investigating social movements for over ten years.

Worlding Beyond the West

Series Editors: Arlene B. Tickner, Universidad del Rosario, Colombia, David Blaney, Macalester College, USA and Inanna Hamati-Ataya, Cambridge University, UK

Historically, the International Relations (IR) discipline has established its boundaries, issues, and theories based upon Western experience and traditions of thought. This series explores the role of geocultural factors, institutions, and academic practices in creating the concepts, epistemologies, and methodologies through which IR knowledge is produced. This entails identifying alternatives for thinking about the “international” that are more in tune with local concerns and traditions outside the West. But it also implies provincializing Western IR and empirically studying the practice of producing IR knowledge at multiple sites within the so-called ‘West’. Decolonization, Development and Knowledge in Africa Turning Over a New Leaf Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni Intersectional Decoloniality Reimagining International Relations and the Problem of Difference Marcos S. Scauso Internal Colonialism and International Relations Tracks of Decolonization in Bolivia Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado Marxism and Decolonization in the 21st Century Living Theories and True Ideas Edited by Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Morgan Ndlovu

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Worlding-Beyond-the-West/book-series/WBW

Internal Colonialism and International Relations Tracks of Decolonization in Bolivia

Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado The right of Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Teixeira Delgado, Ana Carolina, author. Title: Internal colonialism and international relations : tracks of decolonization in Bolivia / Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2021. | Series: Worlding beyond the West | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021000872 (print) | LCCN 2021000873 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367260873 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429291401 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Indians of South America—Bolivia—Government relations. | Decolonization—Bolivia. | Power (Social sciences)— Bolivia. | International relations. Classification: LCC F3320.1.G6 T45 2021 (print) | LCC F3320.1.G6 (ebook) | DDC 325/.384—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021000872 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021000873 ISBN: 978-0-367-26087-3 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-00400-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-29140-1 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by codeMantra

Contents

List of figures Acknowledgments List of abbreviations

ix xi xiii

1

Tracks of decolonization: an introduction

2

The decolonial process in perspective: mapping the theoretical debate

18

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well: between modes of life and power disputes

66

3 4 5

1

The TIPNIS case and the deconstruction of the indigenous myth

112

Decolonization, internal colonialism and international relations: considerations on the Bolivian case

163

Index

187

Figures

4.1 4.2

General characteristics of the TIPNIS and its inhabitants Polygon 7

120 121

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the contribution and encouragement of diverse colleagues, family members and indigenous leaders. Thought initially as a PhD dissertation on decolonization and internal colonialism in Bolivia, the work was further developed to incorporate reflections on the connection between the case studied and international relations. The goal was to surpass the theoretical limits of International Relations through a necessary dialogue with other disciplines in Social Sciences, exploring themes such as knowledge production, cosmological difference and resistance. To do so, an important step was to “explore” supposedly local events, incorporating the work of many indigenous and Bolivian scholars. Once decolonization and internal colonialism were observed, a second step was to understand the role of the international (mainly) by returning to the local, i.e. examining once again the events and its unfolding effects. The analysis resulted in a “picture” of the contemporary phenomena of decolonization and internal colonialism, their relation to multiple dimensions, in a country governed by an indigenous president for more than a decade. José María Gómez and Luis Tapia Mealla were crucial to this task (my advisor and co-advisor, respectively, in Brazil and Bolivia). Arlene B. Tickner was also a fundamental person who encouraged me ever since I first approached her about transforming my dissertation into a book. I would like to thank David Blaney and Inanna Hamati-Ataya for their support as well as Emily Ross and Hannah Rich, and Naeem Inayatullah for opening “windows”. The 12-month period lived in Bolivia was one of intense learning. I thank all who spent their time talking to me, showing me another “world” and possibilities of existence. Comunidad Sariri received me in their urban ayllu. In this regard, I thank the Sarari members, especially Fernando Huanacuni, Cecilia Pinedo, Marianela Machicado, Doña Alejandra and Rosario “Charo”. Monica Claros and Carmen Claros were my “official” family in Bolivia. I am kindly thankful to both as well as to Maria Brazil, who facilitated this contact. I am also grateful to Lucía Centellas for the tips, conversations about Bolivia and the friendship. I thank Marcela Vecchione Gonçalves for the suggestions of readings. My family has always given impetus to my projects, especially this one. I am tremendously grateful to them: Alexandre,

xii Acknowledgments Maria Jesuína and Ana Paula. Colleagues from the International Relations Postgraduate Program of the Federal University of Latin American Integration (Ppgri – Unila) and from the International Relations Institute of the Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio) have been extremely supportive. I thank them for that, especially Ramon Blanco. Last but not least, I thank those who have conceded interviews and communications: Pablo Mamani, Hilda Reinaga, Felipe Quipe “el Mallku”, Fernando Vargas, Lárazo Tacóo, Celso Padilla, Alcides Vadillo, Atawallpa Oviedo and those who for distinct reasons didn’t have their names published. Finally, I am grateful to Brazilian agencies Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Tecnológico (CNPq) and Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for the financial support.

Abbreviations

ABC ALBA BNDES CAOI CEDIB CEDLA CIDES CIDOB CNAMIB CNMCIOB-BS COB COICA CONAMAQ CONISUR COP18 COSIPLAN CSCB CSUTCB ECUARUNARI EGTK FIAY IIPFCC IIRSA ILO

Administradora Boliviana de Carreteras Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America National Bank for Economic and Social Development Andean Coordinator of Indigenous Organization Bolivia Information and Documentary Center Labor and Agrarian Development Studies Center Development Sciences Postgraduate Institute Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian East National Confederation of Indigenous Women of Bolivia Bartolina Sisa National Confederation of Peasant Indigenous Originary Women of Bolivia Bolivian Worker’s Center Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations from the Amazon Basin National Council of Allyus and Markas of Qullasuyu Indigenous Council of the South United Nations 18th session of Conference of the Parties South American Council of Infrastructure and Planning Syndicalist Confederation of Bolivian Colonizers Peasant Workers` Union Confederation of Bolivia Confederation of Peoples of Kichwa Nationality from Ecuador Tupak Katari Guerrilla Army Indigenous Forum of Abya Yala International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change Initiative for the Integration of Regional South American Infrastructure International Labor Organization

xiv Abbreviations INC IR MAS-IPSP MNR NDP NGO TCO THOA TIOC TIPNIS UN UNICEF UNPFII UPEA USAN USAID YPFB

National Institute of Colonization International Relations Movement Towards Socialism – Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples Revolutionary Nationalist Movement party National Development Plan Non-governmental organization Communal Land of Origin Taller de Historia Oral Andina Indigenous Native Peasant Territory Isidoro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory United Nations United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues Public University of El Alto Union of South American Nations United States Agency for International Development Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos

1

Tracks of decolonization An introduction

Decolonization, Latin America and International Relations The theme of decolonization has gained momentum among scholars over the last decade. Triggered by events in Latin America, especially in Bolivia, many academics have interpreted political affairs in the Andean country either romantically or by emphasizing mainly their domestic facet in contrast to scholars concerned about the international. Among the social scientists, their theoretical evaluations have addressed, in particular, democratic processes and the emergence of the so-called progressive leadership in Latin America, the pursuit of a new extractivist project, the empowerment of indigenous movements and the prospects of a rupture with the colonial past. In doing so, they consequently silence the crucial role played by the international and the global in decolonization, how those dimensions might condition or interfere in the political strategies employed by governments, how those might be mobilized by collective actors to project and empower themselves. In International Relations (IR), decolonization as a process has been relatively neglected by the literature, whose focus rests instead on the aim to decolonize the discipline. Rather than being the “subject” of analysis itself, decolonization would denote what Sabaratnan (2011: 4) identifies in her work on IR postcolonial literature as an “intellectual strategy”. This book takes a somewhat unexplored path: it investigates decolonization as a local process and its connections to IR, introducing internal colonialism as a crucial analytical category for internationalists. In that sense, it argues that the reshaping of colonialism and its resistance in Bolivian society is also reflected and reproduced abroad by political actors involved in decolonization, be it governmental or social movements’ members. Such a dynamic reveals the interrelationship between the local and the international, especially, in which the latter represents a necessary dimension to both reinforce colonialism and oppose colonial logic. I have chosen the Bolivian experience for several reasons. Besides the resonance achieved in the academic literature on decolonization, the case stands out as one crossed by contradictions despite its overwhelming projection in international and global dimensions as an example of success in terms of liberation for social

2  Tracks of decolonization movements in general, especially indigenous ones, against colonialism and its signifiers, i.e. capitalism and neoliberalism. This is so due to the constant mobilization of an allegedly indigenous discourse and initiatives abroad (especially in international fora) that would endorse the empowerment of collective actors regardless of local strategies to repress and criminalize indigenous leaders or the symbolic fact that, in institutional terms, decolonization corresponded to a Vice Ministry under the Ministry of Cultures and Tourism. On the one hand, the government’s incorporation of indigenous cosmology in the official discourse not only served to project Evo Morales’ administration abroad but also to conceal a structure of colonial domination reproduced in the country. This is so because once indigenous cosmology is adjusted to the State narrative, it poses no threat to the foundations of the international and its pattern of inclusion based on Western colonial values. On the other hand, indigenous groups critical to the government search in the international a space for their empowerment, be it through the “globalization” of the Aymara cosmology and Mother Earth discourse or the denouncing of the government’s persecution at home. In this work, I seek to problematize postcolonial debate concerning the constitution/reproduction of colonial logic in IR, proposing a return to the local. In doing so, the book evinces how power relations are exercised concretely by the protagonists of the political process. The uniqueness of this case study to IR rests upon (1) indigenous movements’ empowerment in parallel to the emergence of a cosmological discourse and its resonance abroad, (2) their alliance and contention towards Bolivian government and (3) the governmental projection to the international based on the country’s indigenous uniqueness despite the deployment of repression and criminalization towards native groups in the national scene. In this way, Internal Colonialism and International Relations: Tracks of Decolonization in Bolivia focuses on two major issues: the construction of narratives over Suma Qamaña, translated as Living Well (Vivir Bien), and the dispute concerning the building of a road in the lowlands. Both cases express latent conflicts between indigenous peoples, peasant groups, the government, the link with the international and, to some degree, with the global. Finally, the book reveals contradictions regarding decolonization, expressed also by (a) the capture/projection of Suma Qamaña by the government in the international realm and the implications of such a move, (b) the fragmentation among indigenous groups, part of them conforming an opposition bloc to the government, (c) the ties between Bolivian and Brazilian governments over a regional developmental project sustained on extractivism and the redistribution of wealth, (d) the alliance between the Morales administration and the agribusiness elite, (e) indigenous resistance strategies against internal colonialism and the “new” forms of political practice performed by those groups, a fundamental issue for IR and (f) the openness of the international to either domination and resistance for the actors involved in Bolivian contemporary decolonization.

Tracks of decolonization  3 The book stands as part of a relatively recent IR literature on indigenous peoples and the study of difference in the discipline (see, for example, Beier 2009, 2009a, Garvie and Shaw 2015, Lightfoot 2016, Low and Shaw 2012, Picq 2018, Shapiro 2004, Shaw 2008, Shaw et al. 2015, Smith 2012, Stephenson and Shaw 2013). Due to its formation as an Anglo-Saxon discipline, most references hardly address Latin American experience properly.1 Some are completely silent about the region’s colonial legacy. Others mention its colonial past or even establish a debate with Latin American authors, but do not concentrate their work on the region itself. That would be the case of Shapiro’s (2004) book, Methods and Nations, in which he takes Mignolo’s argument on the colonial character of Modern epistemologies to think of Social Science and modernity. Lightfoot (2016) mentions the fact that Bolivia has been the first country to incorporate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, but dismisses the paradoxes presented by Morales’ government as she concentrates on Canada and New Zealand’s experience in absorbing International Law on Indigenous Peoples. A similar pattern is observed in postcolonial publications in IR and their efforts to decolonize the discipline. While Muppidi’s (2004) The Politics of the Global explores the colonial politics implied in diverse theoretical conceptualizations of globalization and the possibilities of resistance to such colonization of the global space, Grovogui’s (2006) Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy highlights Western and European uniqueness underlying theorists’ understanding of international society and IR conceptual tools. Both authors focus primarily on regions dominated historically by British and French colonialism, India and the United States, as the new colonial power, and French African countries, although Muppidi mentions events involving other parts of the world, such as Guatemala. Lately, Grovogui has directed his attention to colonial Latin America as he investigates the Palmares insurgence in Brazil and the Haitian Revolution as examples of traditions of civil liberties that would resonate during anti-colonial movements from the 20th century. This extension of IR scope is also observed in Muppidi’s (2012) The Colonial Signs of International Relations, in which the author incorporates some of the contributions of Latin American thinkers, namely Walter Mignolo and Eduardo Galeano. Moreover, coloniality and Other cosmologies related to Latin America has only recently been incorporated by a select group of IR scholars as part of an ongoing discussion on the discipline’s plural character and its theoretical renovation (Blaney and Tickner 2017, Conway and Singh 2011, Jackson 2017, Metzler and Rojas 2014, Pasha 2011, Persaud and Walker 2015, Rojas 2007, 2016, Sajed 2013, Shilliam 2015, Taylor 2012, Tickner and Blaney 2013, Tickner and Smith 2020, among others). Despite the reduced engagement with Latin authors when compared to those from other parts of the world, this fact seems to point to a gradual insertion of the regional production in postcolonial IR. Earlier, Inayatullah and Blaney

4  Tracks of decolonization (2004) had already addressed Latin American colonial history and regional intellectuals in The Problem of Difference in IR. In Globalization and Postcolonialism, Krishna (2009) unveils the narrative of modernization subjacent to neoliberal globalization and identifies in postcolonialism the resistance to the former. Despite the relevance attributed to Spanish and Portuguese colonization to world inequality and his criticism of modernization theory, Krishna is relatively silent about Latin American postcolonial thinkers, only to mention the foundation of the Latin American Subaltern Studies Group. This fact contrasts with his extensive analysis of postcolonialism and the emphasis attributed to India’s postcolonial tradition of thought. So, only recently the region has gained more attention from IR scholars worried about the discipline’s marginalization of non-Modern, non-Western civilizations and their “worldview”. Shilliam’s (2011) International Relations and Non-Western Thought and Darby’s (2016) From International Relations to Relations International also reflect the growing interest in Latin America beyond the frontiers of Regional Integration Studies and Foreign Policy Analysis. Still, the central themes of Internal Colonialism and International Relations, i.e. Bolivia’s decolonization and the reinforcement of internal colonialism, remain as a relatively unexplored issue for internationalists. One of the greatest exceptions is Cristina Rojas’s work, most of it on indigenous struggles, citizenship, pluriverse, development. Although Rojas is aware of the paradoxical feature of decolonization in the Andean country during Morales’ administration, the author hasn’t advanced her analysis on those frictions specifically, nor has she presented an interpretation of Suma Qamaña detached from its developmental attribute. Nevertheless, her work reveals the increasing presence and concern for Latin America and the themes regarding decolonization among the discipline’s post-Western literature, as observed during the International Relations Association Meeting, held in Atlanta in 2016. Internal Colonialism and International Relations addresses the issues mentioned above and offers a possibility to think the international differently, in multidisciplinary terms, stressing the crucial role played by phenomena that could be considered primarily local (or even national), such as internal colonialism. Furthermore, it offers the reader a chance to be introduced to the works of Bolivian intellectuals, whose propositions are hardly known in IR. This is due not just to the discipline’s marginalization of non-Modern thought, its Anglo-Saxon origin and what is regarded a “proper” object of research, but to the isolated feature of Bolivia as well: publications edited in the country only occasionally are available online or published abroad. This is observed especially regarding indigenous intellectuals, some of them not affiliated to universities, whose works are published by small editors or even sponsored by the authors themselves. The analysis developed here demonstrates the interconnection between global, international, national and local spheres through the analysis of different cosmologies, their projection into the actors’ strategies and political struggles.

Tracks of decolonization  5

Warriors of the rainbow: the Bolivian case When the Earth is ravaged and the animals are dying, a new Tribe of people shall come unto the Earth from many colors, classes, creeds, and who by their actions and deeds shall make the Earth green again. They will be known as the warriors of the rainbow. (Prophecy commonly assigned to the peoples of First Nations) For many people, the year 2006 was an unprecedented moment in Bolivia’s history, marked by the election of the first indigenous president, coming to power after almost two centuries of Bolivian independence, and the symbolic benchmarks of such a political change. This was a major event for the largest sector of the population, composed of indigenous peoples and rural workers, historically silenced in a society built on a racist colonial structure. It represented not just a quest for inclusion or recognition but the conquest of power after several attempts of resistance to the Spanish and Bolivian elite’s domination, the latter often seen as part of a White-mestizo group. In this way, Evo Morales Ayma’s presidential inauguration reflected the empowerment of marginalized collective actors that intensely mobilized between 2000 and 2005 and reached several targets, among them, two presidential resignations.2 Making use of a variety of strategies, such as road-blockings (bloqueos de caminos), marches and the siege of La Paz, the recovery of the historical memory of leaders (Tupak Katari and Bartolina Sisa, for instance), indigenous peoples and rural workers led the struggle against the State apparatus in numerous conflicts that resulted in several dead and injured people.3 In addition, coal miners and some urban sectors, among other groups, expressed their discontent regarding neoliberal policies which, implemented in the country since the mid-1980s, resulted in political instability and severe socio-economic impact as poverty and inequality increased. This scenario of social turmoil and the crisis of political representation led the whole country to a state of paralysis. Among various sectorial demands, the nationalization of hydrocarbon and the defense of Bolivia’s natural resources stood out as cohesive factors and as a step forward towards decolonization, although such expression was slightly used by society in general at the beginning of the 21st century. Indicative of a more radical, violent and, sometimes, traumatic process towards the liberation of the oppressed, decolonization might well be viewed as a phenomenon set in motion and, as a result, something impossible to achieve in the short-term, as Fanon (2004) stated. In the Bolivian case, this expression was incorporated into the vocabulary of Movement Towards Socialism – Political Instrument for the Sovereignty of the Peoples (Movimiento al Socialismo – Instrumento Político por la Soberanía, MAS – IPSP), a political party led by Morales, whose enlarging power base is traditionally supported by coca leaf growers of Chapare, a region where the president became coca

6  Tracks of decolonization grower leader. Despite little consensus on the precise meaning of the term, many Bolivians agree that decolonization entails a significant process of change (proceso de cambio) that can lead to liberation, breaking through subservience to the ruling elite and foreign exploitation. In the country, such a process had been highly based on the implementation of symbolic governmental measures. The promulgation of the Supreme Decree No. 28701, called Heroes Del Chaco, as well as the elections to the Constituent Assembly, both conducted in 2006, brought hope of deepening the political and social change to the population and faith in the new administration to implement it. Furthermore, other measures, such as the introduction of Aymara concept Suma Qamaña in official documents and into the National Development Plan, pointed to new public policies that, at first glance, recognized and included indigenous inhabitants in the State apparatus. It is not by chance that the President’s investiture ceremony was attended by indigenous peoples from several parts of the world. Some of them perceived it as a gathering expected by their ancestors for centuries, others came to the event motivated by the Warriors of the Rainbow prophecy. In this sense, Bolivia was the emergency epicenter for those warriors, at a time when mankind and the Earth were allegedly on the verge of a collapse, on the edge of destruction. Thus, their actions would lead to the reorganization of life, the beginning of a new era in which harmony among human beings and with nature, both understood as parts of a whole, would be reestablished. This is also the meaning of the word Pachakuti, although for many this phenomenon may most certainly mean the end of the world… It is said in Bolivia that a message about this prophecy would have been delivered to the Amawtas’ Council of Tiwanaku by representatives of Lakota people.4 The Warriors of the Rainbow prophecy had been largely reproduced by the Bolivian government for what suggests a way of gaining legitimacy, especially after some domestic events that, for some part of the population, ended the political honeymoon period of Evo Morales as an international indigenous leader and brought criticism regarding decolonization in the country.5 In that sense, the prophecy’s incorporation into the official discourse would work to assure a connection between Morales’ leadership, the emergence of the indigenous as a political subject and their leading role in a turnaround for humanity, besides Bolivia’s proceso de cambio, setting up an interface between the local, national, international and global dimensions. In any case, it’s important to remember that this interface already existed, since Morales ascension to the Presidency is placed in a much wider organized resistance context that includes the expectations not only of part of the indigenous movements but also of an intellectuality concerned about change as theme to be achieved globally. As for the first point, indigenous “resurgence” in the later decades in Latin America, as observed in Mexico, in Ecuador, refers to the articulation of a series of critical actions performed by those actors against 500 years of colonization in the continent. In Bolivia,

Tracks of decolonization  7 resistance is highlighted by indigenous mobilization in the lowlands, organized in the March for Territory and Dignity in 1990, among other protests in this region as well as in the highlands and valleys.6 Concerning the country’s Andean zone, it should be equally pointed out the guerrilla presence and the intersection between resistance and State capture as its objectives. This last point is partially realized in 2006 and confirmed among indigenous peoples of different ethnic groups. To some of them, the endorsement of such an issue occurred in 2010, during the Presidential inauguration of Morales’ (first term) under the New Constitution of the Plurinational State. Moreover, the phenomenon maintains ties with the postulates of critical theorists against neoliberal policies and the enduring feature of colonial practices. These scholars understood the rise of the new government as a reflection of indigenous movements and their struggle for alternatives in the political, social, economic and epistemological fields. It should be noted here a close connection between the “indigenous” category and the notion of “alternative”, a sort of thinking that not only reinforces a mystification of the former but also promotes the intelligentsia yearnings for identifying possibilities of long waited “change”. Thus, not by chance, Dussel (2008: 111–112) interprets the Bolivian political project, expressed by Morales in the manner of a Cultural Revolution, as “a change in the form of the innovation of an institution or the radical transmutation of the political system in response to new interventions by the oppressed or excluded”, and that would mean the “existence of a different project that renovates the power of the people”. According to the author, up to that point, the Bolivian case stood as an example of Latin American events inscribed in a process of transformation that would overcome Eurocentrism in the long run through the emergence of an order based on the dialogue between two different logics and their coexistence.7 In the national sphere, a series of indigenous and non-indigenous scholars endorsed proceso de cambio, observing at that moment an opportunity to promote a real rupture in relation to previous projects implemented in the country. These different propositions reflected the new situation that presented the idea of State reconstruction as a pillar. Therefore, while the constituent member Raúl Prada (2007) proposed the formation of a Plurinational State, characterized by a “Confederation of Nations” that corresponded to multiple institutions and a territorial order in equal terms, Luis Tapia Mealla (2006) approached the subject using the expression co-ruling or co-government (co-gobierno). Having the political organization of Andean communities as an inspiration, Tapia emphasizes the rotation of political office and the link between responsibility and the exercise of authority as relevant principles to reach a more direct and democratic form of government. For him, such a form should reflect the symmetry among different groups and ways of life in a single State, and therefore, overcome the “vicious habits” of the liberal representative democracies, stifled by a series of political party deals that guarantee a minority government. In this sense, co-government would

8  Tracks of decolonization compare somehow to a multicultural collegiate over presidentialism, and this exact particularity would entail legislative aspects because deliberation and decision-making would take place in assemblies. Félix Patzi (2013), an Aymara thinker and the education minister during Morales’ first term, defended decolonization as an educational reform that would give expression to the ethical diversity present in the country, adding to the school curriculum the teaching of Other languages, normally identified as examples of indigenous culture and silenced by the Spanish. Nevertheless, the ground-breaking picture of the MAS administration, guided by the political recognition of the indigenous peoples and their involvement in the decision-making process of the country, is put into check by some events, such as the gazolinazo, at the end of 2010.8 But the following year proved to be a watershed in the political situation of the country. In fact, this is the period in which the military violently repressed leadership and indigenous groups who stood against the governmental project which determined a road construction in Bolivian lowlands. This plan was supported by several social sectors linked to Morales’ administration, such as coca leaf growers, colonizers and peasants, many of whom were indigenous peoples whose particular demands were defended by sectorial organizations. The use of force against the indigenous, historically observed during the colonial and Republican periods, unveiled the colonial facet of this decolonial process. From that point on, there was increasing criticism of the government once the repression reinforced a perception among its long-term supporters that decolonization receded despite the argument of Vice-president Álvaro García Linera (2011) that proceso de cambio, compartmentalized in phases, would be characterized at that moment by the rising of “creative tensions” within the revolutionary subject, working as a driving force for transformation. The debate over the Bolivian process has intensified among scholars, reproducing in the international academic field the same polarization observed in the Bolivian scene. Considering the above, that is, the situation characterized by the close links between Morales coming to power and the mobilization of the organized society as well as by the views of a decolonization rhetoric, strongly present among the participants of this process, and the repression of native groups, this book tries to understand (1) how the relations between the Self and the Other are expressed in Bolivia since the beginning of the century and how they have influenced the context of sociopolitical disputes, and (2) how the process of State reconstruction and resistance to the governmental project reflects the tension between subjectivities and different interests of the parties involved. These questions have come up as crucial ones since they bring up the premise that decolonization refers not just to a material change but, above all, to an intersubjective process, immersed in conflicts among social actors. In this sense, plurinationality (a topic deployed by the new Bolivian State defenders) would have as a primary condition the recognition of the Other in his/her otherness and, linked to that, the attempt to

Tracks of decolonization  9 transcend colonial relations which, although are not still in time and space, preserve the principles of asymmetry and domination based on the notion of the superiority of some groups versus the inferiority of others. The persistence of these characteristics pervading the social tissue and State structure even after the national independencies constitutes a scenario defined by some theorists as internal colonialism. This expression, created in the 1960s and revived in the last decades by scholars such as Santiago Castro-Gómez and Silvia Rivera, underlines the strength of colonial legacy in Latin America that, regardless of the several events in the formation of each Nation-State, assumes an enduring feature and condenses disconnected dimensions a priori, like economic or racial ones. This phenomenon reflects on the paradoxes inherent in colonialism itself and the logic behind it, bringing the possibility of thinking about the colonial as an issue that does not admit an anachronism associated with temporal linearity. It also sets a precedent in subverting the notion of borders only as a territorial construction. The highlight of the Bolivian case that one finds in this research is not about the need to study the promotion of a rupture but, in the context of polarized positions and an urge for transformation, to reveal tensions among the decolonization players. In this sense, this work assumes that such a process preserves within itself a conflicted side that reflects existing disputes and other ones produced in the course of events, involving the displacement of those who traditionally ruled the political maneuvering. Another peculiar issue relates to disputes among indigenous groups (whether peasants or those who live in communities), crossed by a perception of Aymaras and Quéchuas’ superiority in relation to peoples from the lowlands, who identify the former group as “foreigners”, settlers that “invaded” their lands after State policies of occupation/colonization.9 This scenario shows a division among the colonized themselves subverting a depiction of the colonial situation, supposedly airtight and once applied to the interaction between colonizer/elite (represented by the figure of the State-owned body) and colonized/indigenous/peasants. This is so because the conflicts overflowed state-society relations while simultaneously reinforcing it once the State, represented by Morales’ government, became the target of the protests during their second term in office. Therefore, the central issue here is that the renewal of internal colonialism occurs, at first glance, through the reconstruction of a “cultural arsenal”, the rescue of memory and the reinterpretation of indigenous traditions as a legitimating act against the constant physical mistreatment and discursive violence, to which indigenous people have been subjected.

Organization of the book The views expressed in this book result from a 12-month stay in Bolivia (between August 2012 and August 2013). During this period, I have conducted

10  Tracks of decolonization interviews, attended lectures organized by the PhD Program in Development of Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (Postgrado en Ciencias del Desarrollo, CIDES - UMSA), book presentations and local and regional meetings of indigenous groups, in the highlands and lowlands. I have taken part in gatherings promoted by an urban Aymara community in La Paz as well, which enabled me to assist in public events, some of them sponsored by the government and others with the unique presence of local indigenous leaders during celebrations relevant to the Andean indigenous culture, as well as to learn about the cosmology of Aymara people. In fact, this experience allowed me not only to reconcile differences but to live them while fully questioning assumptions that were deep rooted in a researcher’s mind. Once put aside, the skepticism towards perceptions, traditions, modes and customs of the Other and their logic enabled a moment of reflection, distinguished by the confrontation with previously structured assurances where the fragility of the subject-object separation gains a broader meaning, reflecting the coconstitutive feature of the relation between the Self and the Other. The following chapters condense an analysis based on empirical research, its relation to knowledge production and theoretical discussion and a “three-step strategy”: first, I have examined decolonization, internal colonialism and the repercussions of the “local” dynamics. Having understood the Bolivian experience itself, I have tracked its connections to the international and, second, to the global. These previous processes enabled me to finally reflect on the role of the dimensions mentioned above in proceso de cambio, without losing the complexity of decolonization and internal colonialism in Bolivia nor reducing the phenomena exclusively in terms of its relevance to IR. Actually, the role of the international and the global could only be unveiled because such phenomena (decolonization and internal colonialism) matter regardless of their most immediate linkage to events usually stressed by IR scholars such as bilateral relations, foreign policy and regional integration. The book is divided as follows: Chapter 2 offers the reader a dialog with the main postcolonial thinkers from Latin America and other regions of the world. Starting from decolonization, coloniality, colonial difference and internal colonialism, I explore the limits and possibilities offered by those concepts to analyze Bolivian society, contextualizing them in relation to their theoretical background and the information presented by texts, documents and interviews held during the fieldwork. My goal is to rethink the categories mentioned above and promote a debate among diverse theoretical perspectives, crossing disciplinary divides. In order to do so, I proceed with an analysis of how decolonization, a term extensively used by Bolivians, is interpreted by intellectuals that concentrate on the phenomenon in Latin America and the country, specifically. I then broach the contributions of Fanon and Memmi in understanding decolonization as a process crossed by relations pervaded by violence and racism, as well as its representations in the Andean country. This chapter also explores a particular understanding

Tracks of decolonization  11 of the world, pointed by some indigenous groups as representative of their “original” identity as opposed to Western, White man’s logic. Such an understanding expresses a diverse cosmology, based on a symbiotic relation between man and nature, and irreducible to Western rationality. Considering the role played by cosmology to the colonizer-colonized relationship, I propose the idea of a cosmological difference to understand the divisions in the colonial world. This assumption is followed by a debate on internal colonialism as a structure of colonial domination that operates physically and psychologically according to Rivera and how it endures despite the formal independence of the colonies. Chapter 3 recaps the previous discussion on identity, cosmological difference, decolonization, racism and violence as it analyzes Suma Qamaña. Translated as Living Well, this indigenous cosmology is reclaimed by some Aymara groups as an alternative to development and reproduced by nonindigenous intellectuals from Bolivia and abroad. Moreover, such a discourse is reclaimed by Morales’ government as well and projected in the international sphere as representative of an authentic native Bolivian project. In this chapter, I seek to analyze Suma Qamaña/Living Well as a power strategy. On the one hand, it consists of an indigenous power strategy that, in this Andean country, is elaborated by Aymara intellectuals and reinforced by non-indigenous ones. On the other hand, Suma Qamaña/Living Well represents a power strategy exercised by the administration since the discursive instrumentalization made by governmental elite members works to legitimize their practices, which include the re-editing of developmentalist projects and repression. In that sense, the first part of the chapter maps the literature on what is pointed by academics as an Andean worldview, often subsuming Suma Qamaña to its Quéchua Ecuadorian counterpart, Sumak Kawsay. Following that move, intellectuals obliterate important sociopolitical features that impel the emergence of the former discourse in Bolivia. In this part I also highlight the relation between Suma Qamaña and the reinvention/empowerment of indigenous identity in the country, especially regarding the highlands and Aymara identity. Part 2 addresses the appropriation of the expression by the government in public policies, merchandising, and in international events as well, functioning as a source of legitimacy regarding not just indigenous peoples but also international society. Additionally, I explore the depoliticization of the term (its lack of cosmological significance once it’s “captured” by Morales administration) and its easy acceptance in the international, suggesting the reproduction of colonial logic. Part of this chapter has been published by Revista Carta Internacional under the title Suma Qamaña as a strategy of power: politicizing the Pluriverse (see Teixeira Delgado 2018). In Chapter 4, I address the repression of indigenous peoples from the lowlands against the construction of a road in Isiboro Sécure National Park and Indigenous Territory (TIPNIS). The road was part of the developmentalist-extractivist agenda pursued by Morales’ administration

12  Tracks of decolonization and most governments in South America as well. I argue here that the clashes around the road were actually “the tip of the iceberg” of an underlying web of asymmetrical relationships and power struggles involving old and new players in the Bolivian political scene. I proceed with a historical analysis on the mobilization of collective actors (indigenous peoples from the lowlands and coca growers) and their demand for territory and land, respectively, exploring the grammar over the TIPNIS in diverse periods. This chapter also examines the creation of the Pact of Unity, formed by indigenous groups and peasants (settlers, coca growers) to support decolonization and the policies advanced by Morales’ administration towards the foundation of the Plurinational State of Bolivia. During the President’s first term, the Pact worked as a strong support base for the government in a context of intense mobilization from the opposition (lead by the agribusiness elite) and violent conflicts against decolonization. Nevertheless, the ties among indigenous groups, peasants and the former’s relation with the administration changed once the agribusiness elite was isolated from the political scene and, in parallel, the government advanced its developmentalist project, reflecting a regional pattern, regardless of indigenous communities demands. The repression that occurred in 2011 reflects this shift in the Bolivian political game: the Pact experienced a fragmentation. Indigenous community groups stood up as the “new” opposition as the government began to criminalize native leaders from the lowlands while, at the same time, maintained a pro-indigenous discourse condensed in the instrumentalization of Living Well in the national scene and the international fora. In parallel, indigenous leaders advanced alliances abroad against the government, involving indigenous leaders from other countries, their regional organizations, scholars, environmentalists, sometimes making use of a discourse centered on Mother Earth and otherness. Part of this chapter has been adapted and published by Contexto Internacional under the title The TIPNIS Conflict in Bolivia (see Delgado 2017). In both cases presented here, discourse analysis is mobilized as a methodological tool, associated with ethnography. Discourse analysis is one of the many methods applied for critical studies that, in International Relations, try to rethink the subject basis through epistemological and ontological issues. Authors like Iver Neumann (2008), Lene Hansen (2006) and Roxanne Doty (1996) form part of this group, as well as others who concentrate on narratives as a theme intrinsic to the formation of the discipline (see, for example, Adams 2008, Enloe 2000, Inayatullah and Dauphinee 2016, Moulin 2016, Muppidi 2013). Despite different views, these scholars understand language as a constitutive element of individual identity once it informs us of the social practices and its sense. Discourse appears as a powerful tool, crystallizing some meanings and being used either to justify domination or to oppose it. In that sense, discourse entails a possibility of changing hierarchical relations historically employed once it involves the formation

Tracks of decolonization  13 of a new discourse that questions and exposes naturalized political practices. Textual analysis, specifically, reveals actions and tensions underlying it, bringing to the surface (a) relations that legitimate it and, possibly, the logic that informs such discourse, as well as (b) disputes and alliances that permeate and sustain dynamics among social actors, sometimes obscured by the political game. Documents, films, photos, paintings, letters, stories and many other materials are understood as texts that construct “realities” and, as such, are pervaded with intentionality and strategies from those who formulate and reproduce them. Besides official documents, books, newspaper articles about the respective issues, I will also mobilize documentaries, interviews and personal notes from fieldwork in the country. In Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North-South Relations, Doty (1996) analyzes documents and statements that sustain and justify practices of domination which form a constructive part in the formation of individuals’ subjectivity. Throughout her book, the author identifies some rhetorical strategies, among them, classification that combined with naturalization and denial, promotes a hierarchization of social relations. Such strategies, present in the dominant discourse, compartmentalize the actors as dichotomous pairs who tend to reify the Other as the “reverse of the self”, turning it into an object of intervention and exclusion from politics. The author also stresses the relevance of the so-called nodal points, i.e. words and expressions that freeze the meaning and its central sense can serve as a reference to create another term. In this last case, the expressions can acquire the character of privileged signifiers, condensing the actual meaning in different terms, that complement and reinforce themselves. In the present case, the first step applying the method consists in mapping the discourse, identifying possible representations of colonial logic and the Other logic. A second move consists in classifying the representational strategies not only in relation to a discourse typically determined as colonial/dominant but also the decolonial one, set as resistance to domination. Internal Colonialism and International Relations finishes with some considerations on the Bolivian experience and starts with a Guarani leader’s reaction when asked about decolonization in the country. The sentence functions as an opportunity to retake the debate on the process, its paradoxical feature and internal colonialism. In doing so, this case reveals the international facet of phenomena considered primarily as local ones. Moreover, it puts into check the persistence in international institutions of a sacred and romantic view of indigenous peoples under a discourse purportedly projected as decolonial, which contributes to reproducing colonialism. In that sense, the final chapter advances some thoughts discussed previously and explores the multidimensional facet of the Bolivian case. It argues that a return to the local sphere by IR scholars promises the possibility to unveil the role played by the international and, second, by the global in such a process.

14  Tracks of decolonization

Notes 1 Several authors have discussed IR either as an American or as a Western discipline, whose knowledge production (in journals, universities, research institutes, etc.) is centered in countries of the so-called Global North and published preferably in the English language. See, for example, Hoffmann (1977), Tickner and Weaver (2009), Tickner (2013). 2 Here, I refer to Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada and Carlos Mesa. Hugo Bánzer resigned as president in August 2001, due to health problems. He died in May of the following year. 3 Tupak Karari and his partner, Bartolina Sisa, led the great Aymara siege of La Paz, in 1781. This event, which was the object of several historical studies, took place amid a wave of indigenous protests started by the Katari brothers, in Potosí, a city in the Bolivian highlands, and by Túpac Amaru, in the Peruvian city of Cuzco. Although there was a close link between both protests, the Katari’s rebellion (serpent, in Aymara) had some peculiarities which distanced itself from the events led by Amaru, even in terms of general objectives. This incident is present in the memory of Aymara people and the white-mestizo population, which faced significant and diverse difficulties during many months, both in the city of La Paz and within the department. Just like Amaru, Katari was arrested and quartered. 4 Amawta or amauta, means “wise man” in Quéchua, corresponding to the word yatiri in Aymara. Amawtas (or yatiris) are the ones that, by their wisdom, play a key role in guiding their communities, advising their leaders and presiding over religious ceremonies. Considered by many Aymaras as an ancestral institution, the Amawta’s Council of Tiwanaku is reconstituted at the beginning of the 1990s during a process of indigenous cultural and identity revaluation. In the highlands of La Paz, the celebration of Wilka Kuti, popularly known as the Aymara’s New Year, is another example of that process. About these subjects, see Andia Fagalde (2012) and Flores Apaza (1999). 5 The prophecy about the Warriors of the Rainbow, as well as other prophecies and sentences assigned to people and leaders from different parts of the world, are found in the official website exclusively dedicated to the Summer Solstice ceremony, held on 12/21/2012, which marked the beginning of Pachakuti, a new age. See http://www.21diciembre.bo/index.php/es/ 6 Bolivia is divided into highlands, in its Andean part, and lowlands, composed by the East, the Amazon and the Chaco. Lowlands encompass a wide variety of regions and climates and consist of approximately 70% of the Bolivian territory. See Orozco, García and Stefanoni (2006). 7 In Twenty Thesis on Politics, Dussel adds: “We need to embark upon a Cultural Revolution! This is the principle proposed to us from Bolivia by Evo Morales” (Dussel 2008: 87). 8 At the end of 2010, the Morales administration implemented the first unpopular rule during the “changing process”. He announced the end of fuel allowance, which resulted in an increase in the inflation. That decision affected several sectors of the population, which reacted by organizing a wave of protests, overturning the law. This event was called gazolinazo and shown the fragile relations between government and organized society, once the last one remains as an extremely relevant actor, which supports a key role in conducting politics in Bolivia. About gazolinazo, see Prada (2014). 9 About an alliance between indigenous groups, Puente (2011: 355) stresses: “to settlers, lowland people is a little less ‘barbarian’ […]: and to them, Andean people is a new sort of invaders in their ancestral territories, non-violent as europeans, but still invaders”.

Tracks of decolonization  15

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16  Tracks of decolonization Krishna, Sankaran (2009) Globalization and Postcolonialism: Hegemony and Resistance in the Twenty First Century. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Lightfoot, Sheryl (2016) Global Indigenous Politics: A Subtle Revolution. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315670669 Linera, Álvaro G. (2011) Las Tensiones Creativas de la Revolución. La quinta fase del Proceso de Cambio. La Paz: Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional. Low, Margaret and Karena Shaw (2012) “Indigenous Rights and Environmental Governance: Lessons from the Great Bear Rainforest”. BC Studies, 172: 9–33. DOI: 10.14288/bcs.v0i172.2247 Metzler, Judy and Cristina Rojas (Eds.) (2014) Narratives and Imaginings of Citizenship in Latin America. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315765174 Moulin, Carolina (2016) “Narrative” in Aoileann Ní Mhurchú and Reiko Shindo (Eds) Critical Imaginations in International Relations. New York: Routledge, pp. 136–152. Muppidi, Himadeep (2004) The Politics of the Global. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ——— (2012) The Colonial Signs of International Relations. London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd. ——— (2013) Reflections on Narrative Voice. Online. Retrieved 2019, November 1 from http://thedisorderofthings.com/2013/03/23/reflections-on-narrative-voice Neumann, Iver B. (2008) “Discourse analysis” in Audie Klotz and Deepa Prakash (Eds) Qualitative Methods in International Relations: A Pluralist Guide. New York: Palgrave, pp. 61–77. DOI: 10.1007/978-0-230-58412-9 Orozco, Shirley, Álvaro García and Pablo Stefanoni (2006) “No somos juguete de nadie…” Análisis de la relación de movimientos sociales, recursos naturales, estado y descentralización. La Paz: Plural Editores. Pasha, Mustapha K. (2011) “Untimely reflections” in Robbie Shilliam (Ed) International Relations and Non-Western Thought: Imperialism, Colonialism, and Investigations of Global Modernity. London: Routledge, pp. 217–226. Patzi Paco, Felix (2013) Ilusiones y Desilusiones del “proceso de cambio”. Seguimiento cotidiano de los principales conflictos en el Gobierno del Movimiento al Socialismo 2006–2012. La Paz: “All Press” Labores Gráficas. Persaud, Randolph and RBJ Walker (2015) “Introduction: Race, De-­coloniality and International Relations”. Alternatives, 40 (2): 83–84. DOI: 10.1177/0304375415596238 Picq, Manuela L. (2018) Vernacular Sovereignties: Indigenous Women Challenging World Politics. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Prada A, Raúl (2007) “Articulaciones de la complejidad” in Linera, Álvaro G, Luis Tapia Mealla and Raúl Prada Alcoreza (Eds)La Transformación Pluralista del Estado. La Paz: Muela del Diablo Editores, pp. 199–270. (2014) Descolonización y transición. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala. Puente, Rafael (2011) “‘Vivir Bien’ y descolonización” in Ivonne H. Farah and Luciano Vasapollo (Coords) Vivier Bien: Paradigma no capitalista? La Paz, CIDES – UMSA. Rojas, Cristina (2007) “International Political Economy/Development Otherwise”. Globalizations, 4 (4): 573–587. DOI: 10.1080/14747730701695836 ——— (2016) “Contesting the Colonial Logics of the International: Toward a Relational Politics for the Pluriverse”. International Political Sociology, 10: 369–382. DOI: 10.1093/ips/olw020

Tracks of decolonization  17 Sabaratnan, Meera (2011) “IR in Dialogue… But Can We Change the Subjects? A Typology of Decolonising Strategies for the Study of World Politics”. Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 39 (3): 781–803. DOI: 10.1177/0305829811404270 Sajed, Alina (2013) Postcolonial Encounters in International Relations: The Politics of Transgression in the Maghreb. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203497043 Shapiro, Michael (2004) Methods and Nations. Cultural Governance and the Indigenous Subject. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203503775 Shaw, Karena (2008) Indigeneity and Political Theory: Sovereignty and the Limits of the Political. London: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203891148 Shaw, Karena, Stephen D. Hill, Amanda D. Boyd, Lindsay Monk, Joanna Reid, and Edna F. Einsiedel (2015) “Conflicted or Constructive? Exploring Community Responses to New Energy Developments in Canada”. Energy Research and Social Science, 8: 41–51. DOI: 10.1016/j.erss.2015.04.003 Shilliam, Robbie (Ed) (2011) International Relations and Non Western Thought: Imperialism, Colonialism, and Investigations of Global Modernity. London: Routledge. ——— (2015) The Black Pacific: Anti-Colonial Struggles and Oceanic Connections. London: Bloomsbury. Smith, Karen (2012) “Contrived boundaries, kinship and ubuntu: a (South) African view of the ‘international’” in Arlene Tickner and David Blaney (Eds) Thinking the International Differently. London: Routledge, pp. 301–321. DOI: 10.4324/9780203129920 Stephenson, Eleanor and Karena Shaw (2013) “A Dilemma of Abundance: Governance Challenges of Reconciling Shale Gas Development and Climate Change Mitigation”. Sustainability, 5 (5): 2210–2232. DOI: 10.3390/su5052210 Tapia Mealla, Luis (2006) La invención del núcleo común. Ciudadanía y Gobierno Multisocietal. La Paz: Muela del Diablo Editores. Taylor, Lucy (2012) “Decolonizing International Relations: Perspectives from Latin America”. International Studies Review, 14 (3): 386–400. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2486.2012.01125.x Teixeira Delgado, Ana Carolina (2018) “Suma Qamaña as a Strategy of Power: Politicizing the Pluriverse”. Revista Carta Internacional, 13 (3): 236–261. DOI: 10.21530/ci.v13n3.2018.818 Tickner, Arlene B. (2013) “Core, Periphery and (Neo)Imperialist International Relations”. European Journal of International Relations, 19 (2): 627–646. DOI: 10.1177/1354066113494323 Tickner, Arlene B. and David Blaney (Eds) (2013) Claiming the International. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203758366 Tickner, Arlene B. and Karen Smith (Eds) (2020) International Relations from the Global South: Worlds of Difference. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315756233 Tickner Arlene B. and Ole Wæver (Eds) (2009) International Relations Scholarship around the World. London: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203885451

2

The decolonial process in perspective Mapping the theoretical debate

Introduction Coloniality, internal colonialism, colonial difference and decolonization are some of the concepts most discussed by postcolonial theorists, and these terms take on different meanings depending on the characteristics of the cases studied. In Latin America, especially during the period from the end of the 1990s to the beginning of the 21st century, these concepts have seen a resurgence in the regional debate, largely inspired by the actions of indigenous movements that, in the Andean region, resulted in the reformation of the national State. Following a process that began in Venezuela, in Ecuador and Bolivia the wave of protests organized by civil society saw the writing of a new Constitution as the symbol of a project that, although pervaded by anti-capitalist and anti-Americanist rhetoric, extrapolated those issues. Unlike Venezuela, in Ecuador and Bolivia the existence of well-organized indigenous peoples made the defense of decolonization synonymous with liberation. This idea was evoked not only in the local sphere but also in relation to the international, represented by the implementation of neoliberal policies. Indigenous demands for recognition, respect for their rights and participation in State institutions unveiled the gaps that existed in their societies, intrinsically associated with the maintenance of colonial structures. Different from Ecuadorian society, in the Bolivian case the indigenous “minority” makes up the majority of the population, preserving differences among themselves and between them and those considered White-mestizos, with all the ethno-racial, economic, political and cosmological matters that these differences entail. Moreover, the role that the international plays either in the maintenance or the resistance to internal colonialism, being claimed by heads of Evo Morales’ government and indigenous peoples as well, reveals a complex dynamic not always pictured by theorists concerned with the phenomenon. The intensification of the regional debate regarding the concepts mentioned above corresponded, on the one hand, to the Latin-American social context and, on the other hand, to the international resonance of postcolonial discourses. Centered on colonial experience in India and on what has

Decolonial process in perspective  19 been conventionally called the East, those discourses highlight English and French domination as the starting point for thinking about postcolonialism and modernity. As such, they largely disregard the colonial legacy in Latin America. This silence about the region reflects its relative marginalization in the international academic production on postcolonialism. Moreover, it evinces, somehow, a “division of labor” that legitimizes the permanence of specific imagery concerning the region, confirming, to some extent, critical conceptions developed in the heart of “modern Western” literature and even those that do not depart radically from it. Nevertheless, the intent to “globalize” Latin America and seek intellectual space has not resulted in a homogenization of theoretical positions. In fact, the works of Latin American theorists are better portrayed by a diversity of themes and approaches, as well as by a hierarchy based on (a) “the place from where one is speaking” and on (b) the construction of dialogue with academically recognized authors and theories. In this geopolitics of knowledge, identified and experienced by Mignolo, theorists working in American and even European universities are the ones most echoed. Like Mignolo himself, these scholars have their works turned into bibliographical references while others, who remain located on the periphery of the world, achieve publicity when their findings are mentioned by the former. Once we understand this dynamic, it seems to be no coincidence that the subjects of research of authors living in (or coming from) the North take precedence over other issues such as internal colonialism. But it is also important to state that the roles of certain theorists, who have stood as the pillars of postcolonial criticism and whose findings do not necessarily depict the Latin American (or more precisely, the Spanish American) experience, seem to have been minimized by this process of the empowerment of regional literature, and even in the general debate about colonial relations during the period in question. Thus, until the beginning of the 21st century, there were few works that stood out for considering and really spending any time on the contributions of Fanon or Memmi, for example, in order to reflect on the roles of the colonizer and the colonized, and on their perennial quality and the possibilities of subverting them.1 This tendency is prevalent among those concerned with the formation of subjectivities in Latin America since this is a topic that encompasses areas of research based on diverse theoretical assumptions. This observation reveals that one of the conditions for rethinking the region, emphasizing its colonial legacy and its insertion in postcolonial studies, has been, first and foremost, the promulgation of a dialog with the “modern Western” literature, poststructuralism and Subaltern Studies2. In the process, the exchange of ideas with these three matrices acted as a springboard for the reconstruction of a narrative and as a theoretical arsenal capable of redefining the region. But this dialog also demonstrated its weakness in the debate with postcolonial perspectives other than Subaltern Studies, and once this movement had become a tendency, it contributed to the widening of the gap between the parties.

20  Decolonial process in perspective The aim of this chapter is to rethink the theoretical categories mentioned above, using the Bolivian case as a starting point. These categories permeate postcolonial discussions and the discourse of the actors involved in the local process, whether they be part of the State structure or civil society. To accomplish this goal, I shall address the proposals of different authors, many of whom are part of the postcolonial matrix of thought, and establish a debate among them. This theoretical strategy also considers the works of other academics who have addressed the colonial and indigenous experience in some form. The choices made here allow me to broaden the scope of perspectives and thereby overcome the disciplinary “walls” that would otherwise limit insights into the case studied. The discussion elaborated in this chapter will be guided by the maintenance of colonial relations and their renewal through the Morales administration. The emphasis on intersubjectivity and its role in the colonial dynamic are also considered to be crucial factors in the analysis. Finally, the publications of Bolivian scholars, which are critical for understanding relations between Self and Other, and International Relations (IR) theorists will also be addressed.

Decolonization, Latin America and Bolivia Among the proponents of political, economic and social change in Latin America theorists such as Dussel, Quijano and Mignolo adopt the idea of decolonization in their works regarding a process that would lead to the liberation of the colonized, not just in the material aspect, but also at the cognitive level. On this point, they advance over earlier debates, based to a large extent on a Marxist approach, on center-periphery dynamics and the Dependency theory. As the theme in vogue in the 1960s and 1970s (with the independence of the former African and Asian colonies) was taken up once again, the triad Quijano-Dussel-Mignolo has been recurrently quoted by several authors, who give them a highlighted position among the main references in decolonial literature. In that sense, these theorists can be placed as part of a critical move that seeks to analyze regional trajectories, fostering a debate that recovers Latin American thought and establishes a dialogue with the propositions of those considered to be the pillars of Social Sciences and Philosophy. In doing so, Decolonialists seek to distinguish themselves from other postcolonial thinkers, creating an identity of their own. Decolonization was also absorbed by civil society members, who often claim but do not necessarily define the notion. In Bolivia, the term was part of the demands of collective actors, especially indigenous peoples and peasants, who attributed different meanings to it. Thus, for some, decolonization means overcoming the exploitation exercised by transnational companies and the domination by the Bolivian White-mestizo over the indigenous population. This meaning is similarly promoted and constantly evoked by the State’s discourse. For others, decolonization means giving new value to the “traditional” to the detriment of objects fundamentally

Decolonial process in perspective  21 considered Western and modern, such as laptops and electronic products in general. Some people, like Guarani leader Celso Padilla, understand decolonization as reflecting a much more complex process that has its origins in individual transformation and should gradually extend to collectivity.3 Roberto Choque (2010: 37), an Aymaran historian and former vice-minister of Decolonization under the first years of Morales’ government, conceptualized decolonization as a “political, ideological, and sociological process whose purpose is to bring an end to the colonial situation in a territory inhabited by peoples and nations submitted to a series of subjections and exploitations” and added: “Decolonization means to understand the dimensions of the colonial process from the Hispanic or European invasions until the present day” (Choque 2010: 38). That is why Choque, when questioned on the subject, referred to several events, such as the constitution of social relations in colonial Potosí and the resistance riots that erupted in the colony and throughout the Republic and to relationships of domination that continues into recent times. In this way, the historian constructed a bridge between this theme and the colonial experience in Latin America, a phenomenon addressed by a wide range of theorists whose interpretations brought important issues to the surface that had been eclipsed by a debate focused on the primacy of the economy and classist relations. The idea of race and the intersubjective character of colonial relations are some of the issues discussed by these authors through studies that, despite their theoretical underpinnings, have in common the fact that they see colonial relations as a perennial fact, maintained even after formal independence. Quijano’s concept of coloniality of power is also relevant as it revives the idea of colonial as the element that structures asymmetries in distinct societies and the configuration of world geopolitics. In this sense, the author brings a timeless and multidimensional facet to the term, since coloniality is not restrained to the local or the national, nor does it relate exclusively to the formal period of colonization, manifesting its attributes in contemporaneity. According to Quijano, coloniality of power is different from colonial power in that the first addresses the emergence of a world pattern that remains and crosses a variety of modes and projects for domination in the period, such as colonialism in the 19th and 20th centuries and imperialism, whose roots date back to the colonization process in Latin America. Here, more than indicative of a quality of power, coloniality retains the structuring nature of relationships of domination, marked not just by the use of force and economic exploitation, but also by an intersubjective position that is crucial to the permanence of coloniality. Such relationships began to develop from the Iberian colonial experience throughout the 16th century, a period of transformation for Europeans and colonized peoples and associated by Quijano (2008) with the figure of Don Quixote de la Mancha. It was, then, a moment of transition in which the ideas of the medieval world, with its values and institutions, although they persisted, were giving way to new

22  Decolonial process in perspective perceptions and social relationships. It was also a period in which the accumulation of wealth was directly linked to the idea of race, which formed the substratum of colonial difference as well as the symbiotic relationship between domination and racial classification in the centuries that followed. The idea of race, according to Quijano (2005), originated with the Spanish Reconquista, when the notion of pure blood distinguished Christians from non-Christians, the latter comprising mostly Jews and Moors. Transposed to the relationships in Spanish-American colonial society, this distinction was reproduced to create a “border” between the European Catholic colonizers and the indigenous and black colonized. In fact, the constitution of such “border” was first vocalized by prominent figures such as Francisco de Vitoria, Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Gines Sepúlveda. Their discussions provided a consistent reasoning to the colonial process and the fundaments of international politics through the differentiation between European colonizers and colonized peoples. Not by accident, then, their work gained the attention of IR scholars interested in tracing back the hierarchical and colonial character of the international (see Blanco and Delgado 2019, Boucher 2009, Grovogui 1996, 2006, Hudson 2009, Inayatullah 2008, Inayatullah and Blaney 2004, Jahn 2000, Ortega 2016, among others). Centered on whether Amerindians should be regarded as humans at all, these 16th-century discussions constructed a primary image of the superiority-inferiority pair that sustains the colonial world, being translated into Catholics and non-Catholics (pagans) as synonymous with the civilized and the savage, respectively. Certainly, the issues addressed by Vitoria and the protagonists of the Valladolid Debate present several contradictions. Despite the fact that Las Casas and Sepulveda diverged over whether indigenous peoples should be assimilated, that is, converted into Catholicism as prescribed by the former, or dominated through just war perpetrated by the Spanish King, as advocated by Sepulveda, both envisioned Amerindians according to the superiority-inferiority pair. While this is apparent in Sepulveda’s understanding of colonized peoples from America as savages, in the case of Las Casas, his defense of indigenous rationality against the Spanish king or the Pope’s jurisdiction over them formed the basis of his interpretation that infidels should be “persuasively converted, not killed in wars of conquest, to Christianity” as pointed by Hernandez (2001: 102). Interestingly, Sepulveda and Las Casas seem to represent the pair conquest-evangelization that worked either as conflicting or as complementary along Iberian colonization and that reflected distinct forms of subjugating the other: physical domination and cultural assimilation (which is another way to colonize modes of life and cosmologies of the Other). Vitoria, in contrast, provided a legal framework for colonization that is considered by some as the earlier stages of international law despite the role commonly attributed to Hugo Grotius in the literature (Anghie 1996, Kennedy 1986, Mignolo 2009, Scott 2013). In that sense, Vitoria would have had a decisive role in the constituency of colonial international, establishing

Decolonial process in perspective  23 grounds that could rationally legitimate Spanish colonialism. The motive for that is that Vitoria’s defense of Amerindians as rational humans rejected any notion based on divine law, introducing instead natural law as a basis of his thought, namely the law of nations (ius gentium). Understood as a system of law established among nations whose rules could be accessed by the use of reason, Vitoria sought to create a sense of universality that bound all humanity despite their religion, culture or political organization. Because Amerindians were considered humans and, therefore, reasonable, they would be able to ascertain and be part of such a system. Nevertheless, this supposed universality obliterates the fact that such a system was created by Europeans, based on their world vision, and, as such, considered their interests. And this is ratified by Vitoria’s sense of superiority bestowed on Spaniards regarding indigenous peoples. Although rational, the latter occupied a lower position in humankind when compared to the former precisely because rationality did not invalidate indigenous as barbarians (see Blanco and Delgado 2019). So, Vitoria advances that there is scant difference between the barbarians and madmen; they are little or no more capable of governing themselves than madmen, or indeed than wild beasts. […] On these grounds, they might be handed over to wiser men to govern. (Vitoria 1991: 290–291) Furthermore, as Santos Filho (2020) argues, the law of nations was first and foremost a system that demarcated two distinct worlds: the European/colonizer and the Other (New World) to be colonized and where relations were developed through the exercise of violence in multiple forms. The differentiation alluded above assumed other facets in the following centuries, especially after the advent of theories that advocated for the need for a political pact between (European) societies and their sovereign. In that sense, the superiority-inferiority pair will be once again mobilized against Amerindians. Nevertheless, the centrality given to theological aspects will give way to the notion of organized political rule under a contract. And this point, in particular, will be of interest to IR theorists since the discipline has as its bedrock the notion of sovereignty based on readings that historically marginalized Iberian colonial experience from the formation of the modern international irrespective of their identification as critical or not to the mainstream. Either way, they pathed the way to reflect on how the international was formed by producing and excluding Others or, as asserted by Walker (1993), by an exclusionary inclusion pattern that might be lately observed in Vitoria’s reasoning, for example, and that will be further advanced in the final chapter of this book. Thus, it was not by chance that coloniality has been just recently addressed by IR academics (see, for instance, Blaney and Tickner 2017, Conway and Singh 2011, Fonseca 2012, Jackson 2017, Pasha 2011, Persaud and Walker 2015, Rojas 2007, 2016, Sajed 2013, Shilliam

24  Decolonial process in perspective 2015, Tickner and Blaney 2013, Tucker 2018). Either emphasizing racism or knowledge production/marginalization, those authors mobilize the concept to reflect on the limits of the discipline by exploring the straight connection between coloniality, the formation of international politics and decolonization. Despite Quijano’s active production for decades (as well as other Latin American theorists located in universities in the region, such as Dussel), his late incorporation in the field does not just ratify the geopolitics of knowledge aforementioned. In fact, such an incorporation worked to refresh part of the IR literature, characterized by theorists’ attempt to unveil the role of modernity, colonialism and to advance not just on the theme of domination but on resistance as well. It was on the American continent, therefore, that an unprecedented experiment took place, laying the groundwork for other colonial projects and for the emergence of what would be called capitalism and race as fundamental factors in the world’s geopolitical division and the formation of a supposed universal culture. Based on ethnocentrism, this culture achieved primacy due, among other factors, to the annihilation of knowledge and know-how attributed to the colonized and to their inferiorization by the colonizer. The naturalization of this asymmetry gave legitimacy to colonial discourse and exploitation, to plunder the colonies whose wealth, once transferred to Europe, culminated in the development of the modern capitalist system. So, by identifying coloniality with the logic underlying this new pattern of world power, giving it a unique aspect, Quijano proposes a revision of Wallerstein’s World-Systems Theory, attributing a protagonist’s role to Latin America in the formation of modernity. And precisely due to the above observations, coloniality stands as constitutive of modernity. Quijano seeks to undermine the exclusive quality associated with the European continent by challenging the fictional narrative upon which the separation between peoples and places is based, through the compartmentalization into multiple overlapping categories, and which relegate groups and parts of the world to the field a posteriori. The deconstruction of modernity as a European phenomenon had already been addressed by academics such as Guha (2011), who criticized a prejudiced interpretation of Indian historiography in relation to local peasants, whose religiosity was viewed as “archaic”. Later on, Chakrabarty (2000) advanced the previous debate with his proposal to “provincialize” the concept advocated by experts from various continents, who attributed the primacy in modern civilization to Europe. This author understands that distinct temporalities can coexist in a single space without subsuming each other. Both critiques (particularly Guha’s) open up the possibility of thinking of modernity as a phenomenon that, despite being constantly identified with rationality, universality, temporal linearity and spatial division, assumes particular and localized facets. Martín-Barbero (2006) refers to this when he uses the notion of modernities, refuting an interpretation that stigmatized Latin America as a place of backwardness. Nevertheless, the critique promoted by the first

Decolonial process in perspective  25 two authors, which constitutes one of the great questions of postcolonial literature, was not followed by a broadening of the locus of the debate that might rock the foundations of the modern imagination. By establishing a convergence between English and French colonial projects in particular, they endorse a thought process that connects modernity to the role of these ex-metropoles, to the Industrial Revolution, even though they deny it as an exclusively European phenomenon. In this sense, they overlook events from the 15th and 16th centuries that involved other European states and their interactions with other parts of the world, a characteristic that contributes to imposing geographical and temporal limitations on their studies. So, the contribution of Quijano who in making use of coloniality of power displaced the focus of the discussion based on certain experiences of colonial dominance, promoted renewal and reflection about the analytical categories of postcolonialism. In this sense, the liberation of the colonized would entail a decolonization of power, of its coloniality, suggesting the need for a world transformation. Linking the material to the intersubjective plane, Quijano promotes a “return” to Latin America, given that the radical change in the relationships identified with modernity is not detached from the colonial experience in the region. Not by accident, his concerns found resonance in the reflections of other theorists, some of whom sought to incorporate the sociologist’s reasoning and build on his analysis. Such is the case with Mignolo (2006) who, when discussing colonization and decolonization in a regional environment, clearly establishes coloniality as a key concept, distinguishing it from colonialism, which he defines as the ideology of colonization. Through a dialog with the great theorists of “modern Western thought”, especially European philosophers, the extensive Latin American literary production (which does not necessarily stop being modern just because it is critical), and that which was produced by the colonized and associated with resistance towards domination, Mignolo highlights the need to develop border thinking. By border thinking, the semiologist means the knowledge arising from colonial difference and that, unlike a synthesis of two distinct logics, consists of a double critique by the colonized to the Western tradition of thought and to the one that is silenced by colonization. In his narrative, Mignolo tries to affirm the authenticity of this Other thinking, identifying it in opposition to the universalism of modern philosophy, as suggested by the quote: “[…] nomadology is a universal statement from a local history, while an other thinking is a universal statement from two local histories, intertwined by the coloniality of power […]” (Mignolo 2003: 73). In addition to the many possible critiques of this work (from the excessive novelty related to the creation of nomenclatures aimed at demonstrating a break from modern tradition that distinguish him from other postcolonial writers to his own difficulty engaging border thinking as suggested by Blaser 2010), what is of interest here is to emphasize that his focus on building knowledge is related to a particular interpretation of decolonization and colonial difference.

26  Decolonial process in perspective In his analysis, both concepts are expressed in epistemological terms, understanding decolonization as a breakaway from a global project of domination capable of being achieved to the extent that contesting and doubly critical thoughts emerge from the margins. On this point, Mignolo focuses not just on academic work (centered on intellectuals like Khatibi, Ribeiro, Mudimbe, Anzaldúa, Derrida, Foucault, just to mention a few) but on the creation of environments that encourage this exercise as well, as in the case of the Amawtay Wasi University. Also known as the Intercultural University of the Indigenous Nationalities and Peoples, the institution is located in Ecuador and promotes dialog between different cultures (Mignolo 2006: 122). In this way, Mignolo stands closer to authors who analyze the ascension of the Other knowledge, silenced by the colonial project, while seeking at the same time to distinguish himself by absorbing a great diversity of contributions, including those expressed by Quijano and other Latin American thinkers, and placing them in his theoretical proposition of border thinking. This move makes him one of the most frequently cited current representatives of the Decolonialist perspective. Dussel is another author whose concern with the theme of otherness also attempts to bring the region to the center of the debate in order to deconstruct modernity as an eminently European event. On this specific point, his interpretation converges with the idea defended by Todorov (1999) in that he identifies the origin of modernity with the Conquest of America, since the subjectivity of modern man developed through the meeting, or conflict, between the colonizer and the colonized and the world became a totality. Inspired by philosophers like Levinas and Ricoeur, among others, and their influence on the building of the Theology of Liberation, Dussel observes in 1492 and its aftermath the scenario for examining the relationship between the Self and the Other, paralleling the figures of the oppressor and the oppressed, the colonizer and the colonized. In this relationship, the position of the Other as outside modernity, an externality understood as different from the Totality, becomes the condition for the formation of the subjectivity of the Self and, thus, of European centrality at the expense of the periphery of the world, consisting of Latin America, Asia and Africa (Dussel 1995a: 23). This is because for Dussel, modern man, symbolized by Descartes’ ego cogito, has his roots in the ego conquiro, in the figures of Cortéz and Pizarro and in a systematic affirmation of the Self through the domination of the Other. And, if domination was initially apparent on the military plane, it would rapidly be observed in numerous daily practices, ranging from the expropriation of wealth and the transformation of the indigenous population into slave labor to the extermination of “idolatries”, religious conversion, the appropriation of women as sexual objects and the labeling of the different ethnicities as natives, promoting their homogenization. Thus, colonization was reflected not only in its spatial-temporal aspect as pointed out earlier but also in the domination of the bodies and minds of the Other, involving physical and psychological violence. In this sense, the

Decolonial process in perspective  27 Conquest was not the discovery of America, of the Other, but its cover-up, its exclusion and oppression, silenced by a narrative that mythicizes colonization as an encounter with otherness and attributes an intrinsically European character to modernity. By associating modernity with the relational process of building the subjectivities of the Self and the Other, Dussel sees the region from its hidden side, a conclusion that Quijano expresses, setting aside the particular differences between the authors’ analyses, and taking the view that coloniality and modernity are the two sides of the same coin. The philosopher points out the path to liberation in the notion of transmodernity, which assumes the overcoming of modernity through dialog between the oppressor and the oppressed. Dussel describes it as a set of projects that require an amplified rationality which makes room for the reason of the Other within a community of communication among equal participants […]. Within such projects, all ought to be welcomed in their alterity, in that otherness which needs to be painstakingly guaranteed at every level. (Dussel 1995: 131–132) While on the one hand, these authors made undeniable contributions to the study of the colonial issue, especially in regional terms, on the other hand, the centrality that the discussion of modernity and formal colonization assumes appears to have taken the place of a more robust analysis of contemporary decolonization. Certainly, decolonization presupposes an understanding of the colonial in several dimensions. However, the concern to insert Latin America into a broader debate, globalizing it, minimizes the debate on decolonization as a process in and of itself and not as a prescription. Even in the case of authors who, like Mignolo, consider specific initiatives in this way, their analyses are based on already formulated diagnoses of the subject, i.e. fitting their previously understood meaning of decolonization into practice. It is no coincidence, therefore, that Mignolo mentions Amawtay Wasi University as an example, given that for him, decolonization is an epistemological phenomenon. Also, Escobar (2012) cites Sumak Kawsay, or Good Living, as an indigenous-communal economic practice that mirrors the post-development process proposed by him.4 The practice serves, then, to corroborate the plane of ideas and their prescriptive character. In this sense, the proposals outlined above seem to reveal that decolonization, at some point, was transformed into a “must be” with various facets, losing the complexity of the relationships involved in the process that develops in the local and reverberates to the international and the global, in spite of the provisions of this or that author. This is because liberation consists not only of particular initiatives, but also of a deeper, broader process of which these initiatives are part, marked by ups and downs, and by a contingent character, involving a series of developments.

28  Decolonial process in perspective This is the case of Bolivia, a place where decolonization assumes many of the premises highlighted by Fanon, who views it as a violent, radical historical process that confronts the oppressor’s resistance to the liberation of the oppressed in a society built on Manichaeism and racial division. In this sense, just as in colonization, I understand that achieving it is also a devastating phenomenon, characterized by power disputes and the struggle between the permanence and the annihilation of institutions and of the colonial mentality, in a world marked by the exacerbation and polarization of actions and ideas. In this process, the recurrence of the figures of the colonizer and the colonized, and their reproduction in the decolonial discourse, are converted into a constant in that through rhetoric the oppressed seek to legitimize their liberation. For this reason, in the Bolivian case, it is observed the persistence of terms like colonizer, Criollo and Mestizo, especially the last two, which are frequently used indiscriminately by indigenous leaders and intellectuals as synonyms, overlapping the first, even though this might supposedly be labeled as a historical anachronism. Here, victimization and accusation are some of the discursive strategies adopted to display the mechanisms of domination, of a dynamic witnessed at the most basic level of interaction between both. Thus, it should be pointed out that while on the one hand, the logic that permeates colonial relationships is present in the design of institutional measures, on the other hand, their implementation does not occur in a way that is divorced from the introjection of this logic at the heart of society, being reflected in conflicts surrounding the colonized subject.5 In this context, the fight for liberation finds its mainspring in the continuity of these relationships and in their exacerbation. What I propose in this book is to take a step back, i.e. to encourage a return to the locus where relationships develop, emphasizing their procedural aspect without losing their potential to explain the colonial dynamic. In this sense, my objective is not so much to debate the fundamentals of modernity, even though they pervade the broader discussion and are much considered regarding colonial difference, or even to propose solutions for the dilemmas and contradictions inherent to the colonial dynamic. The issue to be addressed here requires, above all, an analysis of how this dynamic unfolds, as specific initiatives and events take place and are observed in the Bolivian case – considerations that could contribute to deepening the multidisciplinary academic dialog. Therefore, the theoretical exercise here will largely detach itself from the Decolonialist debate, but this does not mean abandoning the contributions of its proponents, which I shall make use of anon. Thus, to the theme of subjectivity shall be added the propositions of other postcolonial perspectives and theories, such as the term internal colonialism, or even other factors like cosmology, so dear to them and so fundamental to colonial relations. Below I develop the discussion about decolonization and the Bolivian experience.

Decolonial process in perspective  29 Decolonization and its difficulties: violence and racism To address this subject, Fanon (2004) refers to the situation in Algeria during the 1960s, which furnishes his narrative with specific details that obviously distance it somewhat from the Latin American context and its contemporaneity. However, his perspective offers substantial elements that demonstrate their relevance to the Bolivian scenario and lead us to question the permanence and the resurgence of phenomena such as racism and oppression, especially in societies made up of historically excluded indigenous majorities. Fanon demonstrates how this split acts and has repercussions in the period immediately following liberation, which he experienced intensely, leading him to declare colonialism not as an ideology of domination but as an exercise of raw and “naked violence” (Fanon 2004: 23). But this does not mean that the colonial relationship is not also governed by principles and ideas, by its psychological side and even by what is commonly addressed as “worldview”, which will be discussed later. Even Fanon, as a Black psychiatrist from Martinique who moved to France, experienced the difficulties of the life of the colonized, and its close relationship with the formation of subjectivities in distinct scenarios, both in the colony and in the métropole. However, influenced by the events of the war of decolonization in Algeria, the author is keen to emphasize the materialization of colonial relationships via the use of force, which is not necessarily disconnected from a state of consciousness that pervades the actions of the colonizer and the colonized. It is precisely because colonial domination is a violent activity that challenging it will promote conflict and its intensification, increasing as the degree of opposition increases. In this scenario, the author sees physical violence as a critical factor in the relationships between the colonizer and the colonized that, together with racism, structures, pervades and divides the colonial world. In fact, in the case of Latin America, this brutal violence is mentioned in different reports, ranging from the works of Las Casas to more recent works, like those of Todorov, who in the opening pages of his book, dedicates it to “the memory of a Mayan woman devoured by dogs” (Todorov 1999: iii). Or Dussel who described the massacre of the Aztec nobles by Pedro Alvarado, among many others.6 These events form the basis for building relationships in the colony, being observed at different times in these societies, even after formal independence, and they come to the surface in extreme ways on both sides during the resistance efforts of the colonized. Thus, not only the Tupak Katari uprisings in the 18th century, nor the events of the 19th century but also the Tupakatarist guerillas of the 1990s and the conflicts that took place in the early 2000s are evidence of violence as a structuring factor in Bolivian social relationships, for example.7 The exalted reactions of the elite to the marches supporting the Constituent Assembly and Evo Morales’ government, which involved discursive violence, are also included here. But the governmental reaction to the TIPNIS protests should be considered as well, as it will be debated in Chapter 4.

30  Decolonial process in perspective All these events were attempts to liberate the colonized, and in the most recent period, their actions have taken on a systematic nature occurring in different departments, sometimes simultaneously, and involving a series of demands. Regardless of the specifics, these demands intersect with the criticism of neoliberalism and with the need for a profound change in the State and societal structures to guarantee the representation and participation of the historically dominated in the affairs of the country, in the redistribution of material wealth. Ultimately, such representation could supposedly reach the international society, as stressed in governmental discourse analyzed in this book in the following chapter. Either way, a reordering of things was desired, then, as embodied in the term refounding of the State. Keeping the division of the colonial world in mind, a closer look at Bolivian decolonization at that time reveals that the struggle for liberation was built on a radicalization of positions, on an emphasis on being essentially different, as Fanon observes. In this aspect, not only the role of violence but also that of racism in colonial society should be pointed out, both functioning as two sides of the same coin, reinforcing each other. Therefore, my analysis on resistance must proceed with an understanding of the logic that sustains domination and that, addressed generally by postcolonial authors in their different thought matrices, finds common ground in the dichotomy of superiority versus inferiority. Memmi stands out as one who expresses the colonial dynamic accurately, recognizing the discursive and psychological mechanisms that permeate practices in the colony, perpetrated as much by the colonizer as the colonized. On this point, I go back to the idea that beyond the use of force and its resurgence at times of conflict, the exercise of power in the colony involves an intersubjective element that is fundamental to our understanding. Let us see how the author portrays the colonial world. In mapping the actors that participate in colonial relationships based on his experience in Tunisia, Memmi attributes to the colonizer what he calls the Nero complex (Memmi 1991: 52–53). Because the colonizer knows that the colonial project consists of the unjust appropriation of that which does not belong to him, transforming him into a usurper, he must develop a discourse that grants legitimacy to it and to the system of exploitation, in other words, to justify the unjustifiable. In this context, the colonizer will seek to affirm himself both before the colonized and for his own benefit, in order to live with that reality, and he will do so by exalting what he perceives to be his own characteristics at the expense of those identified as belonging to the colonized. Obviously, the peculiarities of the colonized will be described as contrary to those of the colonizer, such that both are positioned at two opposite poles, one positive, the other negative, a strategy in which the affirmation of the Self is accompanied by the denial of the Other. The overlapping of superiority-inferiority and positivity-negativity pairs is explained by Memmi as the impossibility of annihilating the colonized, since their extermination would result in the collapse of the colonial enterprise. Therefore, and I would add that because it is a group that is low in numbers,

Decolonial process in perspective  31 the colonizer constructs the myth of his own superiority and replicates it through its practices and discourses, creating stereotypes that confirm the asymmetry that is characteristic of colonial relationships. There is no example more current than the reproduction of this thinking among the Bolivian elite, as we shall observe in the chapters that follow. The sense of this narrative, i.e. the thing that turns it into something supposedly coherent and faithful, is defined as this inequality is naturalized, and that is achieved by introducing the concept of race. It is the biological difference that, exploited through the superiority-inferiority pair, and frozen in time, lends the self-explanatory tone to this discourse that penetrates all the spheres of life in the colony and becomes routine. Thus, while on the one hand it justifies the “white man’s burden”, embodied by the colonizer as self-absolution and a means of keeping himself in a position of privilege, on the other hand, the routinization of this essentialized difference becomes critical to its absorption by the colonized. Here, we are treating racism as one of the aspects that Nandy (2007) understands as the colonization of the mind that is felt by the colonized through the introjection of inferiority, through the reproduction of this narrative and the behaviors associated with it. This specific point requires some considerations. Memmi interprets the colonizer’s self-affirmation as a defense mechanism, not only concerning the colonized but also refers to the stigma that the former endures in the mother country back in Europe. In fact, there are countless examples of the negative energy that the colonies represented, associated with the moral condemnation and the degeneration that “were contaminating” the métropole, and that were related, in some form or other, with the colonial life. However, in this case an analysis of the colony itself is more interesting since this is the location inhabited by the colonizer and his descendants. The colonizer exercises his superiority based on racial difference and its intersection with the temporal issue, forging a distance in relation to the colonized measured by the biological “imperfection” that, inevitably, also positions the latter in the past, in a time before that of their oppressor. Fabian (2002) called this a denial of coevalness which, linked to the racial question, will comprise the underlying logic of the discourse and the hierarchy of the colonial project. In this context, I understand that because the other face of relationships of domination is resistance, the internalization of this logic by the colonized becomes imperative in order to protect the colonial enterprise, and especially the life of the colonizer (and his descendants) in foreign lands where the native population sees itself as dispossessed and subjugated. In this regard, I incorporate Nandy’s observation that this narrative is also explained by the colonizer’s fear that the colonized will perceive what is happening and start to oppose the discursive farce upon which the oppression of their people is based. Therefore, the discourse needs to be continuously constructed and reinforced because it is through the repetition of stereotypes that it becomes absorbed by the actors involved in the process, producing a change in subjectivity, an alienation, which in the case of

32  Decolonial process in perspective the oppressed will result in the neutralization of resistance.8 At least, this is the objective that in many cases was not entirely achieved, as evidenced by the indigenous uprisings in Bolivia over the centuries, in particular the one that was led by Tupak Katari, the goal of which was to annihilate the Spanish and Criollo population of the highlands.9 As a consequence, then, the colonial difference represents an abyss, with racism as its raison d’être. In the current scenario, power and the exercise of power take on new dimensions when interpreted in light of the above considerations. The relevance of intersubjectivity to the colonial dynamic and its link with the exercise of power has already been highlighted, when addressed the contributions of various authors for whom, despite their distinct analyses, power is closely linked to the idea of domination. This is because colonial relationships are sustained by an asymmetry of positions between their participants, creating segregation at the core of that society, defining who can perform certain activities, who governs, who has access to certain goods and wealth, etc. Here, both the use of force and the reproduction of the myth of the “superiority of the colonizer/inferiority of the colonized” are essential elements for achieving and perpetuating this asymmetry and impact, not only at a physical level but also in the formation of subjects, lending significance to that experience. Memmi goes on to state that in the colonial world, power politics does not stem only from an economic principle (show your strength if you want to avoid having to use it), but corresponds to a deep necessity of colonial life: to impress the colonized is just as important as to reassure oneself. (Memmi 1991: 59) In other words, in the colonial world, the power of domination is exercised not only materially, but also cognitively. Therefore, the fact that the relationships of colonial power are unequal and structured on violence allows us to understand them as domination. But understanding them exclusively as domination presents only a partial scenario of a much broader framework that also involves the exercise of power by the colonized/dominated. Otherwise, it would require that the exercise of power in this asymmetry of positions fall only on the privileged, namely, to the colonizer or the colonial elite. The argument above calls for some considerations. The first is to assert that violence, according to previous explanation, goes beyond a simplistic concept that links it merely to brute force, but also establishes it in the discursive, psychological planes, touching all spheres of life, as Dussel reminds us.10 Thus, the exercise of power in this world, guided by inequality and by the tension between domination and resistance, is not divorced from the exercise of violence in its multiple facets, but rather, blended with it. Together they create a symbiosis, a vicious circle that presents itself as a condition that both enables and is the raison d’être

Decolonial process in perspective  33 of the colonial project and that, when internalized, becomes a part of the routine of its participants. My approach therefore reflects the dynamic of colonial society in which the ideas and practices, both violent, sustain the process of colonization and the colonial enterprise, creating a mentality or, as Nandy states, a state of mind. The second question relates to the relationship between domination and resistance, which is aligned with the role of perception in social interaction. In this tension that permeates the colonial world, power is perceived by both actors to be localized and one of the outcomes of this perception is to view the Other as a latent threat. In knowing and fearing that the colonized can resist the “rules of the colonial game” and try to change them, ultimately promoting the unseating of positions and the reordering of things, the colonizer adopts different strategies, as discussed previously, aimed at reinforcing his position in this hierarchy. So how can it explain the use of force and, in particular, the reiteration of a narrative that inferiorizes the dominated, if not through the fear that the dominated might become aware of their own power and attempt to exercise it? As Sartre (2006) would point out, the colonized have a secret; they possess the possibility of destroying the colonial world, which sooner or later comes into question.11 Therefore, the act of resisting is one of the forms of exercising power, built on opposition to domination, even though the asymmetry of the colonial world imposes numerous constraints on the actions of the colonized. Also, for this reason, domination and resistance represent two sides of the same coin, configuring inevitably hierarchical and violent colonial relationships. I recall that attempts at liberation by the colonized, when played out to the end, can assume proportions just as violent as the actions perpetrated by the colonial elite, by virtue of the characteristics inherent to that world, as seen in the observations of Fanon and in the examples I have cited regarding Bolivia. Having concluded this discussion, I shall now return to the debate on decolonization and racism. In the case of Latin America, the notion of race deserves further attention; as Quijano observes, this element is initially linked to religion as a political factor. But later this idea of race is overlapped with its biological character. Bear in mind that while, in relation to the colonial-imperial project, the establishment of a colonial difference was centered on race and its biological definition, this societal division in the Spanish-American scenario was largely forged through the transposition and rereading of the codes that existed in Spanish society. Thus, Twinam (2009) explains that the limpieza de sangre applicable to non-Christians and aimed at their conversion and purification had here its equivalent in procuring the gracias al sacar (a royal certification that, at least in theory, allowed for the possibility of the Mestizo population descended from the Spanish or Criollos becoming White). This Mestizo strategy to circumvent colonial social segregation, founded precisely on its mixed-race condition, led to a polarization between strict categories and set a precedent for it to be freed from the stigma associated with its indigenous roots, in particular. At the

34  Decolonial process in perspective same time, this initiative reinforced the polarization and colonial hierarchy characterized by the privilege of the Whites. This point deserves additional clarification. According to Castro-Gómez, “being White” in a colonial society had different meanings from those that emphasized the issue of phenotype. It was related, above all, to the “enactment of a device woven from religious beliefs, types of clothing, certifications of nobility, behaviors and […] ways of producing knowledge” (Castro-Gómez 2010: 18). It was, therefore, what the author defines as a lifestyle that, primarily associated with the figures of the Spaniard and the Criollo, served as a parameter for social classification, and for distinguishing who held positions in the colonial administration, who enjoyed privileges, and who had wealth. Thus, “being White” denoted prestige in that world and, moreover, a sign of power that ensured the consolidation of social stratification, such that a series of prerogatives was denied to the Mestizo even if he possessed wealth. Therefore, whitening (a phenomenon observed starting in the second half of the 18th century and in certain places in Spanish America, as in Nova Grenada, although not exclusively there) represented a power strategy by the mixed-race, Mestizo population, in a dynamic that was influenced by, but not centered on, the biological factor. Indeed, Twinam asserts that regardless of the verdict, the documents from hearings requesting whitening do not reveal, on the part of those judging them, any allusion to the skin color of the plaintiffs. This fact is particularly interesting, given that the presence of a cultural and ethnic factor was one of the pillars of colonial difference. However, several important considerations seem to indicate that there was, at times, an overlapping of culture (a set of symbols and norms shared by a certain society or group) and biological elements, sometimes in favor of the latter, particularly when they involved a questioning of the colonial hierarchy, or in periods of conflict, resistance and the self-affirmation of the colonized. The first issue relates to marriage to Whites that, in the case of the indigenous population, could equate to limpieza over time, unlike the Black population who, as slaves, embodied an irremediable condition. The fact that this “blood purification” was bound to marriage to Whites and, thus, to the possibility of descendants breaking through the social barrier, shows us that skin color and features associated with other ethnic groups seemed to play a role that was equally as important as that of culture. It is no coincidence that the Mestizo population saw biological traits as a hindrance to social ascension and, faced with a systematic refusal to obtain gracias al sacar from the colonial elite, some opted to include the fact that “they looked white” in their petitions (Twinam 2009: 156). While this perception may have been unfounded, its appearance shows us how, at times, the biological overlapped with the cultural aspect to create racial and social problems in the region. During the same period, this relationship between phenotype and culture was present in Bolivia, where skin color was also invoked, but in a situation

Decolonial process in perspective  35 entirely different from whitening. I am referring, here, to the uprising of Tupak Katari, whose project of colonizer annihilation coincided with a racial division that was more pronounced in the highlands, where there were fewer Mestizos and a stronger presence of the indigenous population. If we take the point of view of the indigenous insurgents, the episode reflects an overlapping of ethnic categories and skin color, as well as a reduction of identities to the binarism of the colonial world: both Criollos and Spaniards were negatively branded as Whites, a category in which Mestizos were included since they were also defined as Spaniards and thus seen as “enemies”, occupying the same position as the colonizer. So, like the others, the Mestizos should also be eliminated.12 The racial issues that surfaced during the conflict not only compartmentalized the categories by the duality of the colonial world, but also brought to light the importance of biological factors which, intertwined with cultural factors, appeared to be a precursor of the tension that would reemerge centuries later, when the Mestizos would be identified as and also identify themselves as White: White-mestizo, as opposed to indigenous. Thus, I do not deny the importance of the impact of the cultural element on racial problems in the region, but rather, call attention to the role that the biological factor played and that often was overshadowed by an emphasis on the former. In her analysis of the subject, Marisol de la Cadena demonstrates how the focus of the local elite in Cuzco on the educational component enabled the construction of a concept of race that differed from an approach based solely on biological aspects. This new focus, in turn, led to a broadening of the definition of racism in which the racialization of relationships assumed cultural dimensions that served to veil racial discrimination, giving it very distinct guises, including geographical ones, by hierarchically classifying an ethnic group according to its geographical location. Although she views culture as the primary aspect, the anthropologist is aware of the presence of skin color in the subjectivity of the Peruvian elite, admitting that “self-perception of skin color may have influenced [the intellectuals of that society] to play down the relevance of phenotype in favor of intellectual merit, reflecting racial hierarchies” (De la Cadena 2000: 18). The passage cited reveals how the biological factor, associated with the notion of race in the 19th century, was introjected by a Mestizo elite who, alongside the emphasis on the ethno-cultural as a subterfuge to circumvent it, used the same artifice as a means of asserting segregation, especially when we consider that education in the region consisted of an elitist institution to which the indigenous world and the poor general public had little access. Furthermore, it is known that in addition to the educational issue, European immigration acted as a parallel project to whiten the national populations, with varying outcomes in Latin America. This close relationship between the ethno-cultural and phenotype, discussed above, remained latent in Bolivian society, and reemerge openly in periods of intense struggle for decolonization in the 2000s, linked to the use

36  Decolonial process in perspective of violent means of repression. Also, as a consequence of the pejoratives attributed to the natives, which I shall address in Chapter 4, this group and their descendants attempted to “disguise themselves” in the cities by changing their dress and customs, and, in the case of women, by using creams to lighten the skin of their faces.13 On this point, it should be considered that together with lifestyle, the phenotype linked to White, which includes skin color, appears in contemporary times as a parameter that has been constant over the history of these societies. In any event, this is sufficient to support the argument developed here because it shows that culture and biology go hand in hand, particularly in societies where segregation, i.e. the colonial difference, is more present than ever, even though this division has been overcome at certain times. I understand that in these societies, racism corresponds to a discourse and a discriminatory social relationship whose legitimizing element rests on a logic guided by an imbalance of power and on the dual nature of superiorityinferiority, considering the tension between biological and cultural aspects involved in this dynamic. Once introjected by the actors, this logic is reproduced in the daily routine of local society, so that difference becomes naturalized as a sine qua non condition of the colonial world. Racism is transformed into what Balibar views as a “total social phenomenon” that “is embodied in the practices (forms of violence, contempt, intolerance, humiliation, exploitation), discourses, and representations” of the Other (Balibar 1991: 17). Before bringing this section to a close, when discussing the decolonization initiatives of the colonized, the following must be emphasized: once the division upon which the colonial world is founded has been threatened by the struggles of the colonized, the colonizer attempts to maintain his position at all costs, especially if the perceived threat materializes, i.e. if the actions of the former do not stop or intensify against the mechanisms of repression that, in Bolivia, were exercised by the State and by organized civil society. As Fanon (2004: 5) states, The colonized man is an envious man. The colonist is aware of this as he catches the furtive glance […]. And it’s true there is not one colonized subject who at least once a day does not dream of taking the place of the colonist. This passage means that the colonized subject’s goal in liberating himself consists of assuming his position as the subject of his own history, the command of the place to which he belongs, of the land that was stolen from him. His desire to also assume the status of his oppressor (something the author refutes) is debatable due to the fact that the colonized (just like any other category) does not represent a cohesive, homogenous actor, and because of the introjection of the myth of superiority. Here, the discussion will be limited to the first point, stressing that to achieve it, the colonized will use various strategies, including emphasizing the essentially distinct, which could culminate in what Fanon (2004: 89) terms “antiracist racism”.

Decolonial process in perspective  37 Stifled by the segregation in colonial society, the rhetoric of the colonized opposes the discourse of colonialism by pointing out his own rhetoric, giving it a positive character, attempting to reverse the status quo through Manichaeism. In this process of differentiation, the colonized attempts to recover his memory, sometimes re-dimensioning it and glorifying historical resistance efforts, associating the self-affirmation mentioned by Memmi with the mechanism of accusation. The construction of his discursive function is a way to reinvent an identity, recovering his self-esteem and promoting his empowerment. At the same time, the colonized reinforces the colonial dichotomy, revealing and widening this chasm to the extent that attributing value to the Self occurs through the negativization of that which he perceives and highlights as characteristic of the Other, of the colonizer, or even the negation of this Other. It is not by chance that in informal conversations in La Paz, I heard phrases like: “Do we want to be Criollos? No!” or “Mestizos have no identity, they have nothing”.14 These statements also suggest that the same discursive strategy used by the dominator, which I define here as the inversion of self, is appropriated by the colonized to reverse the colonial stereotypes directed at him. This strategy serves as a condition to promote the awareness of the colonized and, thus, to achieve liberation, legitimizing it. It should also be mentioned that the “return to the past”, invoked to reveal historical oppression, especially in times of increased conflict, also permeates the vocabulary of some who, in the Andean region of Bolivia, use terms like “ancestors” and “grandfathers” in their daily speech to refer not only to their ancestors but also to the elements of nature: “grandfather fire”… In relation to the recovery of memory, the creation of the Taller de Historia Oral Andina (THOA) was a notable institutional initiative in which the work of the Aymara intellectuals was a critical factor. Fluent in the indigenous languages, these intellectuals managed to bring to surface narratives silenced by the discipline. Along with other reports, these narratives constitute the history of domination both before and after the creation of the national State. Thus, when analyzing tales, legends, and testimonies of certain events, these intellectuals included the participants of such events as protagonists of history. By promoting this recovery and publishing the documents in Aymara, the group advocated the importance of the “native” language as a factor of awareness and resistance that, in the context of the inferiorization of the indigenous population, tended to lose ground through the acculturation and dominance of Castellano.15 Therefore, there are many cases in the city of La Paz, of Aymaras who, having migrated from rural areas, decided not to teach their language to their offspring in an attempt to rid themselves of the stigma that, in reality, goes beyond the merely linguistic barriers. Various indigenous theorists have addressed this issue. Wa Thiong’o (1986), for example, defends the preservation of the local language as a means of transmitting the culture and values of the subjugated population, influencing the construction of the identity of the colonized. In this

38  Decolonial process in perspective dynamic, language is seen as an element of survival for the colonized in his otherness, in opposition to the attempts of colonialism to negate and homogenize. In the same vein, many other indigenous Bolivian theorists not only incorporate words from their native languages into their work but use cosmology in their texts, in an attempt to reflect the authenticity identified as essentially distinct. Thus, their production cannot be thought of as separate from initiatives like those promoted by the intellectuals of THOA, who were concerned with showcasing the indigenous world vision though without necessarily paying heed to its essence. Some believe this is the case with Suma Qamaña/Living Well, absorbed by Morales’ administration, a subject that will be discussed in the next chapter. In any case, cosmology is present evermore in the works of indigenous intellectuals, mostly of Aymara origin and living in the highlands, and is being gradually incorporated by their counterparts in the East.16 Next, I shall address the relevance of cosmology for an understanding of colonial difference, giving it a new dimension.

Colonial difference as cosmological difference Given that it is the pillar upon which the division of the colonial world is established, the difference forged and asserted between the colonizer and the colonized must permeate postcolonial literature, taking on various terms, according to the interpretation of each theorist and the specific experiences that they refer to. Thus, in some works, the role of the norms and institutions brought by the colonizer to the colony, and that officially replaced those that structured the original society, stands out. However, this does not mean that the original norms disappeared since their existence is the underlying condition that makes this dichotomy possible in the colonial world and, thus, enables colonization itself. It would be more prudent to affirm that these norms were exercised outside the scope of the colonizer, or even that they were absorbed by and subject to his laws. The phenomenon of the Two Republics discussed by Thurner (2006) alludes to this and, seen in Hispanic America to a greater or lesser extent, it was fundamental to the functioning of the colonial enterprise because the division between the Republic of the Spaniards and the Republic of the Indians forged and institutionalized by the Crown at the end of the 16th century served as an artifice to resolve conflicts resulting from colonization. It did so by establishing sovereignty and rules for both, even though they reflected the inequality between the colonizer and the colonized. Also, as Thurner states, it is worth noting that colonial relationships sometimes overcame this supposedly stagnant division by promoting inter-ethnic marriages and the migration of the Indians to urban centers, gradually creating a miscegenated population that enlarged the existing categories. Here, it should be noted that these changes varied according to geographical location. Within the same country, there were some regions with more miscegenation and others with less.

Decolonial process in perspective  39 In the Andean region of Bolivia, this phenomenon was examined by Thompson (2010) in his research on the indigenous uprisings at the end of the 18th century. The historian shows us that the institution of cacicazgo, the pillar of the Republic of Indians, was established in such a way during the period that it became the target of protest by the indigenous population. Their growing dissatisfaction was due to the deterioration of the role performed by kurakas (local chiefs), a position of highest authority in the community held by the descendants of the nobles of the Inca Empire. These, together with the elders of the community, had to mediate the tension between the Spanish society, to which the Criollos belonged, and the communal indigenous society. As a result, they had to comply with the laws of the Crown and at the same time, regulate the relationships at the heart of the communities over which they governed, protecting them from external abuses.17 However, this situation changed as the colonial dynamic unfolded over time. Sometimes, the position of the kuraka was assumed by the colonizer, or by his descendants, who penetrated the indigenous communities through marriage, disrupting them. Also, many of them began to act in ways closer to those of the colonial authorities, at the expense of the populations that they governed, which contributed to the strengthening of the colonial pact and, consequently, the assertion of the mechanism of dominance over the natives. On the one hand, this strengthening of both the pact and the arbitrariness of kurakas reflected a way for them to survive in the divided colonial world, as Thompson demonstrates, maintaining their privileged position through their activities not only within the communities but also in the wars of territorial conquest. On the other hand, it also mirrored their absorption of the dichotomous superiority-inferiority pair as they sought to distinguish themselves from their “subjects”, and reproduced “the colonial discourse about Indians as being crude beings, pathetic, irrational, sly, and generally uncivilized” (Thompson 2010: 67). So, somehow, kurakas mirrored 16th-century reflections on Amerindians, as observed before considering the Valladolid Debate and the work of Vitoria. The identity and subjectivity of the elite were forged in contrast to the plebeian indigenous population, which proved to be critical to the construction of the colonial world and the implementation of a two-fold domination. Thus, the colonial difference pervaded not only the colonizer-colonized duality, but also the relationships among the colonized themselves, sustaining itself in the long term and having repercussions in the decolonization process, something that is perceived by Fanon. I shall address this subject later. For the purposes of the present discussion, it is sufficient to point out that despite the attempt to differentiate between kurakas and their subjects, the colonized would never occupy a position similar to that of the colonizer due to the simple fact that this would be incompatible with the colonial experience. The works cited above show that as in other colonial enterprises, and taking into account their individual peculiarities, the institutional nature of the

40  Decolonial process in perspective segregation between the colonizer and the colonized was no less relevant in the region that would become Bolivia. In addition, as I continue to maintain, this facet of domination cannot be separated from its (inter)subjective and rational side, a characteristic that is pointed out by postcolonial literature. In relation to this last point, Dussel and Quijano, in particular, offer narratives that despite their peculiarities, reconstruct the colonial process and the divergence between two worlds, two ways of life. In developing their respective theories about the formation of the subjectivity of modern man and of a global culture, they paved the way for us to think of colonization as a process that unfolds between cosmologies, attributing another dimension to the colonial difference. In this sense, I understand that in addition to an institutional, epistemological, and racial issue, the division of the colonial world is also built on a cosmological difference, in a dynamic of mutual reinforcement and intersection between them. Just like the other “borders” mentioned, and precisely because of its borderline nature, cosmological difference is either overlooked, or reaffirmed.18 It is also important to assert that in approaching colonial difference from its cosmological aspect, this book does not attempt to ratify an essentialism attributed to two watertight categories, i.e. the colonizer and the colonized. Indeed, I have mentioned various passages in this work that lead us to question the supposedly insurmountable nature of this compartmentalization, while at the same time, recognizing it as an indispensable and problematic analytical tool, especially when it comes to a divided and polarized context like the colonial one. As regards the assumptions of this section, even though the examples cited suggest an overlap between “worldviews” and the subjects who express them, it is known that not all indigenous peoples share an Other cosmology, which makes them no “less” indigenous. This is the case in Bolivia, where the self-identified native population represents a wide gamut of beliefs and values, with some of its members distancing themselves from relationships that would associate them with any trace of “originality” connected to being indigenous, often represented by what is conventionally called “spirituality”. However, it is also known that a large number of indigenous peoples of the world stand out for this Other cosmology. This does not prevent them from constantly crossing “borders” or viewing it strategically, emphasizing that it is essentially distinct. As I have already discussed, an emphasis on the radically different is a critical resource for the awareness of the colonized, their empowerment and, therefore, their resistance. In the case of the indigenous population, I believe that resistance implies, above all, their persistence in existing, the rebuilding of otherness as a pillar of their identity evoked among them and in relation to the State and the international (which does not stop being colonial), as emphasized by Taiaiake and Corntassel (2005). Thus, an appeal to the cosmological and to the recovery of ancestral knowledge acts as a “call to consciousness” and becomes a matter of survival that can ultimately sustain actions to change society as a whole, as in the example of Bolivian decolonization.

Decolonial process in perspective  41 The word cosmology, often associated with anthropologists, has historically had little resonance in the discipline of IR. Only recently, IR scholars have worried about the theme, most of them impelled by the growing resonance of indigenous and postcolonial studies in the discipline, and the emergence of Political Ontology as a new field focused on researching the coexistence of different ontologies (Beier 2009, Chandler 2018, Inayatullah and Blaney 2004, Rojas 2013, 2015, Smith 2012, Tickner and Blaney 2013, among others). The opposite is observed among the publications of non-IR theorists, some of them natives from diverse ethnicities, that reflect the distancing between the indigenous and the non-indigenous in the academic environment. In her work Decolonizing Methodologies, Linda Tuhiwai Smith captures this distancing, and the clash between different “worldviews”. In this process, the relationship gap between the colonizer and the colonized is governed not only by the construction of a logic to justify oppression, as highlighted previously, but also by the misunderstanding that accompanies it: the inability to understand the Other in their difference, on their terms. This is clearly observed in commonplace evaluations that imprison the indigenous population in pre-colonial times and, as a result, do not recognize their contemporary manifestation as being “authentic enough”. The same is true of their presence in urban centers, especially in places where the repression has been relatively successful. In that sense, depiction of indigenous peoples, particularly when related to their complaint about the essentially different, is closely linked to suspicion or to mistrust on the part of those who judge them. On this issue, the Maori intellectual states that indigenous rationality “based on spiritual relationships to the universe, to the landscapes and stones, rocks, insects and other things, seen and unseen” has posed some difficulties for “Western systems of knowledge to deal with or accept” and concludes that this cosmological difference reflects a crucial contrast between native peoples and “the West” (Tuhiwai Smith 2008: 74). Smith’s arguments can be summarized by the expression Take kunas jakaskiwa. Although translated simply as Everything lives, this Aymara principle embodies the complexity of anOther understanding of life that goes beyond the meanings and binarisms present in dominant thinking, associated with the colonizer and his descendants. Generally reproduced among the indigenous populations of various continents, this understanding cannot be disassociated from a way of perceiving the world and identifying the elements in that world. Thus, we are not dealing only with a coming to know underlying epistemology but with a logic that includes, above all, an ontological foundation, that which it is. For this reason, when Smith refers to a stone, for example, she does so knowing that the meaning of that stone is different from Western logic, to use her words. Although the latter links the non-human, and mainly the inanimate, to the notion of “object”, without any significance beyond its geological characteristics or market value, the native perceives the stone as a living being, the removal of which could result in an imbalance in the environment. This is because their cosmovision

42  Decolonial process in perspective does not accept the separation between man and nature, and many other divisions as well that consist of mental constructs from the modern world. If each and every being has life, then each has an important role in maintaining the harmony that rules the universe, and man is but one of these beings. Here, we see neither the hierarchy about anthropocentric thinking nor the primacy of the individual over the community. The close relationship between the visible and the invisible and their joint structure, touched upon by Smith, are not easily understood by those who are situated outside this logic. Just as modern thought divorces the supernatural from rational practices, placing them as diametric opposites, in indigenous cosmovision, thinking and acting, and all observable occurrences in the “real” world are intersected by the supernatural. To indigenous peoples, what non-indigenous would conventionally label as “supernatural” consists of the manifestation of something that, although invisible, pertains to the natural plane of things and not beyond them. This logic explains not just the sacredness of certain mountains in Bolivia as the place of the ancestors, the achachilas and awichas (grandfathers and grandmothers), but also the statements that position them with the indigenous population as both sides of a dialog, close to an interaction between humans. A similar interpretation is related by Marisol de la Cadena, based on her ethnographic work on Cuzco. The anthropologist describes her conversation with indigenous peasant Nazario Turpo about a protest against mining activities in the region of Cuzco, where Ausangate (one of the sacred mountains of the Cordillera) is referred to by him as a living being instead. Aware of the fact that Turpo’s words express a distinct cosmology, she stresses that they “were clearly talking about the same ‘things’—Machu Picchu and Ausangate. In my world they were mountains; in Nazario’s they were beings” (De la Cadena 2010: 351). When De la Cadena uses the word equivocation, the author is referring to Viveiros de Castro’s concept about the communication between subjects based on different cosmologies: the indigenous peoples and modern men’s biased interpretation based on their own preconceptions, which could result in a sort of “misunderstanding” between them. It is not a question of distinct perspectives of the same reality but, as Viveiros de Castro (1996) argues, of distinct worlds, of the irreducible quality of the indigenous cosmology to the notions of a rational-modern debate that would demand the suspension of the former. Statements like that of an Aymara leader, for whom “logic is limiting”, i.e. rationality is a barrier to understanding the Other in his otherness, illustrate this point.19 This is because reason, as proclaimed by modern subjectivity, is part of an epistemological and ontological framework that is diametrically opposed to the plane of the senses in a way that renders their coexistence inconceivable. Thus, while indigenous thought accepts simultaneity, rational-modern thought sees the contradiction as a parameter for exclusion, which is, not coincidentally, one of the hallmarks of colonial domination.

Decolonial process in perspective  43 The above reflections lead us to think, then, of the formation of modern subjectivity not as the emergence of a global culture but, as Fabian suggests, as a cosmology that despite its universal pretension, has very specific characteristics. The author inserts a discussion of the denial of coevalness in his narrative on the constitution of the modern West in relation to the rest of the world, through an analysis based on the changes seen in the notion of time. For Fabian, the naturalization of time in scientific discourses, particularly in anthropological ones, enables the comparison of different cultures using an evolutionist parameter that, by categorizing them according to the stages through which humanity has passed, also allows them to be located geographically. Here, I draw an analogy with the idea of a scale, the opposite ends of which are occupied by the terms uncivilized-civilized, inferior-superior, and backward-evolved. According to the author, sacralized time, attributed to the Christian tradition in the Middle Ages, and the era of the Great Navigations, gave way during the Enlightenment to a universal concept of time that was allegedly based on science. Moreover, it was a formulation in which time, which is rhetorically separated from space, was spatialized, functioning as an undeniable justification for the classification of peoples and regions of the world based on proofs supplied by different disciplines. This construct of time acted as a political factor, operating directly in the relationship with the Other and forming the basis of a narrative that distanced the colonizer from the colonized, legitimizing domination and so many other forms of oppression in which the oppressed were absorbed into the logic of the oppressor but always remained inferior to the latter. Let us remember that this way of thinking and acting does not allow the coexistence of the Other in his otherness because the difference acts as an incompatibility that is a requirement for maintaining the colonial system. Its force is such that it even permeates interpersonal, institutional and multidimensional interactions, establishing itself as the “logic” behind many other disciplines, among them IR.20 It is through this process that subjectivity is imposed as dominant and transforms the pluriverse into a universe, involving all spheres of life. For this reason, I define it in terms of a cosmology, and in referring to the perennial feature of the denial of coevalness, Fabian interprets it as “expressive, ultimately, of a cosmological myth of surprising magnitude and persistence” and adds, “It requires imagination and courage to visualize what would happen to the West (and to anthropology) if its temporal fortress were suddenly invaded by the Time of the Other” (Fabian 2002: 35). Interestingly, it is to this that the idea of Pachakuti refers… Although Fabian’s work brings invaluable contributions to the reflections on the colonial phenomenon, his analysis follows the tendency of other theorists to link modernity to Enlightenment, obliterating the relevance of the dynamic of Iberian colonialism. Indeed, the author positions that period as “pre-modern”, associating it with the sacralized era of Christianity, based on the idea of “salvation” and, thus, by an inclusive nature, as opposed to the modern era, synonymous with secularization and exclusion. On this

44  Decolonial process in perspective point, I must emphasize that the notion of inclusion present in the practice of religious conversion was not necessarily maintained independently from the perceived superiority of the colonizer, which also indicated a distancing in relation to the conquered and, to a certain extent, excluded him. Here, I am more interested in evincing how inclusion and superiority were played out in colonial relationships than in exposing religion as a political factor, as I have already done. To do this, Columbus’ reactions to his encounter with the Amerindians should be recalled, which oscillated between recognizing them as similar and, therefore, capable of being converted to Christianity, and also attributing bestial aspects to them. While in the first instance relationship between Self and Other leads to the assimilation of the latter, in the second one Todorov argues that such interaction is framed automatically in terms of the superiority of the colonizer and inferiority of the colonized. The philosopher concludes that both reactions reflect the centrality of the colonizer’s values as universal ones, as a reference for colonial relations (Todorov 1999: 43). On this point, I argue that the two behaviors of Columbus are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, if this assimilationism, mirrored in Christianity, assumes the inclusion of the Other under the norms and conventions of that which includes it, then this means affirming that assimilation implies if not homogenization, the minimization of this Other in his otherness; his inferiorization. Moreover, even as this assimilated Other gets closer to the colonizer, he will never occupy the same level as the latter, given the unequal aspect of colonial relationships. In this process, the conversion of the Other (like other forms of oppression that converge so that colonization, in its various aspects, results in economic return) will be accompanied by a perception of the Christian colonizer that his values are those that must prevail, not simply to ensure his dominion over the Other, but importantly, to believe he knows what is better for that other, basically equating him to a clean slate. Thus, while on the one hand, religion served as yet another means of domination and of obtaining wealth both for the Crown and the Church, on the other hand, this situation did not preclude the action of fervent Christians like Columbus, who truly believed that the only path for the natives was “salvation”. And let us remember that “someone thinking that they know what is better for the other” is a thought process that potentially positions the two actors in an asymmetrical relationship, especially when coupled with domination, a context in which notions of superiority and inferiority become decisive, as suggested by Inayatullah (2008). Another relevant point in the dynamic of inclusion under the terms of the one who includes relates to the colonial administration. I am referring to the Two Republics, briefly outlined, whose dynamic over the centuries was to assert exclusion within inclusion, something that would also pervade the formation of the Nation-State and the international system. In this context, the absorption of the indigenous population into colonial society was gradually earmarked by the dominance of the colonizer and his codes, a phenomenon

Decolonial process in perspective  45 that was reinforced by the actions of the kurakas. I prefer to use the word inclusion, rather than recognition because it is achieved through exclusion, while recognition requires not necessarily an understanding of the Other on its own terms, but an acceptance of the difference as such. In other words, as difference is no longer perceived as a problem that needs to be changed to fit it into the dominant thinking and way of life, a door opens for us to imagine coexistence, so essential to society in general and to postcolonial societies in particular. This theme brings us back to other issues that are critical to the subject of colonization and decolonization, and that constitute the material for the next topic: the formation of the postcolonial State and its misfortunes, as well as the notion of internal colonialism.

On internal colonialism and the formation of the postcolonial Nation-State The phenomenon of internal colonialism has been mentioned by various authors who, though they do not necessarily use the term, identify it with a situation in which, despite formal decolonialization, “free” society experiences the same dilemmas and asymmetries that apply to the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized. In this renewed dynamic, the position previously held by the colonizer is occupied by what Fanon (2004) calls the colonized elite, which also includes the local intelligentsia (with Metropolitan airs) and the recently created political parties, which maintained the servile colonial logic through various mechanisms. Among these were the establishment of clientelist relationships, the defense of allegedly universal ideas propagated by the former metropoles, economic independence and the use of repression over much of the local population. Memmi (2006: 4) portrays this picture while expressing disillusionment with the process, concluding that “There was a change of masters but, like new bloodsuckers, the new governing classes are often greedier that the former ones”. In Latin America, the term was coined at the end of the 1960s, deserving mention in the works of Casanova and Stavenhagen who, from different perspectives, discuss the permanence of colonial relationships based on their experiences in Mexico. While the former stresses the economic side, the latter emphasizes the tension between what he identifies as ethnicity and class. While discussing this subject, Casanova focuses on the fact that colonialism cannot be summarized as a system of domination and exploitation of a strictly international nature, represented either by the metropole-colony pair, or even by unequal relationships between two independent countries. In fact, colonialism is a phenomenon that, starting from a formal colonial process, takes on multiple dimensions in geographical terms and in distinct spheres of life, as mentioned earlier, taking on local peculiarities that, especially following decolonization, challenge the watertight separation between the colonizer and the colonized while at the same time, reinforce it. I am referring, here, to a set of practices that continue to be carried out by

46  Decolonial process in perspective the members of that society in spite of the change in status of the former colony. In this dynamic, the colonized who are in a privileged position are transformed into the colonizer, such that the disadvantaged ones are doubly colonized. This situation, however, does not result in anything “new”. In various regions where colonialism was practiced, members of the local elite sometimes occupied posts in the colonial administration or inserted themselves into this structure in order to transform themselves into critical components for the accomplishment of this enterprise. The latter case would be reflected, for example, in the role assumed by the kurakas towards their subjects and the Spanish Crown. The novelty would rest, then, on an assertion of the colonial difference, contrary to the expected direction of these countries after formal liberation and the possibilities that might be opened up to a large portion of the liberated population, which suggests a link between decolonialization, internal colonialism, and the formation of the Nation-State. In Spanish America, the latter took on intra-regional peculiarities during the process of independence. It is common knowledge that in Bolivia, as well as in other South American countries, struggles for independence were assured by the Porteño revolutionaries, gaining the support of some and the resistance of others.21 These positions also crossed into the indigenous population during the period. As Larson (2005) notes, the outcries of the Criollo elite, inspired by liberal ideas focused on the creation of States to be governed by them, were received reticently by some indigenous groups because it would mean the transformation of a system and a set of rules that they already knew and understood. In effect, independence represented, for many of them, an exacerbation of the relationships of colonial domination. So, while on the one hand, practices like the payment of taxes were abolished by Bolivar, on the other hand, they remained in the routine of Bolivian society, though diversified. The previously charged tax was renamed the Indigenal Contribution and, not only the mita’naje but also other compulsory labor had to be provided by the indigenous population of both the highlands and the lowlands.22 Moreover, while cacicazgo was abolished, the following measures were promoted: (1) an expansion of the agricultural border into territories that previously belonged to the kurakas and were recognized by the Crown (the penetration of non-natives into these territories had been shown, up until then, to be less effective in the highlands than in the valleys, like Cochabamba, where there was a strong presence of haciendas); (2) a more pronounced isolation of indigenous groups to the extent that the new laws, like the census vote, excluded them from political participation and resulted in their “foreignization” within State borders. It is in this context that organized resistance efforts emerged throughout the country, among them those led by the Guarani Apiaguaiqui-Tumpa and the Aymara Pablo Zárate, El temible Willka, both at the end of the 19th century. The latter is highly mentioned in the Bolivian literature and is presented as one of the largest and most important Aymara uprisings, comparable to

Decolonial process in perspective  47 that of Katari. Against a backdrop of the war between liberals and conservatives (also known as federalists and centralists, respectively), Willka, which means “sacred sun” in Aymara, saw support from liberals, represented by Colonel Pando, as a way of mobilizing indigenous population, with a goal of recovering their territory and thus ending the arbitrary actions committed by the Criollo/White-mestizo oligarchy. As the conflict unfolded, the violence between the indigenous population and the oligarchy increased and the clashes recalled those led by Katari, focused on the destruction of the enemy and culminating in a change in Pando’s posture in order to contain what had become a “race war”, as Choque (2012: 50) states. In addition to the rebellions that continued to break out during the Republican period, another of the many initiatives that took place in the first decades of the 20th century was the movement of the Empowered Caciques (Caciques Apoderados). They sought, together with the competent authorities, to restore their lands and obtain recognition of cacicazgo, denouncing the abuses they had suffered and presenting the titles authorized by the Crown. Thus, in 1924, Caciques from the Departments of La Paz, Chuquisaca, Cochabamba, Oruro and Potosí handed a report to the Bolivian government, denouncing violations and other forms of violence to which they were subjected since colonial times, adding that State institutions favored Bolivian White population to the detriment of the indigenous peoples, who remained “outcast in their own land” and were victims of renewed marginalization (being accused of uprisings and several other crimes when asking for guarantee) in terms of the Law: the inflexibility of the Law only exists when our enemies demand so. […] We cannot read nor do we know the language in which was written the State legislation […] in Cochabamba, for example, the farmers, following colonial traditions they do not allow anyone to modify, impose us diverse tasks. (Memorial de los Caciques Apoderados al Ministro de Gobierno, 1924). Translation mine. Empowered Caciques also mentioned that indigenous peoples were forced not just to pay farmers to cultivate plots, as in the case of Cochabamba, but also to perform a wide range of services to local priests, judges, magistrates, vice governor and their employees and the residents of the villages in general. Those services included the provision of fuel, goods, animals, the building of houses without receiving any wage for the task. For that reason, they asked the minister to dictate a Supreme Note to stop the constant exploitation. Thus, for the indigenous population of Bolivia, this formal decolonization framework amounted to a recolonization, characterized by the expropriation of their lands and an end to any type of protection associated with the Two Republics alongside the permanence of colonial institutions. This context converged to intensify the colonial difference in its multiple

48  Decolonial process in perspective dimensions mentioned above (i.e. on the institutional, epistemological, cosmological planes, etc.), constructing a border inside the national limits that would firmly establish the condition of the native population as outsiders or foreigners. I recall here that the indigenous groups in Spanish America, while exploited, differed formally from Black slaves as they were considered subjects of the Crown, and in addition to compulsory service, paid taxes and had rights, as Díaz (2009) notes. Thus, by belonging to the Republic of Indians, they were operating within a particular context, different from that which applied to colonialism in many other parts of the world. In the new Nation-State, the elite that occupied the position of former colonial authorities ripped apart the duality of the colonial world, exacerbating the relationships of domination and feeding off of indigenous servitude, and the many other restrictions imposed on them. Thus, once formal decolonization was achieved, the exercise of colonial logic in the Nation-State, defined as internal colonialism, corresponded to the building and reinforcing of borders at the very heart of the national society. Also, for this reason, the new elite – comprised of Criollos and Mestizos – was compared to the colonizer, given its identification with the figure of the exploiter and, above all, the “enemy”. And this figure, in turn, also perceived the indigenous population as such. To the native, then, those who exploited them and criminalized them, now with liberal legal tools, whether Spanish, Criollo or Mestizo were all White and q’aras, or karays.23 In the recently independent States, other means were used to mark the colonial difference and segregation, such as the creation of a national history that glorified the indigenous civilization in the distant past while denigrating it in the present, reproducing the denial of coevalness. This theme, observed in Latin America in general, was studied by Rebecca Earle in relation to young Hispanic republics that also had to “reach” other states in the international system. Considering that history was one of the ways of also classifying peoples and regions of the world, as an indicator of civilization and progress, what could be more appropriate for the elites of these new states than to forge their own history towards the future, distancing themselves from the “mother country” and the stigma of colonization?24 At the same time, it sought to build a national identity that provided the population with a sense of belonging, of adhesion. The current so-called Historia Patria emerged among Hispanics, according to Earle, not only in scientific and literary publications, but also in museums, in the creation of folklore, constituting a movement of discursive colonization on the indigenous population. In this context, the elite sought to immortalize a memorable past attributed to Pre-Colombian civilizations, comparing it to Rome and Ancient Greece, and pointing to colonization as the source of its decline. Thus, the national elites got closer to Europe, their great reference, and hoped to “mold” their population so it might advance according to the civilizational parameters designed by that continent. According to Thurner, the elevation of the native, although frozen in a distant past (in the Inca

Decolonial process in perspective  49 Empire), was less evoked in regions like Bolivia and Peru when compared to other regions of Spanish America, precisely because of their history of indigenous uprisings. But as Earle (2007: 110) states, “to be Inca is quite different from being indigenous”, which, along with Thurner’s observation, perhaps, explains in part the vast Peruvian cultural production cited by the author as compared to that of Bolivia, where the Katari uprising took on more radical features than those of Amaru. In any event, I understand that the insertion of this construct into the Bolivian social imagination should not be rejected because its underlying foundation is present in declarations made by different actors who allude to the notion of progress and civilization as a watershed between those who make up the social fabric, including the indigenous population itself. Moreover, if we consider that the very notion of development has its roots in this same line of thinking, as Grosfoguel (2008) suggests, we shall observe that Historia Patria is inserted into a whole range of efforts promoted in these young States during the Republican period, all aimed at promoting the building of the nation and its insertion into the international system. Miscegenation was another relevant mechanism broadly pursued by the successive governments as a critical factor for the formation of the Nation-State and its “modernization”. This is because being equated with the synthesis of the colonizer and the colonized as it were the Mestizos were a clean slate, based upon which a new society would emerge that would overcome the polarizations between their “founding fathers” and the entire colonial past.25 On the one hand, this thinking, by emphasizing the figure of the Mestizo and not that of the Criollo and his descendants, could reflect a context in which the distance between two poles of the colonial world was reduced, running contrary to the proposals of the Historia Patria. On the other hand, miscegenation reinforces this colonial difference to the extent that the emphasis on the third player serves to obliterate the indigenous one, as has occurred in many societies in Hispanic America, in the midst of a debate about the pros and the cons attributed to the figure of the Mestizo. And, as it became transformed into a State policy, miscegenation, both in its biological and cultural/classist aspects, joined with the other measures aimed at the construction of a national entity; at a homogenization that was never completely achieved and that was only possible through the silencing and denial of Other modes of existence, which Chatterjee (1993) called “heterogeneous times”, also alluded to by Shapiro (2000, 2004) and by Rae (2002).26 In this process, homogenization did not mean the disappearance of differences, but rather, their submission to the “national”, especially in locations where there was an indigenous majority, contributing to the permanence of a context conducive to the exercising of colonial relationships amidst the fragilities inherent to the construction of an “imagined community”, in the words of Anderson (2006).27 In Bolivia, the absorption of Mestizos and the emphasis placed on them were pursued as State policy during the National Revolution of 1952, an event

50  Decolonial process in perspective that was a historic milestone, and that Zavaleta Mercado considers to be “the second Bolivian State cycle” during the 20th century, marked by democratization and by the reconfiguration of political forces (Zavaleta Mercado 2008: 11). During this period, which ended in 1964 with the establishment of the military regime, various measures were implemented, among them the nationalization of the mines, the agrarian reform and the universal vote, and miscegenation was associated with the implementation of “progressive” policies. While, in the urban centers, this meant the creation and consolidation of the unions, in rural areas, which accounted for a large percentage of Bolivian production and of the indigenous population, many of whom lived in a community system, modernization and unionization brought privatization and the allotment of lands. Thus, whether through the figure of the laborer or the peasant, revolutionary nationalism sought to integrate the native population, endowing it with another identity capable of sustaining the idea of “being Bolivian” instead of “being Aymara, Quéchua, or Guarani”, with the aim of forging and consolidating the nation and, simultaneously, boosting and diversifying the economy, and thereby promoting the development of the country. I consider this to be a fundamental point because distinct indigenous groups were designated, above all, by their ethnic identity, whose territorial boundaries did not coincide with the national boundaries. Therefore, linking citizenship to “being Bolivian” was an attempt to create a key reference among this population through identification with the State. It was necessary, therefore, to overcome ethnic self-identification, creating class identities that, in parallel to the idea of a nation, would also function as the foundation of this “integrating” political-social pact, mediated by clientelism between the party and the unions. This strategy, however, failed to fully establish itself, coming up against tensions between national and ethnic sentiments, particularly with the rise of movements to rebuild the indigenous identity amidst re-democratization and the neoliberal policies of the 1980s and 1990s. In the highlands, these changes were accompanied by an ideological debate defending the rejection of the national. This tension is observed even in recent years, particularly among the Aymara, involving several themes that pervade Bolivian political discussion, like the maritime dispute with Chile revived by Morales. While some take a “patriotic” position, i.e. in accordance with national demand, others assume a critical posture, making statements like the following: Everyday we have heard about the sea, the sea, the sea… One of the issues that Fausto Reinaga exposed clearly is that the sea never stoped being ours, the sea is ours. To the Aymara is his sea, to the Quéchua is his sea, because our peoples had their sea. So, certainly the government we have, despite the changes promoted, despite all that, still hasn’t gotten any closer to what proposed Reinaga […]. (Hilda Reinaga, El Alto Public University, March 2013. Colloquium on Fausto Reinaga)

Decolonial process in perspective  51 This tension between the national and its Other, represented by the indigenous population, reflects the duality of the colonial world and its exacerbation, observed to a greater or lesser degree in Latin America and that, in cases like Bolivia, appear to be a constant theme. For this reason, the theme of decolonialization echoes in this society, as opposed to others in the surrounding region, whose national project made decolonization look like a marginalized struggle associated with specific groups, though no less important. This, however, did not stop theorists from different parts of the continent from capturing the enduring feature of colonial difference. Thus, Casanova (2009: 96) states that “the indigenous community is a colony within the national borders”, whose relations are marked by racism, exploitation of its members, and by interactions between what the author calls distinct civilization, an idea that approaches the concept multisocietal discussed by Tapia (2006) in relation to Bolivian society.28 Later, in an attempt to improve his position, the theorist centers his research on the economic face of internal colonialism, to which he attributes a structural nature that, articulated with the history of the constitution and internationalization of capital, promotes the renewal of forms of domination. Casanova (2006) suggests a need to rethink internal colonialism through economics, relating it to the multiple dimension of the colonial phenomenon, while downplaying the presence of the double ethnicity-culture and the racial factor that are so relevant to the Bolivian case in this complex relationship. However, as the passage above reveals, the author’s contribution lies in the fact that he brought this boundary inside the national border, enabling its inclusion in a broader discussion, in which formal decolonization and internal colonialism represent the establishment of a dual border: an international one that separates indigenous populations belonging to the same ethnic group, and another that divides indigenous and non-indigenous populations internally, representing a limitation that is not merely a geographical demarcation, but touches on temporal and intersubjective aspects as well, in other words, the colonial difference. Both borders reproduce, in radical form, this underlying division that is essential to sustain relationships of domination. The first case, widely discussed by scholars and among the various indigenous movements, is not the focus of this book. Contrary to what many might expect from any work in the field of IR, I shall concentrate on the second phenomenon, keeping in mind the proposal of promoting a “return to the local” where the events are closely related to other spheres and will be absorbed by the demands and denouncements of the indigenous groups beyond the State boundaries, as will be discussed in the following chapters. And, as with colonialism, which takes on peculiarities depending on the context, region, time period and administration by the métropole, internal colonialism has its own characteristics, depending not only on the colonial “past” but also on the dynamics witnessed in each State. At the same time, its manifestation in different regions as well as in other spheres

52  Decolonial process in perspective may have similarities. It is, therefore, an issue that is essentially local, yet simultaneously multidimensional. In her study on Bolivia, Silvia Rivera (1993, 2010) highlights the racial (in its cultural and biological aspects) rather than the economic situation as a structuring factor in colonial relationships. The racial aspect, therefore, assumes a primary role in the dynamics of the national society. The sociologist expands on the impact of tension between race and class, discussed by Stavenhagen (1965), for whom the colonial character of the relationship in Mexico in the 1960s still overshadowed class. Another relevant point is that, precisely because of the focus of her work, and because it was written in the 1990s, the author is aware of the particulars of the Bolivian case, including, among other issues, the fact that the indigenous population had gradually migrated to the big cities, resulting in changes in the subjectivity of their descendants. Like much of the research published in Bolivia, Rivera concentrates on the highlands and valleys. Despite the gap that exists in relation to the dynamics witnessed in the East, this focus does not compromise her central argument or her conceptual ideas. Among these, the terms colonial horizon and internal colonialism should be highlighted, which assume a co-constitutive character, even though they are not equivalents and are not mutually exclusive. Let us see how the author constructs her narrative. For Rivera, relationships within Bolivian society are founded on colonial factors, despite the different historical events and changes observed in the country during the course of its formation. This is explained by the notion of horizon which, as opposed to a defined period, enables the colonial to cut across history and, in doing so, subvert an “anachronism” associated with the partitioning of time. By overlapping the Liberal and Populist horizons identified in the post-Independence period and the Revolution of 1952, respectively, the continuity of the colonial demonstrates the coexistence of time and a way of life, precisely the opposite to that observed in modern Western cosmology as interpreted by Fabian. In this sense, it breaks with the discursive myth that one historical period is superseded by the next, and suggests that linearity has no place in this scenario which, in spite of formal decolonization, is marked by a logic inherent to colonialism. It also breaks with the myth of the Nation-State as a homogenous entity and as a blank canvas where the national elite seeks to free themselves from their colonial past while maintaining its structure. Thus, the Republican world sets itself apart not for its rigid separation between the “colonial”, “liberal”, and “progressive” historical cycles but rather by the intersection between them, such that the former takes on a character based on social relationships, constituting what Rivera labels internal colonialism. The historian and sociologist (1993: 30) highlights that such cycles “have only refuctionalized long-term colonial structures, converting them into modalities of internal colonialism that remain crucial when we explain internal stratification of Bolivian society, its fundamental social contradictions and the specific mechanisms of exclusion-segregation”. For her, such mechanisms operate not just in State

Decolonial process in perspective  53 structure but on the most basic level, constituting historical and latent forms of violence (Rivera 1993: 30). The above passage condenses Rivera’s proposal that, by using the idea of a colonial horizon that overlaps the others, enables us to think of the permanence of the former beyond the Populist period, encompassing the Neoliberal period, and ultimately, the present day, marked by decolonial rhetoric and a break from previous times. In this sense, by identifying the refunctionalization of colonial logic and practices in the political measures in various periods, the historian is attentive to the fact that no matter what shape it takes, the essence of the colonial world persists in present-day Bolivian society, being reproduced by social actors. The perpetuation of the colonial mentality is ultimately linked to its introjection, turning intersubjectivity into a powerful constitutive factor of the behavior of the actors because, in addition to the material issue, it reflects a racial factor and the binary pairs associated with it. It should be remembered that race, although a category that encompasses the cultural and the biological, is framed by the dominant discourse in order to legitimize segregation and domination in the structure of the colonial world. And superimposed on economics, race acts to define which actors will perform certain activities and, especially, who will enjoy the privileges that are initially associated with “being White”. This framework was gradually structured in accordance with the gradations between the two initial poles: White and Indigenous. They represent the top and the bottom of the social pyramid, with the Black slave occupying an even lower position. The many other classifications found between these two extremes were explored by Castro-Gómez in his work on internal colonialism in Nova Granada and go far beyond Mestizo (closer to the White/ Spanish/Criollo) and Cholo (urbanized indigenous), which are often noted by Bolivian theorists.29 But the issue to be highlighted here is that in the colonial dynamic, social behavior reflects both this intersection between economic activity and racial ties and the absorption of the thinking that gives meaning to this relationship. Thus, those who occupy a specific position act in a way that inferiorizes those located in the social stratum immediately below them and so on, establishing a mimicry that corroborates the asymmetry of the relationships in that society and the logic behind them. Rivera (1993: 67) calls this the “colonial domination relationship chain”, touched upon by other postcolonialists like Nandy (2007) for whom, faced with the inexorable scenario that plagues life in the colony, this mimicry reflects an attempt at a defense mechanism by the colonized. Memmi also refers to this scenario, which he defines as the “pyramid of petty tyrants”, “each one, socially oppressed by another more powerful than himself, always finds someone less powerful whom he can lean on and so is converted into a tyrant” (Memmi 1991: 17). And the one who is discriminated against, inferiorized, will perpetrate inferiorization, denial, segregation and discrimination against those less powerful because, even if he is rich and culturally and biologically closer to “White”, he will, in fact, never

54  Decolonial process in perspective be White. Therefore, cognitive element is critical to the discussion developed here because the permanence of the colonial horizon is explained not only by the formation of institutional measures aimed at maintaining the asymmetry among the social groups but also by the internalization of this logic and the alienation associated with it. Also, while this alienation has not been sufficient to ensure that the privileges of the elite be maintained indefinitely – because to assume otherwise would be equivalent to covering up the entire history of resistance in the colonial societies (in Bolivia in particular), to underestimate the colonized and to ignore the intrinsic paradoxes in the colonial project – it is alive in the imaginations of many, even among different indigenous groups, who replicate this inferiorization among themselves amidst power struggles with the Executive and over land/territory. I shall address this in Chapter 4. However, it should be noted that the same logic that underpins this particular framework also applies to whitening as a power and survival strategy amidst the exploitation and the inferiority complex that mark the lives of the colonized, and that Fanon (2008) experienced during his years in Martinique and France. Therefore, the encouragement of inter-ethnic marriages and the search for facial lightening, as mentioned before, are not isolated examples but rather distinct expressions of the same, more widespread phenomenon that promotes an artificial gradation among the participants of this Manichean world, in accordance with the superiority/inferiority binomial and its colonizer/colonized equivalent.30 The considerations set out so far seem to suggest that this vicious circle did not end with the changes introduced with Morales’ election to the presidency and the founding of the Plurinational State. It is plausible to think that this event, unprecedented in Bolivian history, would be accompanied by measures that, on the one hand, would promote an overthrow of the old order, but, on the other hand, reproduce the mechanisms of segregation that shifted, during the course of the Republic, from an openly exclusionary attitude and adopted one of exclusionary inclusion. However, it must be pointed out that one mechanism does not cancel out the other as both of them can be used in the same historical period or during the same governmental administration, mutually reinforcing each other. This is the case, for example, with neoliberalism, whose political measures sought to promote inclusion under the category of multiculturalism in its State version and, at the same time, a gaping exclusion in the economic environment. I have already referred to the blatant exclusion of post-Independence and to the exclusionary inclusion that was used during the Populist period, through an emphasis on the national and the promotion of citizenship. A brief discussion of the Neoliberal period is warranted here as it will be referred to throughout this work. As mentioned previously, Neoliberal measures began to be introduced in Bolivia in the mid-1980s, alongside a re-democratization and reform of the State structure, positioning it within the expanding panorama of liberal institutions worldwide. At the local level, this strengthening of ties between the political and the economic translated into various events. In the political

Decolonial process in perspective  55 environment, liberalization was felt in the concentration of power under the Executive by attributing legislative prerogatives to it. This phenomenon, known as hyperpresidentialism, allowed the president to govern using provisional measures or, in the Bolivian case, through decrees (the Supreme Decrees), in place until today. Additionally, the emphasis on the liberal side of the institutions corresponded to the promotion of exclusion, whether through altering the existing laws or drafting new regulations. Among these the Law of Popular Participation (Ley 1551) should be highlighted, enacted under the first mandate of Sánchez de Lozada, in 1994, which recognized rural villages with predominantly indigenous populations as municipalities, opening up the possibility for inhabitants to hold local offices. But, while on the one hand the law promoted an opening up of democracy, on the other hand, it did so in accordance with the liberal standards of the Nation-State, excluding indigenous autonomies and associating the occupation of offices with party affiliation. Thus, integration occurred, once again, through homogenization in the political environment, with the institutions and highest positions in the State hierarchy remaining primarily in the hands of the White-mestizo elite. At the economic level, following the recommendations of international institutions like the World Bank, the Neoliberal policies encompassed the capitalization of public companies, some in strategic sectors, that linked privatization to the creation of pension funds, responsible for 50% of their shares; the emergence of regulatory agencies; the casualization of labor; the closing of the mines, which further weakened the labor movement; an increase in the cost of living and the subsequent impoverishment of most Bolivians, further widening the gap in relation to the elite, among other factors. In the area of hydrocarbons, the role of the Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) was greatly reduced when the production chain (comprised of exploration, prospecting, refining, transport and marketing) was assumed by transnationals acting under joint venture contracts. Moreover, the new legislation stipulated the reversion of 50% of the royalties on existing reserves and only 18% on new discoveries to the Bolivian State, in a country highly dependent on the exportation of natural gas.31 This panorama, which resulted in increasing popular dissatisfaction and the mobilization of the organized civil society, reached its peak during Lozada’s second term, with higher taxes, privatization of water services in El Alto and the plan for a project to export natural gas via Chile to the US. These measures triggered countless demonstrations that continued even after the president’s resignation. During the government of his successor, Carlos Mesa, the country was the stage for approximately 800 confrontations over a period of 20 months.32 Among the most important, it should be mentioned the War over Water (Guerra del Agua), five years after the wave of protests triggered in Cochabamba over the same issue, which will be discussed in the next chapter, and especially the War over Gas (Guerra del Gas), which was extremely violent and involved strong State repression. Thus, the

56  Decolonial process in perspective Neoliberal period brings together the two forms of exclusion mentioned above in episodes that, while seemingly unrelated, are parts of the same framework. Even what might be envisioned as a broadening of the democratic scene, in fact, consists of yet another way to absorb the difference without acknowledging it since its implementation conforms to a strictly liberal mold. Moreover, this process goes hand in hand with the maintenance of segregation through force, as was noted above. Finally, it should be stressed once more that the permanence of the colonial in the formal institutional framework occurs at the same time as its practice in the routines of society. This point affirms the perception defended in this book that decolonialization is seen not only in relation to the international, represented a priori (and in a most superficial analysis) by transnationals and by the United States as the bastion of neoliberalism, both functioning as the “enemy” that can briefly unite a fragmented society. Decolonization, above all, is an internal process launched from the “local”, from the “national”, from the very fabric of Bolivian society, being projected and reproduced “abroad”, where the “international” might function as a “platform” to the enactment of domination and resistance by those involved in such a process, as will be observed in the following chapters. Here, I refer not only to official representatives but also to those who have been systematically marginalized despite “inclusion” measures, that is, peasants and indigenous population who have long been treated as synonymous. Hence, several authors in the country attribute a type of “revolutionary vanguard” to the latter that was reproduced by the Morales government and that, in fact, concealed a series of contradictions within this same collective actor.33 As pointed out by Fanon, the role of the indigenous population is explained by the fact that it represents the figure of the colonized, doubly dominated and exploited, which is not to disregard their heterogeneity or the complexity of relationships in the Bolivian scenario characterized by growing socio-economic change and a rearrangement of political forces. For now, the issues that have been discussed up to this point appear to be sufficient for an evaluation of the two subsequent cases that will help to sketch out a panorama of decolonization in that country and its relation to internal colonialism and global politics, focusing on the period stretching from the inauguration of Morales to the Presidency and the first government under the constitution of the Plurinational State.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have attempted to map the theoretical debate and, above all, think about it in relation to the Bolivian scenario by incorporating historical facts in order to envision how this arsenal helps us to understand the contemporary process of decolonization. At this point, distinct perspectives and fields of study were mobilized, articulating discussions that, while based on different disciplines, share otherness as their point of inflection.

Decolonial process in perspective  57 This theme is fundamental to an understanding of the relationships of domination and resistance in the colonial world because this dynamic involves the presence and the affirmation of difference, whether to perpetuate the colonizer’s privileges arising from the asymmetry of power, or as a means to make the colonized aware of it, transforming this negative difference into a source of power. In any case, the establishment of difference as something natural or authentic, attempting to give legitimacy to the discourse of those who reproduce it, shows how this difference functions as a playing field, sometimes for change, sometimes to challenge the rules of the colonial game. In both cases, the “biological-cultural” factor associated with the idea of race in the region remains a constant to be invoked in these discourses as a reflection of the colonial while at the same time, intersecting with the cosmological singularities in which they are produced. In this sense, the colonial difference understood as a border symbolizes the place not only of possibilities but also of contradictions. Another issue revolves around the fact that the relationships discussed in this work are pervaded by violence as a structural element that cuts across different dimensions of that world, beyond the use of physical force, appearing also as discursive and psychological violence, all internalized and routinized by its members as a sign of the tension inherent to the colonial dynamic that is reflected in decolonization. In the chapters that follow, I attempt to analyze the interaction developed within the Bolivian social fabric and the alliances formed between the government and social organizations, and among the latter themselves, putting them in perspective by using specific cases. I also observe the strategies used by both sides and the intersubjective issue that exists between the actors, taking into account the continuity and reinvention of the colonial in the midst of efforts made towards liberation. Finally, I analyze the flood of local events and their constant interface with other action planes, giving them a multidimensional nature, and stress out the role of the international and the global in such connections.

Notes 1 Among the authors who focus on the works of Fanon, I highlight Homi Bhabha (1994). 2 On such dialogue, see Moraña, Dussel and Jáuregui (2008), “Coloniality at Large, Latin America and the Postcolonial Debate”, Latin American Subaltern Studies Group (1993), “Founding Statement” and Mallon (1994), “The Promise and Dilemma of Subaltern Studies: Perspectives from Latin American History”. 3 Interview with Celso Padilla (2012) 4 Regarding Sumak Kawsay and its particulars pertinent to this theme, refer to the next chapter. 5 Here, I have opted to use the qualifier colonized instead of colonial because I understand the latter to refer to a situation of domination that assumes the presence of both the colonized and the colonizer, affecting the subjectivity of both, as highlighted by Nandy (2007) and Memmi (1991).

58  Decolonial process in perspective 6 Regarding this episode, Dussel refers to the report in the Florentine Codex: The Spaniards took up positions at the exits and entrances… […] then entered the sacred patio and commenced murdering people. […] In some cases they attacked from behind, carving out entrails, which spread all over the earth. They tore off heads and sliced them open, leaving bodies lifeless […]. (Dussel 1995: 44–45) 7 Here, I’m referring to the Ejercito Guerrillero Tupac Katari (EGTK), formed in 1991 with the objective of liberating the indigenous population and ‘capturing’ the political power centered in the figure of the State. Led by Felipe Quispe, Álvaro Garcia Linera, the vice-president of the Plurinational State, was among the group’s members. 8 Memmi (1991) makes an analogy to the notion of accusation directed at an individual, and here we might include the public character of the act: the more the accusation is publically repeated, at some point the accused may incorporate it, doubting himself and accepting the “facts” of which he has been accused. 9 Of the forms of violence practiced by the indigenous population during the insurrection, Thompson says the following: “Some forms of indigenous violence – for example, when they decapitated their victims, removed the heart, drank their blood or mutilated their bodies – were ritual acts that symbolized the radical destruction of their adversary” (2010: 296). These practices would also be observed during the uprising led by Zárate Willka, almost a century later. 10 We should remember that the multifaceted character of violence has already been touched upon by Bourdieu, in addressing symbolic violence as distinct from the exercise of brute force, immersed in an asymmetry of power. In this work, however, the particular approach of this author will not be discussed as we are trying to stay focused on our analytical framework, which does not preclude future discussion centered specifically on the subject. 11 See Sartre (2006), Colonialism and Neocolonialism. The philosopher refers to Marx’s maxim about the proletariat having the possibility to destroy bourgeois society. 12 On this, see Thompson, Ibid. 13 This case was reported to me during an informal conversation with a few Aymara friends and, while pertinent to the city of La Paz, this same strategy is used by women considered to be non-White in other parts of the world and who thus try to fit into the current norms. 14 Personal notes. 15 See Historia Oral, No. 1, Nov. 1986. 16 See Uarañavi Yeroqui (2012), “No defender el TIPNIS sería acelerar el fin del mundo: Una mirada al problema desde la cosmovisión gwarayu”. 17 Among the rules that the kuraka had to impose was the levying of taxes and compulsory labor in the mines, also known as mit’anaje. 18 As regards the colonial difference in terms of border, I take the inspiration from Balibar’s analysis and the notion of the internal border. In his discussion of the Fichte’s work, Étienne Balibar defines the border as something ambiguous, which at the same time as it delimits and divides, also enables contact with the Other. Indeed, it is precisely because it represents a separation between the Self and the Other that we can understand the border as the condition that makes contact between these “distinct” entities possible, which suggests not only a territorial, but also an intersubjective issue. This aspect of border, although invisible, is no less present, and is revealed by the philosopher in his use of the term “internal borders”, which extrapolate to the geographical concept of separation between two regions such that they revive a tension that unfolds inside the

Decolonial process in perspective  59

19

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

28

29

30

subject himself, that is to say, in the “spirit” world. In this sense, by border, I understand not only the limit that separates the Self from the Other spatially, but even more so that which separates them on the internal plane, operating in the constitution of the subjects and therefore also functioning as a path that unites two individual worlds: the visible and the invisible, the internal and the external, like the threads of an awayu (traditional Aymara textile). Thus, the colonial difference as border reflects a delicate threshold between the colonizer and the colonized, sometimes crossed, sometimes evoked with the goal of highlighting the essentially distinct between them. See Balibar (2011). Lecture by an Aymara leader, one of Suma Qamaña’s proponents, in La Paz, 04/29/2013. Personal notes. Also on the subject of misunderstanding, I emphasize the weirdness demonstrated by an Aymara Historian in an informal conversation during a conference in Santiago do Chile, regarding the term Pachamamismo, a criticism of the performance of rituals and the reproduction of Suma Qamaña/Living Well by the Morales administration. On this subject, the Historian stated: “If I were not a historian, I would not understand (the term), because we always have believed in Pachamama”. On the colonial legacy of IR and its connection to the indigenous issues see, for example, Beier (2009), Shaw (2008), Inayatullah and Blaney (2004). On the process of Bolivian independence and the conflicts between liberals and royalists over a period of almost 20 years, see Soux (2008). On this subject see Roberto Choque (2012), “Historia de una lucha desigual. Los contenidos ideológicos y políticos de las rebeliones indígenas de la Pre y la Post Revolución Nacional”. Q`ara, in the highlands, and karay, in the lowlands, are the words attributed by indigenous groups to the Spanish colonizers and their descendants. On the role of History and its relationship to colonialism, see Chakrabarty (Ibid.) and Young (2004). See Rivera (1993). On homogenization and the denial of difference, both associated with the construction of the Nation-State, see Chaterjee (1993), Rae (2002), and Shapiro (2000, 2004). Despite the criticism of Anderson’s work, the author managed to challenge a set of assumptions about the formation of the Nation-State that associated it with ethnic and geographical assumptions without considering the role of representation in the construction of this imagined entity. See Anderson (2006), “Imagined Communities. Reflexions on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism”. Tapia, inspired by the writing of Zavaleta Mercado, understands that Bolivian society is not necessarily characterized by its multicultural aspect, but, more so, by the “multisocietal” one to the extent that, within the same territory, societies corresponding to distinct civilizations coexist, and thus their world views are also different. In Bolivia, the author identifies three types of civilizations: agrarian, modern, and nomadic. See Tapia (2006), Ibid. In his work, Castro-Gómez offers a typology used in 18th century Nova Granada, in which we find more than 15 classifications according to the mixture between the races and their descendants. Thus, Mestizo is used for the offspring of a mix between Spanish and Indian, castizo of a mix of Mestizo and Spanish, morisco for that of Mulatto and Spanish, and so on. See Castro-Gómez (Ibid.), pp. 74–75. In Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon (2008) explores the internalization of inferiority by the colonized, which explains their attempts to get closer to everything that represents the colonizer and the metropole such that the former embodies “a desire to be White”. Moreover, this situation reflects a neurosis that translates

60  Decolonial process in perspective into the dilemma of the oppressed, caught between the quest for liberation and, simultaneously, the permanent fascination in relation to the oppressor, a theme also discussed by Memmi and Nandy. According to Fanon, this colonial mentality is similarly confirmed by the relationship between the colonized in different parts of the world, as in the case of many Antilleans, who thinking themselves more evolved than their African counterparts, reproduced the racist scale of the colonial world. 31 See Alexandre (2006). 32 Ibid. (2007). 33 See, for example, the works of Raúl Prada (2012) and Rafael Bautista S (2012).

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62  Decolonial process in perspective Grosfoguel, Ramón (2008) “Developmentalism, modernity and dependency theory in Latin America” in Mabel Moraña et al. (Eds) Coloniality at Large: Latin America and the Postcolonial Debate. Durham e Londres: Duke University Press, pp. 307–331. Grovogui, Siba (1996) Sovereigns, Quasi Sovereigns, and Africans: Race and Self-­ Determination in International Law. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ——— (2006) Beyond Eurocentrism and Anarchy: Memories of International Order and Institutions. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-137-08396-8 Guha, Ranajit (2011) “Aspectos elementales de la insurgencia campesina en la India colonial” in Raúl Rodríguez Freire (comp) La (Re)Vuelta de los Estudios Subalternos: una cartografía a (des)tiempo. Santiago: Ocho Libros Editores, pp. 79–93. Hernandez, B. L. (2001) “The Las Casas-Sepúlveda Controversy: 1550–1551”. Ex Post Facto: Journal of History Students at San Francisco State University, X: 95–104. Hudson, K. A. (2009) Justice, Intervention and Force in International Relations: Reassessing Just War Theory in the 21st Century. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203879351 Inayatullah, Naeem (2008) “Why do some people think they know what is good for others?” in Jenny Edkins and Maja Zehfuss (Eds) Global Politics: A New Introduction. New York: Routledge, pp. 344–369. DOI: 10.4324/9781315099118 ——— (2004) International Relations and the Problem of Difference. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203644096 ——— (2010) Savage Economics: Wealth, Poverty, and the Temporal Walls of Capitalism. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203864951 Jackson, Mark (Ed) (2017) Coloniality, Ontology, and the Question of the Posthuman. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315686721 Jahn, Beate (2000) The Cultural Construction of the International Relations: The Invention of the State of Nature. New York: Palgrave. DOI: 10.1007/978-0-230-59725-9 Kennedy, D. (1986) “Primitive Legal Scholarship”. Harvard International Law Journal, 27 (1): 1–98. Larson, Brooke (2005) Trials of Nation Making. Liberalism, Race and Ethnicity en the Andes, 1810–1910. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/ CBO9780511616396 Latin American Subaltern Studies Group (1993) “Founding Statement”. Boundary 2, 20 (3): 110–121. DOI: 10.2307/303344 Mallón, Florencia (1994) “The Promise and Dilemma of Subaltern Studies: Perspectives from Latin American History”. The American Historical Review, 99 (5): 1491–1515. DOI: 10.2307/2168386 Martín-Barbero, Jesús (2006) “Projetos de modernidade na América Latina” in José Maurício Domingues and Maria Maneiro (Orgs) América Latina hoje. Conceitos e interpretações. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, pp. 19–51. Memmi, Albert (1991) The Colonizer and the Colonized. Boston: Beacon Press. ——— (2006) Decolonization and the Decolonized. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Memorial de los Caciques-Apoderados al Ministro de Gobierno (1924) Historia Oral, 1: 63–66. Mignolo, Walter (2003) Histórias Locais/Projetos Globais. Colonialidade, saberes e pensamento liminar. Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG. ——— (2006) The Idea of Latin America. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ——— (2009) “Coloniality: The darker side of modernity” in S. Breitwisser (Ed) Modernologies. Contemporary Artists Researching Modernity and Modernism. Barcelona: MACBA, pp. 39–49.

Decolonial process in perspective  63 Moraña, Mabel, Erique Dussel and Carlos Jáuregui (Eds) (2008) Coloniality at Large: Latin America and the Postcolonial Debate. Durham: Duke University Press. Nandy, Ashis (2007). The Intimate Enemy. Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Ortega, M. C. 2016. “Vitoria and the universalist conception of International Relations” in Ian Clark and I. B. Neumann (Eds) Classical Theories of International Relations. London: Macmillan Press, pp. 99–118. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-24779-0 Padilla, Celso (2012) Interview [October, 2012]. Interviewer: Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado. Santa Cruz de la Sierra, 2012. 1 archive mp3 (45 min). Pasha, Mustapha K. (2011) “Untimely reflections” in Robbie Shilliam (Ed) International Relations and Non-Western Thought: Imperialism, Colonialism, and Investigations of Global Modernity. London: Routledge, pp. 217–226. Persaud, Randolph and R. B. Walker (Orgs) (2015) “Race, De-Coloniality and International Relations”. Alternatives, 40 (2): 83–187. Special Issue. DOI: 10.1177/0304375415596238 Prada, Raúl (2012) “La guerra de la madre tierra” in Rafael Bautista et al. (Eds) La Victoria Indígena del TIPNIS. La Paz: Autodeterminación, pp. 95–168. Quijano, Anibal (2005) “Colonialidade do poder, eurocentrismo e América Latina” in Edgardo Lander (org) A colonialidade do saber: eurocentrismo e ciências sociais. Perspectivas latino-americanas. Argentina: CLASCO. ——— (2008) “Don Quijote y los molinos de viento en América Latina”. In: Ecuador Debate. Quito, CAAP. Rae, Heather (2002) State Identities and the Homogenisation of Peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511491627 Reinaga, Hilda (2013, March). Colloquium on Fausto Reinaga. Universidad Pública de El Alto. El Alto. 1 archive mp3 (60 min). Rivera, Silvia (1993) “La Raíz: Colonizadores y Colonizados” in Xavier Albó and Raúl Barrios (coords) Violencias encubiertas en Bolivia. La Paz: CIPCA – ARUWIYIRI. ——— (2010) Violencias (re) encubiertas en Bolivia. La Paz: Mirada Salvaje. Rojas, Cristina (2007) “International Political Economy/Development Otherwise.” Globalizations, 4 (4): 573–587. DOI: 10.1080/14747730701695836 ——— (2013) “Acts of Indigenship: Historical Struggles for Equality and Colonial Difference in Bolivia”. Citizenship Studies, 17 (5): 581–595. DOI: 10.1080/ 13621025.2013.818373 ——— (2015) “Ciudadanía indígena: luchas históricas por la igualdad y la diferencia colonial en Bolivia”. Cuadernos de Antropología Social, 42: 19–34. DOI: 10.34096/cas.i42.2299 ——— (2016) “Contesting the Colonial Logics of the International: Toward a Relational Politics for the Pluriverse.” International Political Sociology, 10: 369–382. DOI: 10.1093/ips/olw020 Sajed, Alina (2013) Postcolonial Encounters in International Relations: The Politics of Transgression in the Maghreb. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/ 9780203497043 Santos Filho, Onofre dos (2020) “Ultra Aequinoxialem Non Peccari: Anarquia, Estado de Natureza e a Construção da Ordem Político-Espacial”. Monções, 8 (15): 485–520. Retrieved 2020, July 1 from http://ojs.ufgd.edu.br/index.php/moncoes Sartre, Jean Paul (2006) Colonialism and Neocolonialism. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203826577

64  Decolonial process in perspective Scott, J. B. (2013) The Spanish Origin of International Law: Francisco de Vitoria and his Law of Nations. Clark: The Lawbook Exchange. Shapiro, Michael (2000) “National Times and the Other Times: Rethinking Citizenship”. Cultural Studies, 14 (1): 79–98. DOI: 10.1080/095023800334995 ——— (2004) Methods and Nations. Cultural Governance and the Indigenous Subject. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203503775 Shaw, Karena (2008) Indigeneity and Political Theory: Sovereignty and the Limits of the Political. London: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203891148 Shilliam, Robbie (2015) The Black Pacific: Anti-Colonial Struggles and Oceanic Connections. London: Bloomsbury. DOI: 10.5040/9781474218788 Smith, Karen (2012) “Contrived boundaries, kinship and ubuntu: a (South) African view of the international” in Arlene Tickner and David Blaney (eds) Thinking the International Differently. London: Routledge, pp. 301–321. Soux, Maria Luisa (2008) “De súbditos de rey a ciudadanos de la república: la construcción de la cuidadanía y el proceso de independencia (1808–1826)” in Laura E. de Querejazu, Carlos D. Mesa Gisbert and Alfonso M. Venegas (Eds) Anales de la Academia Boliviana de la Historia 1998–2008. La Paz: ABL, pp. 286–311. Stavenhagen, Rodolfo (1965) “Classes, Colonialism, and Acculturation. Essay on a System of Inter-Ethnic Relations in Mesoamerica”. Studies in Comparative International Development, 1 (6): 53–77. Taiaiake, Alfred and Jeff Corntassel (2005) “Being Indigenous: Resurgences against Contemporary Colonialism”. Government and Opposition, 40 (4): 597–614. DOI: 10.1111/j.1477-7053.2005.00166.x Tapia, Luis (2006) La invención del núcleo común. Ciudadanía y Gobierno Multisocietal. La Paz: Muela del Diablo Editores.Thompson, Sinclair (2010) Cuando sólo reinasen los indios. La Paz: La Mirada Salvaje. Thurner, Mark (2006) From Two Republics to One Divided. Contradictions of Postcolonial Nationmaking in Andean Peru. Durham: Duke University Press. DOI: 10.1215/9780822379744 Tickner, Arlene B. and David L. Blaney (Eds) (2013) Claiming the International. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203758366 Todorov, Tzvetan (1999) The Conquest of America: The question of the Other. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Tucker, Karen (2018) “Unraveling Coloniality in International Relations: Knowledge, Relationality, and Strategies for Engagement”. International Political Sociology, 12 (3): 215–232. DOI: 10.1093/ips/oly005 Tuhiwai Smith, Linda (2008) Decolonizing Methodologies. Research and Indigenous Peoples. London: Zed Books Ltd. Twinam, Ann (2009) “Purchasing whiteness: conversations on the essence of pardo-ness and mulato-ness at the end of empire” in Andrew B. Fisher and Mathew D. O’Hara (Eds) Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America. Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 141–165. DOI: 10.1215/9780822392101 Urañavi Yeroqui, Juan (2012) “No defender el TIPNIS sería acelerar el fin del mundo: Una mirada al problema desde la cosmovisión gwarayu”. TIPNIS, Entre desarrollo y conservación. Fé y Pueblo, 20: 75–85. Vitoria, Francisco de (1991) Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511840944 Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo (1996) “Os Pronomes Cosmológicos e o Perspectivismo Ameríndio”. Mana 2 (2): 115–144. DOI: 10.1590/S0104-93131996000200005

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3

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well Between modes of life and power disputes

Introduction Good Living/Sumak Kawsay, Living Well/Suma Qamaña, solidarity economy are some of the terms that have elicited the interest of a diverse range of theorists through the past decade, whose aims oscillate between the search for an alternative to development and for the emergence of “another thought”, capable of putting into check the current model of “civilization”. In that sense, either emphasizing their potentiality as a unique economic model opposed to policies and programs based on growth and development goals, or arguing that such a distinct model lays its foundation in anOther epistemology, the expressions mentioned above have found a field of possibilities in the literature on resistance up to the present order. On the one hand, there is the possibility to break territorial isolation once the terms are propelled to scales other than the local one by academics, most of them foreigners that teach in American and European universities. Following this process, the expressions acquire visibility and, sometimes, recognition, liberating themselves from a negative label of “traditional” as a synonym of “nonscientific”, of logic that does not correspond to the rationality required by the ontological and epistemological postulates of modern science. Relating to that, the terms also can achieve a better position within its own national societies, which could reflect a less marginal standing for those that produce them locally and that occupy the epicenter of such a discourse: indigenous peoples. Therefore, parallel to knowledge production by indigenous groups and its incorporation into the discursive practice of non-indigenous theorists, Good Living/Living Well have found in this literature on resistance a space to position themselves beyond the margins and, in that move, to strengthen indigenous peoples as subjects of this discourse. On the other hand, the dynamics outlined before do not occur unilaterally. If their recurrence in the works of foreign theorists may “inform” the former and empower indigenous peoples, who in turn might appropriate the thought and concepts used by those theorists, the productions elaborated by indigenous intellectuals work as to legitimize the literature on resistance. Hence, the centrality occupied by Good Living/Living Well

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  67 owns not only the novelty attributed to them but also their articulation with non-indigenous theorists’ ideological commitment to contestation, providing the latter group an arsenal to validate their theories. In that sense, as a key-principle to discursivity, Good Living/Living Well doesn’t emerge only as a denunciation discourse to the dominant order, it corresponds to a field of theoretical and political disputes between its proponents and its critics, and even among the former, involving indigenous and non-indigenous groups in both cases. Furthermore, it reflects conflicts that are not apart from local contexts in which those narratives are produced. In Bolivia, for example, Suma Qamaña/Living Well takes precedence over its Quéchua correlate, being absorbed by the government. In that way, the discourse points to multiple dynamics: underlying power disputes that give it impulse and, simultaneously, strengthen indigenous peoples in their otherness as a political actor, as the bearer of an alternative to development. All these moves are embedded in local struggles, putting in evidence a constant and multidirectional relation between discourse and practice. But what is this thought, understood as potentially transformative, really about? In this chapter, I analyze Suma Qamaña/Living Well as a power strategy. On the one hand, it consists of an indigenous power strategy that, in Bolivia, is elaborated by Aymara intellectuals. The criticism towards development contained in the discourse embraces the other theme, crucial to indigenous movements’ resistance and recognition: identity construction against a background historically marked by colonial relations, underplayed by asymmetries of power, violence, exploration and its link to the racial issue. In the Andean country, this context has gradually been reconfigured in the economic, political and social sense, showing the rise of an Aymara-Quéchua “elite” as one of the examples of this change. On the other hand, Suma Qamaña/Living Well represents a power strategy exercised by Morales’ administration since the discourse instrumentalization made by the ruling elite members works to legitimize their practices, which include the re-editing of developmental projects and repression. This national scenario is surrounded by a regional context, whose agenda addresses as its main goal the achievement of economic growth, establishing a close tie between the exploration of natural resources and the implementation of policies to redistribute wealth. Parallel to Suma Qamaña/Living Well’s instrumentalization, the government seeks to maintain political support from part of the indigenous and peasant organizations in the country, creating an environment favorable to governmentality, while internationally it tends to project itself as an “indigenous government”. In that sense, I demonstrate that Suma Qamaña/Living Well is built in relation to a national dynamic, still distinguished by internal colonialism and by a division among its proponents. Such a division mirrors not only a conceptual problem inherent to the discourse but also a fracture within the Bolivian indigenous movement, whose constituents sustain ideological

68  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well differences among themselves, as well as between themselves and the government. In what follows, I discuss the emergence of such a discourse and its place in the international literature on Sumak Kawsay/Good Living. I, then, debate its textual mechanisms, as well as its relation to the indigenous identity formation theme, especially the Aymaran identity. I conclude with an analysis on the incorporation of Suma Qamaña/Living Well into the governmental discourse, understanding this move as a legitimation strategy by the Morales administration in the national and international spheres.

Narratives on Living Well: Suma Qamaña as Sumak Kawsay Suma Qamaña/ Living Well (Vivir Bien, in Spanish) consists in one of the expressions found in the international academic literature devoted to the emergence of anOther logic, proper to indigenous peoples in the Andean region and opposed to modern rationality. Current work in Social Science usually points Suma Qamaña as the Aymara counterpart of the Quéchua Sumak Kawsay/Good Living (Buen Vivir). Whereas the latter term is connected to Ecuador, Suma Qamaña/Living Well is related to indigenous experience in Bolivia. Despite their differences, the expressions above are interpreted either as an example of solidarity economy, an alternative to capitalism, to development, to coloniality or even as a solution to the crises of human civilization. As a consequence, academics not just promote a major silence over indigenous ethnic groups that inhabit other parts of the countries, such as those located in the Amazon, but also minimize Suma Qamaña and its political context in Bolivia. Apart from the Spanish or English translation, both terms mean life in plenitude, referring to a dynamic process since qamaña and kawsay indicate the relevance of being as a condition of existence instead of to be.1 In the great tissue that represents life (Pacha), formed by the complementarity of opposing forces (cosmic and telluric), everything is interconnected.2 According to this logic, human beings are just an integrative part of a whole, which embodies the material plan manifest in mineral, vegetable and animal forms and the supernatural one. For that reason, existence implies a constant search for balancing, for harmony between the forces, between man and nature, which is expressed in the modes of life of the so-called “ancestral” peoples, such as indigenous ones. Central to those modes of life is the practice of ceremonies since they establish a connection between the planes and guide social relations in the community as well. As a fundamental expression of this symbiotic relation among man, nature and the cosmos, ceremonies are not separated from other activities such as economic production. This still holds, despite the gradual marginalization of rites in the everyday life of those groups, mainly in those whose majority of members have migrated to the cities.3 One of the exponents of the literature on neo-extractivism in Latin America, Gudynas discusses Living Well as an alternative to development and

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  69 equates the term with its Quéchua correlate, as illustrated in the title of his paper: Buen vivir: Germinando alternativas al desarrollo. The author resorts to definitions made by indigenous and non-indigenous intellectuals and stresses the criticism of progress, consumerism, economic growth, as well as the idea of otherness, all present in their distinct proposals. He also states the term’s potential in promoting a decolonization of knowledge to establish a common platform about Good Living despite his recognition of the specificities concerning each expression (Gudynas 2011: 12). Lander (2010) identifies them with anticapitalistic alternatives, capable of promoting a civilizational transformation into societies that combine democracy, equity and the preservation of nature. Escobar (2012) mentions both Bolivian and Ecuadorian political experiences and focuses on Good Living as representative of an epistemological rupture with modernity. This is so because, for the anthropologist, Good Living succeeded in conserving its otherness against colonizing practices, keeping itself in the margins of dominant discourses. Strongly influenced by the works of Decolonialists, Escobar understands Good Living as a distinct rationality, whose criticism to development and to modern-Western modes of life would confer on it a transformative role towards humanity. Such a role would bring with it the potential to decolonize minds and practices, leading, thus, to the construction of a project that surpasses development. Catherine Walsh also concentrates her investigation on Good Living, which she describes as a system of knowledge and of life, based on a communion between man and nature and on the special-temporal-harmonic totality of existence. That is, a system based on the necessary interrelation among beings, knowledges, logics and rationalities of thought, action, existence and life. (Walsh 2010: 18) Similar to the aforementioned authors, Walsh’s analysis presents among its guidelines what is perceived as possibilities to construct a new way of development which, unlike the Western model, would not be sustained in progress, economic growth and the idea of civilization. In a different vein, Dussel (2012) establishes a distinction between Good Living and what he understands as Living Well. While the former would encompass an ethical-political-theoretical postulate against Eurocentrism as a phenomenon exercised not just in everyday life but also in the academic field, Living Well would be related to an empirical issue, i.e. to diverse modes of life in the world. Good Living would entail, therefore, a “duty”, a normative notion associated with communitarian life and with anOther cosmology. Such a cosmology would be opposed to modern scientific knowledge that marginalizes indigenous narratives and attributes a mythological character to them. The term would consist of an economic-ecological conception, an alternative to the current capitalist model, likely to transcend modernity.

70  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well In other words, Good Living would be capable of achieving a transmodernity, understood as a new age in humanity. Furthermore, the concept would assume a “non-Jacobin” facet since, for him, the revolutionary aspect of life had lost its meaning and, as such, must be re-symbolized. Reflecting on the possibilities to decolonize a global pattern of power, Quijano (2014) mentions Living Well as correlated to Good Living, which he understands as an ongoing proposition of indigenous resistance that expresses alternative modes of existence to coloniality of power. Also, following an alterworldist framing, Souza Santos depicts the term as an example of an indigenous ancestral cosmovision distinct from the Western one, one that is compatible with his definition of Southern epistemology, peculiar to subaltern peoples who had their knowledge silenced and marginalized by modernity. Later on, Souza Santos (2010) uses the expression Good Living Socialism (Socialismo del Buen Vivir) as an adaptation of the term to his theoretical construction titled Ecology of Knowledge towards the construction of a hybrid, post-abyssal thought (Santos 2008, 2009). In his interpretation, Good Living Socialism would reflect a dialogue between ancestral and modern/Eurocentric knowledge. The term would correspond to a transition from capitalism to socialism and from colonialism to decolonization, both identified by the sociologist as coexistent in Latin America, a situation that would confirm his hypothesis towards the construction of an alternative against hegemonic globalization. Good Living’s predominance in the analysis of non-indigenous and non-Bolivian authors, compared to Living Well’s marginalization, coincides with the fact that the former expression was first incorporated into State’s Constitution. This unprecedented initiative, after centuries of indigenous marginalization and intense protests, put Good Living and the Ecuadorian experiment at the center of the authors’ interests following previous attention from the academy to indigenous movements’ political activism in Latin America (Álvarez et al. 1998, Brysc 2000, Langer and Muñoz 2003, Postero and Zamosc 2004, Sieder 2002, Van Cott 2005, Warren and Jackson 2002, Yashar 2005). Indeed, especially from the 1990s, indigenous groups contributed to drop several politicians from the Presidency in Ecuador, demonstrating their political force in the country and working as a symbol of innovative political contestation in the Andean region. Furthermore, the World Social Forum’s several editions, which were attended by indigenous movements (Ecuadorian ones among them) and foreign academics as well, seemed to bond those diverse groups together and fomented the exchange of ideas among them, as suggested in some editions of the journal América Latina en Movimiento.4 In that sense, the Forum would have functioned as a “privileged space”, prompting transnational activism and, overall, the constitution of an epistemic community, a transnational network of experts that share specific knowledge over certain subjects.5 The increasing attention towards Good Living as a research theme relates, then, to a multidimensional socio-political dynamic that works beyond the

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  71 local and national spheres and finds in non-indigenous/foreign theorists allies to the movement mediators – or what Tarrow and McAdam (2005) would define as brokers – that project indigenous expressions “translating” them to the international academic environment. Moreover, it relates as well to those scholars’ anxiety to confirm their theoretical constructs developed previously. In this way, while Good Living gradually came to occupy a central position in the literature, Living Well was relegated to a secondary stance, usually mentioned by theorists as a synonym for the former expression despite the relevance of indigenous intellectuals from Bolivia, whose knowledge production stimulated the debate over the theme. In Ecuador, on the contrary, most publications regarding Good Living are produced by non-indigenous authors, such as Alberto Acosta. In his critique towards development, Good Living corresponds not just to a constitutional declaration in Ecuador and Bolivia but to a form of solidarity economy capable of creating a new regime of development, alternative to the extractivist one (Acosta 2009, 2011). In IR, references to Suma Qamaña are still scarce and sometimes made in relation to the notion of pluriverse, influenced by social scientists’ research on Latin America (see Blaser 2010, De la Cadena 2010, 2015, Dussel 2013, Escobar 2010, 2011, 2012a, Latour 2010, among others). Related to the modes of life of non-Western peoples, the pluriverse addresses the complexity of social relations as it advocates the emergence of diverse knowledge and cosmologies which, distinguished from the Modern one, do not place human beings at the center of existence. But such a mobilization in the literature also reflects a long debate regarding IR’s exclusionary, Eurocentric feature, notably refreshed by the advent of postcolonial and indigenous studies and their emphasis on denouncing the silencing of difference and recovering alterity as an important analytical category (see, for example, Beier 2009, Chakrabarty 2000, Grovogui 2006, Hobson 2012, Hobson and Sajed 2017, Ikeda 2010, Inayatullah and Blaney 2004, Jones 2006, Lightfoot 2016, Muppidi 2012, Shaw 2008, Shilliam 2011, Smith 2012, Taylor 2012, Tickner and Blaney 2012, 2013). In that sense, recent allusion to Suma Qamaña translates, to a large extent, the theorists’ effort to establish an ontological criticism of the discipline stressing its Western colonial feature and the need to incorporate contributions from colonized peoples. That is the case of Querejazu (2016), who advocates that Andean cosmovisions and their conceptual tools, such as the ayllu, could foment IR discussion on multiple issues and bring a more inclusive facet to the discipline. A similar trend is found in Rojas’ publication on the pluriverse. Here, Suma Qamaña is mentioned along with Sumak Kawsay only to express the difficulty concerning translations among different worlds, following Viveiros de Castro theorization, mentioned in the previous chapter. This fact points to the difficulty theorists face framing those expressions of indigenous cosmologies in terms of single units. Nevertheless, because these Other subjectivities, of which Suma Qamaña forms a part, are presented

72  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well as “oriented toward alternatives to colonial logics” (Rojas 2016: 380), she advocates their potential to decolonize international politics. Earlier, the author had identified Suma Qamaña to practices of decolonization, critical to the modern project of citizenship and its supposed universality. Although the expression is related to the Aymara people, Rojas (2015) also presented it as an equivalent of Good Living (Buen Vivir). Elsewhere, she framed indigenous knowledge in Bolivia as an example of a noncapitalist alternative which, together with its counterparts produced by diverse marginalized cultures in Latin America and abroad, could encourage dialogue between different economic practices. In that sense, indigenous knowledge in the Andean country would present a possibility to decolonize International Political Economy fundaments and, as such, to promote development otherwise, that is, a new form of economic organization sustained by the co-existence of different rationalities (Rojas 2007: 585). Although Rojas didn’t specifically mention Suma Qamaña nor Living Well, she highlights Aymara’s descent of President Morales and his role, along with indigenous intellectuals, including the Other’s propositions in norms and public policies. Querejazu, in turn, grounds her analysis basically on propositions made by several Bolivian indigenous and non-indigenous authors, including some considered the founders of Suma Qamaña. Also mobilizing proponents of the Aymara expression, Ling and Pinheiro (2020) promote a dialogue among Andean cosmovision, represented by Living Well, and Daoism in order to foment knowledge production in the Global South and, as a result, the emergence of an innovative method of communication among multiple worlds. A slightly distinct interpretation is presented by Ranta (2018), who evaluates Suma Qamaña/Living Well as an example of “cultural difference” and investigates its potential to decolonize the state and promote a transformation in the global level. Still, the author refers to the Aymara proposition as an alternative to neoliberal globalization, which reminds the conceptualizations of theorists already mentioned, as well as others whose work addresses post-neoliberal forms of development regarding indigenous propositions in the Andean region (see, for example, Lalander 2015, 2017, Perreault 2017, Radcliffe 2012). Thus, the emphasis put by most of these IR authors on Andean cosmovision, Andean indigenous knowledge or simply indigenous knowledge in Bolivia, and even Rojas’ noncapitalist alternative/ alternative to colonial logics is quite revealing. Their concern is first and foremost a theoretical one, which privileges ontological difference presented by non-Western colonial “worldviews” and their prospects for the discipline, leaving aside political disputes between the Bolivian government and indigenous peoples, divergence among indigenous groups over Suma Qamaña/Living Well. Thus, they put in second place strategies employed by those actors. In doing so, they emulate somehow the work of Social Scientists who focus on Andean indigenous knowledge and its otherness in relation to modernity and concentrate only partially on political implications regarding the emergence of

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  73 this Other ontology in Bolivian society. Also, they miss Suma Qamaña as a strategy of power by both Aymara people and Morales’ government. Therefore, as mentioned above, international literature puts special emphasis on the similarity between Good Living and Living Well and their understanding of the world as representative of Andean cosmology, stressing the former. As a result, academics neglect the Bolivian experience, disputes that occurred in the country and related to its colonial past/present, subsuming the Aymara expression to the Quéchua one. For IR, in particular, the consequences presented by this move are multiple: as pointed before, current analysis tends to homogenize knowledge and modes of life enacted in distinct local/national political conditions for the sake of theoretical robustness of their arguments against the discipline’s Modern colonial logic and lack of pluralism. In that way, they silence conflicts that surface daily, which puts their work in sharp contrast with the literature on the pluriverse and political ontology, one of their major references. Although IR scholars stress modernity’s concealment of knowledge and practices of other peoples, often colonized ones, through a series of dichotomous pairs (nature versus culture, civilized versus non-civilized, etc.), they miss another important qualitative proposition presented in the literature on the pluriverse. As Blaser (2010) attentively put it, the pluriverse is about different worlds, that is, ontologies that interact and clash with each other, pervaded by power disputes, asymmetry and negotiations. If we understand that those disputes occur not only between collective actors that reproduce different knowledge and modes of life but also among those actors themselves, we have a much more complex picture than the one offered by IR authors, mostly focused on the dichotomy of Modern/colonial versus Non-Modern/decolonial/homogenized other. Alternatively, we would have a non-romanticized analysis that contemplates the Other in his otherness without obliterating the political dimension. That point is made clear once we concentrate on the dynamics around Suma Qamaña. In what follows, I stress the role of identity and the strategic incorporation of otherness by indigenous peoples in Bolivian highlands. Suma Qamaña and identity The first quotes regarding Suma Qamaña date back to the beginning of the 2000s, a period of intense mobilization in Bolivia, many of them organized by peasants and coca growers. In Cochabamba, the latter group, together with Juntas de Vecinos, led several protests against the government’s concession contract for the provision of water and sewerage services to the consortium named Aguas del Tunari.6 Directed by multinational Bechtel, the consortium raised taxes over 50% and enacted under the legal protection of normative 2029, which regulated privatization on the sector and, for that matter, represented to communities a threat to the maintenance of their traditional system of the provision in the city. The violent episode, known

74  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well popularly as the War over Water, demonstrated an official effort to apply neoliberal policies recommended by the World Bank as well as a progressive dissatisfaction of an impoverished society towards neoliberalism and the Bolivian government, a fact similarly observed in the city of El Alto in 2005. Also, the War over Water, along with the institutionalization of the MASIPSP, illustrated an enlargement of the political arena to coca growers: from their local circumscription to the city of Cochabamba and then to the national sphere. Since the 1980s, coca growers from Chapare have resisted neoliberal policies of enforced eradication of coca crops, whose implementation resulted in contention with the State. At that time, following democratization and liberalization in Latin America, the Bolivian government aligned the country with projects in vogue in the region which encompassed not just political and economic reform but also programs to combat drug trafficking. In this way, the neoliberal triad – represented by market deregulation, State decentralization (followed by the concentration of power in the Executive that holds the prerogative of issuing decrees) and privatization – was pursued along with policies based mostly on enforced instead of consensual eradication of coca crops, with wide support from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Considering Bolivia’s prominent role in the international market of drug supply (which varied in terms of coca cultivation or the production of cocaine) and unsuccessful attempts to develop alternative crops, coca growers organized several protests against official policies and were violently repressed by State forces (see, for example, Delgado and Gusmão 2007, Linera 2004). Their activism over the decades and their formal representation in the Parliament by the coca growers’ leader Evo Morales, together with the creation of Pachakuti Indigenous Movement party (Movimiento Indígena Pachakuti, MIP) and indigenous mobilizations in the highlands, expressed a political crisis that culminated in the overthrow of two consecutive governments in less than two years, and the emergence of MAS as a moderate force when compared to MIP. In the department of La Paz, the protesters were led by Aymara and Executive Secretary of the Peasant Workers’ Union Confederation of Bolivia (Confederación Sindical Única de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia, CSUTCB) Felipe Quispe. By blocking the roads and employing guerrilla tactics, the Aymara and Quéchua communities succeeded in isolating the country’s administrative capital for months during the years 2000 and 2001. Initially, their demands related to the concentration of land, denouncing the misery experienced by small farmers and indigenous communities besides the strong discrimination towards them. Other issues, such as the defense of the environment, the sacred quality of coca leaf, could also be part of their basic claims depending on the context. As the conflict escalated, their discourse included a critique on corruption, traditional political parties and, in particular, the racist colonial structure, crystallized in the difference between indigenous groups and the White-mestizo elite. And it will be on this difference that indigenous groups from the highlands will construct a grammar of

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  75 empowerment and recovering/reinvention of their identity, stressing the divide between the Self and Other. As Mamani (2012) states, roadblocks were exceptional moments that contributed to the development of a common identity among the protesters: by dressing in traditional clothing, raising whiphalas (checked colorful flags that reflects indigenous struggles in Spanish America) and playing pututu (brass instrument), Aymaras and Quéchuas enacted social codes embodied in the ayllu (Andean indigenous community). In the small village of Qalachaca, by the Titikaka Lake, a region with a great concentration of Aymara people, those codes were crucial to support the roadblocks that occurred in September 2000. There, indigenous groups, as in the political organization of an ayllu, switched shifts, exercised ayni (expressed in the mutual help among community members and the idea of reciprocity, presented in Aymara-Quéchua cosmology) and deliberated for days in order to achieve consensus among participants, which according to Mamani expressed Andean codes as well. As mobilization and identity reinvention developed, insurgents began to reproduce a historical demand for territory and autonomy, enacted by Aymara people during colonial and Republican Bolivia, as shown in the previous chapter. In this dynamic process, differentiation between indigenous groups and White-mestizos became sharper and charged by an anti-State feeling once conflicts escalated and resulted in violent repression by State forces. In that way, La Paz insurgency seemed to mark not just the search for liberation but also the return of a political actor in his otherness, whose discourse reproduced some of Fausto Reinaga’s appointments. The first Aymara academic whose work focused on the relevance of indigenous empowerment for the reconstitution of Kollasuyu and Tawantinsuyu, Reinaga influenced following generations and had some of his propositions incorporated by Quispe as a strategy to incite resistance during roadblocks.7 At that time, Quispe tried to balance indigenous conscientization as an instrument towards liberation with tactics enacted by him during the armed struggle in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Cuba, and applied by members of Tupak Katari Guerrilla Army (Ejército Guerrillero Tupak Katari, EGTK): As an Aymara, as Kolla, let’s say that since Chacha Kapak death we’ve lost, although they (Incas) have respected us during Incanato. […] But what should be stressed is that since 1533, when Attawallpa dies, killed by Spaniards, since that day we’ve lost the State, and then political power, and then the right to have our own president. What do we want? We want to restore Tawantinsuyu, and this thought strikes Aymaras who live in Arica, Northern of Chile, makes palpitate the hearts of Aymaras in Peru and here too we are in more than 20 provinces… But that would bring an international war, it would sound a very altruistic thought […] Since Spaniards came, we’ve not ruled anything, and these White-mestizos lost, the Pacific Ocean they lost, the Chaco […], we’ve been nothing but cannonball. The truth is that this land (patria) is ours,

76  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well they are stateless, they have no State. So, according to this perspective, I understand that we should reconstitute Tawantinsuyu. That’s why we talk about it; it’s not an enunciation simply, a lyrical discourse, it has its roots, ancestral trunks, it’s got its content, its spirit. […] […] Let’s see: who sweeps the street? We, the Indians. Who is the housekeeper in the Southern Zone of La Paz – Calacoto, Sopocachi, Obrajes? There they are, the imillas (young women) from the countryside. There they are raising wawas (babies), cooking, doing the laundry… Who built prisons? Pain attention to that, you are here! […] White people are there as architects, engineers, staring down Indians that are working. Who are those chubby, Stone-face policemen? There they are with their whistle, but the officer is mestizo. […] I’ve mobilized people with this discourse. I formed myself intellectually in Cuba, I was there in 1980, 1981, I was a convict Marxist. When I got here, I wanted to apply the same experience I had there. People didn’t understand me… “Oh, what is he talking about?” It was like talking about Christ: nobody understood, they just feared death and hell. Then, I thought: “How can I raise these people? Oh, we should talk about the Incas, Katari, about the Aymara, our life, the ayllu, the community, ayni”. They, then, lifted their neck like a llama. That was the secret… (Interview with Felipe Quispe. La Paz, April 2013) The passage above reflects a dynamic of identitarian redefinition and selfaffirmation, pointed out by Mamani as one of the specificities of the indigenous uprising in La Paz, as collective actions enabled and were pervaded by a discourse that separated “them” (White/Mestizo/Criollos) from “us” (communarians/indigenous/peasants).8 It was a moment, therefore, of the formation of an indigenous consciousness based on a grammatic discourse already applied by Reinaga and that, once mobilized and recontextualized by Quispe, shaped Tupakatarismo. Here, the idea was to “indianize” indigenous peoples, help recover their identity and self-esteem and, as a result, preparing them for the “Indian Revolution” defended by Reinaga (2011). Such a revolution would consist not just in the State reform, but in restoring political power using military and rhetorical strategies, stressing a distinction regarding Katarismo.9 Liberation, thus, would entail a violent and radical process, reflecting Fanon’s (2004) concept of decolonization and his perception that the goal of the colonized is to occupy the place of the colonizer, that is, to occupy political institutions, to rule the State, as discussed in the previous chapter. Another point highlighted in the interview relates to the enduring feature of colonial difference and how it functions through the connection between the ethno-racial and class problematic: positions in Bolivian society are plastered by distinctions between the colonizer and the colonized, which equates the categories of White-mestizo and indigenous peoples, respectively. Such positions work in a way to sediment hierarchical relations, so

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  77 that it is up to the latter to carry out jobs considered less distinguished when compared to the former. In that sense, the aforementioned quote reflects Fanon’s point that the racial question is crucial for it defines and crosses all dimensions of colonial relations, including the economic one, an issue also captured by Rivera’s definition of internal colonialism. Besides, it expresses the psychiatrist’s understanding that equates the colonizer as a permanent foreigner, an outsider, no matter how successful the colonial enterprise might look like: “the colonist always remains a foreigner. It is not the factories […] which primarily characterize the ‘ruling class’. The ruling species is first and foremost the outsider from elsewhere, different from the indigenous population, ‘the others’” (Fanon 2004: 5). Thus, Quispe’s words reveal the abyss of the colonial world, stressed by Fanon and described by Bhabha (2004: xiii) as the “racialization of inequality”, which is not overcome after Bolivia’s formal Independence. Because decolonization consists of a process, not simply a rupture, hierarchical relations between the Self and the Other remained structural during the Republican period, with indigenous peoples symbolizing the foreigner de facto in land previously occupied by their ancestors. Nevertheless, as Fanon stressed out, from the point of view of the colonized, the situation looked exactly the opposite: there is a sense that the colonizer is the one who constitutes the foreigner, the outsider that took over indigenous land. The colonized, then, tries to subvert colonial difference, as observed not just in the interview but also in Quispe’s speech to the ministers of Hugo Bánzer’s government, to journalists and priests, as he states We invited you, gave you our territory, we housed you, foreigners, and now what? You kill us. Butchers! Why don’t you kill me now? […] The only crime we commit is demanding for justice and freedom, […] that political power be returned to us. Killers! Why do you kill us? (Mamani 2010: 41) Quispe goes on with his argumentation demanding the State to withdraw its apparatus from the indigenous territory, retrieving the quartering of Tupak Katari, and concludes vote for these gentlemen […]. In appreciation […], they killed in Warina […] I won’t look into your faces because they are covered with indigenous’ blood. As an older Mallku, it hurts me. I’m not a political fink. It hurts me because you, tenants, made yourselves owners of our land. (Mamani 2010: 41) Quispe’s speech, held immediately after the deaths in Huarina, in September 2000, and the interview transcript before unveiling the reinvention and revaluation of the Aymara identity through the deconstruction of the colonial dynamics and the inversion of positions held by the colonizer and the

78  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well colonized in Bolivian society. In that sense, the division between the Self and the Other as well as their expression in the chain of equivalent are reframed: the Other is represented by the White/Mestizo/Criollo, terms juxtaposed to “stateless”, “foreigners”, “tenants”, while the Self is identified as indigenous, the true owners of the territory converted into the Bolivian State. In the case of Quispe’s speech, his rhetoric pervaded by a strategic and emotional facet reconstructs indigenous identity once he stresses the difference between the (ex)colonizer and (ex)colonized, removing from the latter a negative stigma and attributing it now to the former. He, thus, promotes a reordering of the dominant discourse and, through denunciation, strengthens the difference, the particular. Considering that the colonial world is constructed on a dichotomous and Manichean basis, the only way found by the colonized would be the idea that his/her “world is fundamentally distinct”, as observed by Fanon (2004: 6). Hence, as the essence was once instrumentalized by the colonial discourse in order to overestimate the colonizer and reedited by the elite from independent states, it will be mobilized as well by the colonized: essence will work, thus, as a discursive principle capable of fostering the reconstruction and empowerment of the Aymara identity. This process of self-affirmation which finds its main point in the updating and reinforcement of the difference, is defined by Memmi as the return of the pendulum. Because colonial relations are structured by a racial dimension, in which difference expresses inequality, the myth of the colonizer’s superiority; Memmi argues that the only way out for the colonized “was simply to accept themselves since no one else would accept them” (Memmi 2000: 48). He, thus, explains that “to affirm one’s difference becomes the condition of self-affirmation, the banner for the individual or collective reappropriation of one’s self. Where […] the oppressed reclaim their differences against the dominant” (Memmi 2000: 49). Regarding Bolivia, the self-affirmation of Aymara identity encompasses as well what Memmi defined as the creation of counter-myths. Thus, through the exaltation of a glorious past, represented by Kollasuyu, Tawantinsuyu and Aymara leaders (Katari and Bartolisa Sisa, in particular), the Aymara people evoked and recreated memories as a source of legitimacy and uniqueness of the colonized, as shown above. Although diverse from Quispe’s approach, self-affirmation is also displayed in narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well. In this case, the emphasis put on the existence of essentially different worlds (the indigenous’ world and White-mestizo Western one) reflects the Aymara academics’ effort to demonstrate Suma Qamaña as a new paradigm for humanity (Huanacuni 2010; Yampara 2001, 2005). Here, the colonial difference is framed explicitly in cosmological terms and denotes a radical distinction between two modes of life: Western-modern versus indigenous one. In that sense, this other way to present the “essentially distinct” through narratives on Suma Qamaña stresses a singular feature of the colonial world once cosmology exceeds any attempt to understand difference simply as a matter of identity formation or

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  79 as an epistemological, spatial, institutional matter. Mamani, in his analysis on La Paz uprisings, refers to Aymara sociologist from Public University of El Alto (UPEA), Simon Yampara, as the academic that translated Aymara’s mode of life into the concept of Suma Qamaña, stressing the reconstruction of ayllu and criticism towards non-indigenous, modern Western life (Mamani 2010: 38). In fact, Yampara’s (2001) identification of Suma Qamaña as Ayllu Qamaña reflects not just the centrality of ayllu but also its link to Aymara cosmology, moving a step forward when compared to previous literature, whose analysis focused primarily on indigenous communities (ayllus). Moreover, the Yampara’s narrative highlights the fact that the conceptualization of Suma Qamaña, or Ayllu Qamaña, relates to a historical context in which indigenous communities seek to recover their traditional values and restore their ancestors’ territorial organization. In such a process, indigenous peoples not just reconstruct ceremonies, moving away from Catholicism and Protestantism, but also recover political and spiritual authorities, jilakatas and amawtas/yatiris, respectively. In some groups, such a move takes place parallel to the maintenance of peasant unions, some of which had already incorporated the community’s social practices and political organization such as muyta (rotative shifts of office among members of an ayllu), a decision taken by consensus, both usually pointed as indicative of an “indigenous democracy”.10 That’s the reason Mamani also identifies in the sociologist’s work a criticism towards the State’s conception of territory since indigenous demands encompass material, cultural and spiritual relations that take place beyond the State’s border or the territorial reductions promoted by governmental policies towards communities. And this is so because ayllu’s organization is historically based on the interconnection of diverse ecological systems, such as the highlands, the coast, valleys, whose management involves the exchange of products and the mobility of families from one place to another. Because communities’ dynamics and organization had suffered successive interventions over the centuries, Yampara’s concept expresses the return of the ayllu in its otherness of another cosmology. Consequently, Suma Qamaña is also about searching for a balance between telluric and cosmic forces that conform Pacha and the ayllu, forces that are reflected in diverse practices of community members and that, ultimately, contribute to defining what it means to be Aymara. Despite specificities concerning each narrative on Suma Qamaña, most of its proponents share the understanding delineated above. Therefore, the expression would denote a theoretical formulation developed first by Aymara intellectuals in order to promote an awareness of consciousness amid insurgencies in the highlands against the State. Past almost two decades from those events, such a discourse still resonates in a society characterized in these late years by the whitening of many indigenous that migrated from local communities to the cities and their descendants.

80  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well This perception seems to be confirmed by one member of the National Council of Allyus and Markas of Qulasuyu (Consejo Nacional de Allyus and Markas de Qulasuyu – CONAMAQ) during a public speech. According to him, in the 21st century indigenous peoples would adopt a “White-mestizo mentality”.11 Indeed, an attentive analysis on Bolivian society at that period reveals their demystification as merely community members or minor workers: indigenous groups are much more heterogeneous as collective actors and englobe an emerging class of Aymara and Quéchua businessmen located in the high and lowlands of Bolivia, defined by Untoja (2012) as Kolla hegemony. Others are small farmers or even great landowners affiliated to CSUTCB, an organization whose members support Morales’ administration and its discourse against indigenous peoples that oppose governmental development policies. The positions assumed by these actors reflect and reproduce power disputes in the national scene, wherein the government’s manipulation of Suma Qamaña takes part, as will be discussed in the final section of this chapter. Furthermore, it is important to stress that many of those migrants’ descendants do not necessarily relate to the symbols pointed before, such as wearing traditional clothing, speaking their ancestor’s language. Interestingly, the information above suggests a process pervaded by an undervaluation of traditional custom by the younger generation, better socioeconomic status and mobility along the classifying line outlined by Rivera (1993) that situates indigenous peoples and the White-mestizo on opposite poles. And, although in Castro Gómez’s (2010) understanding whitening might have been less effective in the Andean region (as well as Central America) when compared to other spaces in Latin America, such a fact does not undermine the existence of this process in Bolivian society. On the contrary, as will be stressed more clearly in the next chapter, in the Andean country, whitening points to what Fanon described as the introjection of racism and colonial logic by the colonized, expressed in a CONAMAQ member’s words as a “White-mestizo mentality”. The picture described above helps to explain somehow the continuing debate on Suma Qamaña among its proponents: while whitening might represent a strategy of power in a colonial racist society, as suggested by Castro-Gómez, so Suma Qamaña could work as a counter-strategy against a “White-mestizo mentality”. Therefore, the Aymara expression would work against racism, which reflects Rivera’s colonial horizon of long durée, whose logic is reproduced and reinvented, bringing a “new” facet to colonial structure in Bolivia. Moreover, it would respond to the government’s incorporation of Suma Qamaña in official documents, propaganda, speech. Therefore, the discursive potential of Suma Qamaña should be investigated regarding the international, national and local dimensions. Let us now take a look at the propositions of some of the intellectuals on the theme.

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  81

Searching for a new paradigm for humanity In the section above I have mentioned that, despite diverse specificities regarding narratives on Suma Qamaña, its proponents share a general understanding of the concept as a new paradigm for humanity, not just an alternative to development. Such a paradigm would be based on a dichotomous classification that presents the distinct mode of life of indigenous communities of the Andean region as against the West and its counterparts: development, capitalism, modernity. While Suma Qamaña is related to the Andean and, especially, Aymara people, the Western mode of life is usually associated with the local Mestizo-Criollo elite and the Republican State. In that sense, differentiation presented in Quispe’s speech is well observed in the academic literature, to which Suma Qamaña conforms a platform to project strategies of power. Also, it works as an arena of political dispute among indigenous scholars themselves and between the former and nonindigenous academics, as we shall observe below. Yampara conceptualizes ayllu’s mode of life as a tretalectic model organized hierarchically and composed by the territory, economic production, cultural and ritualistic practices and political structure (Yampara 2001: 71–72). It is the relation among these factors, mediated by the supernatural, the connection between the material and the spiritual, that binds life in the ayllu in order to guarantee balance in the environment and among its members. The author, thus, seeks to express in his theoretical model the Aymara worldview based on, among other factors, the relevance of parities such as chacha-warmi (man-woman), Pachamama and Pachakama (Mother Earth-Father Cosmos), to which number four constitutes their derivation. These parities are also observed in his description of the communities’ functioning. As observed previously, Yampara’s work reflects the process of reconstitution of the ayllu as part of a political struggle to reconstruct and affirm indigenous identity towards liberation/decolonization. In that sense, Suma Qamaña would function as one of the strategies of indigenous empowerment, specifically Aymara, that interpellates the deterioration promoted by colonial domination regarding ayllu’s mode of life. The return of the ayllu and Qamaña would, then, consist in a movement of resistance amid two radically different ways of thinking, described by Yampara as contradictory and non-complementary. Considering the crucial role attributed to the complementarity of opposite forces in indigenous cosmology, the description made by the author works in order to stress the difference between the “indigenous” and the “Western”. The latter is linked to modernization and development projects, implemented in indigenous communities in partnership with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and unions as an attempt to civilize and homogenize the (ex)colonized, the outsider in local society against the dominant elite. Yampara frames the Aymara proposition as a paradigm for humanity, whose cosmological

82  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well distinctiveness could help mankind achieve more sustainable and ecological development in opposition to the market’s logic and its emphasis on profit. Yampara’s propositions consisted in a watershed that influenced the work of other authors, such as Javier Medina (2006) and Josef Estermann (2012). While the latter understands Suma Qamaña as an alternative paradigm to what he identifies as the crisis of modern-Western civilization (sustained by neoliberal capitalism and observed in the political, social, economic and ecological sphere) the former points to the role of such a paradigm to not just the global but also the local dimension. For Medina, thus, the emergence of Suma Qamanã in a period marked by the end of modernity and colonization would offer the prospect of refounding the Bolivian State. Just like Estermann, Medina seeks to stress a radical difference presented by Suma Qamaña in cosmological terms when compared to the West. A crucial issue in his analysis is the notion of third included, which originates from the complementarity of opposite forces and is presented as a space of possibility, a whole which is not reduced to the sum of such forces and their complementation. If we recall the formation of Pacha, its connection to Yampara’s tretalectic model and the co-constitution between the material and the supernatural, third included would work, then, as the representation of a “multiverse”: a totality composed of multiple dimensions and interactions among the parts. Such interactions and the notion of “multiverse” express the Aymara principle that “everything lives, everything is interconnected” and, therefore, there is a social relation that is beyond the palpable world of what is seen. Yampara’s work also fomented academic debate marked either by a critique toward essentialism, what would be a mythification of indigenous peoples, either by a conceptual problem regarding Suma Qamaña or even its inexistence.12 So, while Untoja (2012a) points to an academic romanticism on the theme and emphasizes the development of an entrepreneurial mentality, Spedding (2010) identifies a conceptual problem. Based on her research and daily experience at the Yungas region, Spedding suggests the expression Sum Sarnaqaña. A similar observation is mentioned by other theorists, indigenous and non-indigenous. So, while Rafael Bautista (2012) reproduces this conceptual urge, an Aymara sociologist mentions, in an interview, the organization of informal meetings among intellectuals in order to debate discourse on Suma Qamaña, its meaning and how to improve it. Another Aymara academicist interviewed in La Paz, argues that the correct term would be Suma Jakaña, and a former Aymara ambassador claims the necessity of further reflection on Suma Qamaña in order to achieve a more precise definition.13 The propositions above reflect the reverberations of Suma Qamaña among Bolivian intellectuals, impelling their efforts either to theoretically improve the concept or to adopt a distinct ideological position. The latter would be the case of Macusaya and Portugal Molinedo, who seek to deconstruct the emphasis put by members of the Andean indigenous movement and Suma

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  83 Qamaña’s proponents on “ancestrality” and essence. Influenced by Indianismo, both claim that the symbolic and grammatical arsenal reproduced by diverse narratives are reinventions. Such arsenal, they argue, consists of social and cultural constructs that, once framed as millenarian, miss its historical and political content (Macusaya 2013). Portugal (2013), specifically, states that general understanding regarding indigenous cosmology (as radically opposed to the Western one and based on a symbiotic relationship to nature) stands as the predominant vision in Bolivian society. Situated closer to postmodern thought, for him, this predominant vision would also obscure many other visions. But, despite controversies over the theme, debate on Suma Qamaña and its universalization seems to transpose Bolivian territory, being applied to other indigenous propositions abroad. That is the case of Oviedo’s definition: while previously understanding Sumak Kawsay as an alternative for humanity, the author has recently adopted the term paradigm.14 Such conceptualization is asserted as well by Huanacuni (2010: 13), who refers to Suma Qamaña as a “communitarian paradigm” for humanity and inserts it into a broader framing of corresponding terms for other indigenous peoples in the continent, such as mapuches, mayas, kollas from Argentina, guaranis. The goal to position Aymara expression internationally is already revealed by the title of his book Buen Vivir / Vivir Bien Filosofía, Políticas, Estrategias Y Experiencias Regionales Andinas. Once he equates Good Living with Living Well, Huanacuni projects the latter into the academic debate promoted, mainly, by scholars from abroad. In that sense, the adoption of paradigm in his definition of Suma Qamaña is crucial for it crystallizes an intellectual facet, first introduced by Yamapa’s work. As such, it enables the indigenous to make part of the theoretical-academic field as a proponent, capable of nominating his mode of life and promoting an identification among indigenous peoples themselves. Let us see what a young Aymara leader says about Suma Qamaña as a paradigm and Huanacuni’s work: Living Well is Aymara, indeed, it emerges from the Aymara vision. Here, Aymara people is very empowered (not just numerically) when compared to indigenous peoples from the Amazon, who we respect a lot too, because the former was less Christianized. […] But, yes, we alude to something that definetly relates to all originarian, indigenous peoples, whatever you call them […]. There are lots of currents of thought but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we stay united and, in this unity, we realized that there is a paradigm in common, which is the communitarian paradigm […] Our proposition is to promote a change of cosmovision, a change of paradigm. And why can’t we, originarian peoples, propose a new way of life? That’s what we are doing, and in that Living Well is a subterfuge to reposition our proposition and, why not, recover our identity first and

84  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well foremost. Why have we allowed that people who do not relate to us at all govern? What happened? We missed something… (Personal interview. La Paz, November 2012) Linked to the process of consciousness-raising and reconstruction of an ancestral identity as paramount for the indigenous movements’ direction, Huanacuni’s ideas evince Suma Qamaña as a strategy of power. In that sense, the Aymara expression is presented as a discourse whose cosmological feature works in order to foment an alliance among diverse indigenous peoples from the region as opposed to the ruling elite. The key to stimulate unity among indigenous groups is the difference, essentially framed, regarding nonindigenous ones, also classified as the “West” and its corresponding terms: Nowadays, modernity imposes the horizon of ‘living better’ and the disagreement not just among human beings but also between the former and nature and cosmos. Moreover, the West overestimated reason, putting aside sensibility and affection, so central in the mode of life of ancestral peoples. (Huanacuni 2010: 11) Therefore, the aforementioned passage sets a chain of opposing signifiers: on the one hand, West/modernity/individualism/“living better”/reason and, on the other “ancestral” peoples/ Community/ “living well”/affection. When put into a broader perspective, this chain connects to others such as development/Market/civilization/anthropocentrism/pathology versus the integral vision of life/spirituality/balance/welfare/ayni, as Yampara reports in his comparison between Western and Andean “worlds”. While the former is described regarding men’s superiority over “other members of the biotic community”, human control over territories and peoples, the divorce between spirituality and materiality, the false belief of Western civility and modernity, Andean cosmovision (Qamañ-Pacha) is depicted as harmonic, based on the coexistence of all of its members, integral well-being, permanent talk to achieve consensus among community members; in sum, what he points as “emulative ayni”, that congregates spiritual and material spheres of life (Yampara 2005: 57). By applying mechanisms such as denunciation/accusation, classification and the tensioning of difference, Yampara unveils the constructions of an abyss between two distinct cosmologies, a dichotomy in which Western preponderance, to the detriment of other cosmologies, would have led humankind to a suicidal process. That is why the scholar recognizes it as a pandemic, establishing a connection between territorial expansion dynamics, such as globalization, with ethnocide, economicide, ecocide, against which Andean cosmovision, framed as a paradigm, would function as an alternative (Yampara 2005: 57). Marked by a moral connotation, identity recovery and the efforts to conceptualize their modes of life through

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  85 the construction of the “ancestral-originary” as radically contrary to the “Western”, this understanding would be crucial to indigenous peoples empowering themselves and finding new ways of acting, as suggested by the aforementioned readings. And, even though the definition of those modes of life is impelled by an intellectuality, this effort finds resonance among indigenous leaders. In that sense, despite criticizing the tergiversation that indigenous cosmologies might suffer from when transformed into concepts, those leaders understand it as a necessary strategy for the movement. That’s the opinion of Pacha Cabascango, kayambi leader and member of the Confederation of Peoples of Kichwa Nationality from Ecuador (Ecuarunari), on Sumak Kawsay: “maybe I cannot give you a precise concept about what Sumak Kawsay means, because when we conceptualize we theorize a lot and miss [Sumak Kawsay’s] essence but I know we need to do it” (Caballero Oviedo 2011: 11). Interestingly, the discursive devices for self-affirmation mentioned above also seem to reflect the notion of political ontology, defined by Blaser as “a field of study that focuses on the conflicts that ensue as different worlds or ontologies strive to sustain their own existence as they interact and mingle with each other” but also to “the politics involved in the practices that shape a particular world or ontology” (2009: 877. Emphasis added). In the same vein, those devices and the political ontology connect to what De la Cadena (2015) observes as cosmopolitics. By denouncing “Western cosmovision”, “the West” (to use Yampara and Huanacuni’s words, respectively) and its contradictions, indigenous academics find a way to act in the Western-modern world. This is possible because, while stressing colonial difference in cosmological terms, those academics were able to establish a dialogue, a connection to this non-indigenous world so that Suma Qamaña is presented as a “new paradigm for humanity”. Thus, while rejecting the nature-humanity divide, De la Cadena states in her research on the Quéchua in Peru that this does not prevent indigenous peoples from getting closer and, sometimes they even capitalize on it. Indeed, what Yampara’s work and others as well might reveal is that native proponents managed to use political ontology as a strategy to promote cosmopolitics despite the critique of indigenous and non-indigenous authors. In the case of some narratives on Suma Qamaña, this political dimension is reinforced by the term being framed as a response to humankind against a crisis of multiple dimensions, projecting it internationally. Therefore, debates between Suma Qamaña’s proponents and their critics evinces a political dispute around the term as a theoretical construction and its link to daily practices. On the one hand, Suma Qamaña’s creation is based on the living experience of the Aymara intellectuals in the ayllu. Its theoretical framing works as a discourse that connects the rural area to the city and that reconstructs memory and identity among the Aymara people. In that sense, it reflects the historic role, mentioned by Salazar de la Torre et al. (2012), of urban Aymara intelligentsia as mediators of the countryside since

86  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well the Revolution of 1952. On the other hand, it contributes to creating a field of signifiers on which a dispute among academics in the national dimension is established that might reverberate beyond the State’s frontier since many of those proponents circulate in spaces attended by members and diplomats of diverse indigenous movements, such as international fora, congresses. In both cases, we observe the connection between knowledge and power that, based on a reconstruction of ancestral custom, informs discursive strategies of some indigenous leaders with the goal to recover territory and to achieve a better position for indigenous intellectuality in the academic world. An updated interpretation of Suma Qamaña is proposed by interviewee Pablo Mamani, who distances himself from what he understands as an idyllic conception based exclusively on communitarian life and the supposed environmental facet of the term. The Aymara sociologist from UPEA questions propositions that attribute to the ayllu an idea of “perfect balance” between man and nature since human action inevitably causes an environmental impact. Thus, for him, Suma Qamaña is not about an ecological concept of life, nor a countermyth, but a proposition that equally outlines the “ancestral-original” element as a source of resistance, self-affirmation and anOther position in colonial racist society. The theorist emphasizes the necessity to think of a model that surpasses the highlands and contemplates urban life and the national dimension as well. Having in mind the social dynamics in El Alto, a city consisting mainly of Aymara migrants, who have adapted codes from the ayllu to the urban space, the theorist suggests that Suma Qamaña should reflect its prospects for expansion over Bolivian territory. He, then, presents a circular model that would progressively englobe spheres beyond ayllus and markas: The point at issue is that we might think of a paradigm somehow. Honestly, I don’t believe that Suma Qamaña can work in this capitalist model that we now know, neither in socialism, because the values are completely others. I would say that (Suma Qamaña) is about other political system, other civilization horizon, other stuff […] So, if in this paradigm is the question of material usage to the benefit of the collectivity, associated to the plenitude of life, we will be welcome in other spaces, other places. […] If we have these values, these principles – and this is not a theory, it’s a present practice in the social life of ayllu-marka, forms of social organization in the Andean world that are languages that exist, that are given – why can’t we schematize and think ambitiously that this is a different model, a model entirely different that is available? But that doesn’t mean we are “glorifying” because, as in any social world, there are contradictions. It’s a space of balancing and conflict[…]. This is part of this paradigm. So, this is a new model, but as long as (capitalist) system exists, this model is subjacent to dominant ones. In this point, we have limits, of course. How can we implement it (Suma Qamaña)? That’s a very serious problem […] I propose a broad

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  87 base economy, in which everyone has materially everything that is necessary and just and, considering social dimension, we will progressively purchase other stuff. The detail in this is that there shouldn’t be a situation where some people have nothing nor others do move according the maxim speed of capitalism. A broad base economy means that we all have what everybody has. If we have to grow in terms of this broad base economy, that would have to be a sustainable collective growth […]. That I would call “radical social average” [income], which is different from Giddens’ Third Way, or the idea of Third System. It’s impossible to avoid capitalist Society and all the colonial problems we have. We cannot afford that Brazil grows to a certain point and Chile 5%, 7%, and that we keep growing -0,5%. We should grow 5%, 7% but that growth should be in the broad basis of Society […] (Interview with Pablo Mamani. El Alto, April 2013). The scholar, thus, urges Aymara intellectuals to rethink their earlier propositions on Suma Qamaña comprising national territory as a totality, not just as the Andean countryside. But, considering the general characteristics of the narratives presented so far, that task would require a profound engagement from theorists in order to evaluate, for instance, the discursive potential of Suma Qamaña, the applicability of its terminology (especially regarding those regions where the organization of indigenous communities differs from the ayllu). Moreover, it would imply theorists reflect on the possibilities to create a state structure in Bolivia on a new basis that could function abroad. These issues, associated with the specificities regarding Quéchua and Aymara values and the very idea of creating a “model”, which by definition departs from the particular (in this case, indigenous communities in the highlands) to the general, consists of a substantial step towards the universalization of Suma Qamaña as a paradigm for humankind. In this way, while previous mentions of the term point to Aymara scholars’ initiative to define it as a paradigm, the interviewee’s words express a second moment, marked by academics’ continuous effort to adjust Suma Qamaña and endow it with more consistency. In what follows, I examine how the Aymara cosmology is absorbed by State’s discourse. “Para Vivir Bien” “Para Vivir Bien” (In order to Living Well) expresses the main slogan adopted by Morales’ administration and reproduced constantly by diverse State institutions in order to legitimize public policies.15 The overwhelming publicization of Suma Qamaña’s Spanish translation alongside the isolation of indigenous peoples from decision-making by the Executive made some critics question the government’s indigenous feature (Patzi 2013, Quisbert 2007, Tapia 2011). Others, such as Mamani (2007), point to a process of political emptiness of the term that would serve to sustain domination through

88  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well the praise and visibility of the indigenous subject in the official discourse. In fact, as an expression capable of being applied to distinct issues, Vivir Bien (Living Well) removes the political content of indigenous resistance, as well as the cosmological facet regarding Suma Qamaña, despite the former’s identification as an “indigenous proposition”. In such a discourse, the difference is superficially referred to through an automatic association between Living Well and the indigenous subject, obfuscating a rhetorical strategy that seeks to legitimate developmental practices by the State. Precisely because Suma Qamaña is isolated from its content, in parallel to the immediate identification and exaltation of the Other, such a strategy enables the exhaustive reproduction of Living Well, its naturalization and stereotyping. Also, it promotes what Mamani (2007) understands as a new kind of racism whose function is to keep the domination of a minority and the colonial difference observed during the Republican period as well. Mamani’s point recalls the maintenance of an exclusionary logic that underlies internal colonialism and its renovation in the 21st century by an emerging elite formed by people historically excluded from State structure. So, whereas in the Republican period difference was valued as part of a heroic past, contained within time and space, as pointed out in the previous chapter, in Morales’ government the difference remains “captured” through its extolment in contemporaneity and isolation from political decision-making process simultaneously. In that way, the appropriation of otherness in governmental discourse through the incorporation of indigenous ceremonies in the State protocol, the creation of norms, or even the organization of annual meetings with indigenous and peasant leaders would function first and foremost as a device to get their support and keep political alliance. That would be the case of CSUTCB or Bartolina Sisa National Confederation of Peasant Indigenous Originary Women of Bolivia (Confederación Nacional de Mujeres Campesinas Indígenas Originarias de Bolivia Bartolina Sisa, CNMCIOB – BS). And, important to mention, the renovation of internal colonialism takes place among intense social mobilization, marked by a rupture between Morales’s administration and diverse organizations, some of them composed exclusively of indigenous groups, such as CONAMAQ and Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian East (Confederación de los Pueblos Indígenas del Oriente Boliviano, CIDOB), others by class membership, as COB. As those meetings lost gradually their co-ruling feature and assumed a consultative status, and as the Executive started to criminalize indigenous leaders who considered extractivist policies contrary to their self- determination and modes of life, the government’s modus operandi became manifest as one of including otherness narrowly. The goal was to create a favorable scenario to rule and guarantee the new political elite’s permanence in State institutions. The absorption of Suma Qamaña as a rhetorical device, which excludes the incorporation and implementation of the cosmology underlying the

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  89 expression, is observed in the Bolivian Constitution as well as in the National Development Plan Dignified, Sovereign, Productive and Democratic Bolivia In Order to Living Well: Strategic Lineament 2006–2011 (Bolivia Digna, Soberana, Productiva y Democrática Para Vivir Bien: Lineamientos Estratégicos 2006–2011, Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo 2007). In the first instance, Living Well and some of the characteristics attributed to the term – complementarity, harmony, balancing – are linked either to moral values or to economic and political matters that should be assured by the State. Except for article 8, Suma Qamaña is replaced in the document by “Living Well” or “in order to Living Well”, the latter indicating not just a sense of purpose but also a self-explanatory tone: its use as the ethos of Plurinational Bolivia would justify in and of itself the duties and role of the State as regulator of activities in general and promoter of development despite the normative advocate’s mechanisms of participatory democracy (see, for example, articles 241 and 242). This point is made clear regarding Bolivia’s economic organization, which concentrates mostly on references to Living Well as compared to other parts of the Constitution. In this section of the document, the term is mentioned both as a goal and a pillar of a plural Bolivian economy, composed of social, private, state and communitarian forms of organization (see articles 306 and 313). In that sense, the document embraces businessmen and great landowners’ demands as well as those of the cooperative and indigenous communarians. The State’s centrality is expressed in the Constitution, and encompasses not just economic and social planning but its direct participation in diverse sectors, especially those considered strategic, in order to promote development, the redistribution of wealth, consumption and the eradication of poverty, among other goals. As article 316 indicates, the function of the State in the Bolivian economy comprises several tasks including direct participation in the economy, regulation of the production, distribution and commercialization of goods and services, the control of strategic sectors, promotion of industrialization of natural resources while respecting the environment, the promotion of employment policies and redistribution of wealth in order to combat inequality and eradicate poverty. The article also includes as State’s functions the monopoly over commercial and productive activities “considered indispensable” and the formulation of development plans “with the participation of and in consultation with the citizenry” (Nueva Constitución Política del Estado – New Constitution of the Plurinational State – 2008: 120). Because natural resources are responsible for the greater part of the country’s income, the control and foment of the industrialization of those by the State stands out as an urge, a condition for development and the exercise of sovereignty (a point also made in the NDP). In that sense, self- determination against other States as well as multilateral institutions is mentioned in this part of the Constitution, expressing in the economic field the idea of “Bolivia Free” (Bolivia libre), widely related to the “refunding of the State” and,

90  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well to some, Morales’ government. And, together with State’s direct participation in multiple sectors as well as other functions stressed above, the administration of natural resources, particularly during the commodities’ boom in the first half of the 2000s, works in order to promote power centralization. Even though the constitutional text stipulates public consultation for Bolivian people, income decentralization among departments, municipalities and indigenous territories, articles in this section of the document express in almost their full totality the role of the State as the great protagonist of social-economic development in Bolivia. And, despite references to Living Well (not to mention, Suma Qamaña), those are still scarce and do not clarify its meaning, for example, neither its connection to the notion of development nor its real stake in State’s economic organization. Otherness, then, seems to be stressed as a subterfuge to promote political centralization in the hands of Morales’ government as representative of the State. This governmental tactic and the issues highlighted above appear more clearly concerning the NDP. As one of the first documents that already contained some of the themes to be presented by the new Constitution, such as the State’s role in the economy and its relationship with social movements, NDP has been part of several analyses regarding Bolivia (see, for example, Filho et al. 2010, Postero 2017, Stefanoni 2010). The normative, which evokes Living Well along with development, economic productivity and Bolivian sovereignty, reflects what would seem at first a misconception regarding Suma Qamaña, as affirmed by one of the main proponents of the term, foreign minister Choquehuanca: Maybe we are still using Western concepts. Instead of speaking of a National Development Plan, we should speak of a National Plan about Returning to Balancing, or a National Plan of Life, because development is related to living better, not to Living Well. (Choquehuanca 2010: 33. Emphasis in the original) But a closer look uncovers the discursive strategy employed by the government in which Living Well stands as an extension of development. The plan’s importance concerns not just its content but the display of academic grammar, involving a debate on Living Well and its crucial feature of the refunding of the Bolivian State. In that sense, Living Well is classified as the knowledge “characteristic of the original and indigenous culture of Bolivia”, a “cosmocentric vision that overcomes traditional ethnocentric concepts on development” that reflects “the community’s intercultural coexistence with the other without power asymmetry”, “different from Western ‘living better’” (Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo 2007: 8). The expression is, thus, understood as the inverse of development whose absorption in the State Project would reflect indigenous demand of decolonization. Also, it reproduces the mobilization of the essence, so crucial to the process of self-affirmation and empowerment

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  91 of the colonized pointed by Memmi and Fanon and stressed in the reconstitution of the Aymara identity. Nevertheless, Suma Qamaña’s incorporation corresponds to the exaltation of difference and political emptiness pattern observed before: once transformed into Living Well, the term is adjusted to State parameters. Its resignification endows official discourse with a new face although, in its structure, the content remains unaltered as suggested by the employment of terms such as “new proposal of development”, “new pattern of development”, “alternative paradigm to development”. Interestingly, the latter reveals the capture of the word “paradigm”, pointed by some indigenous academics, along with “alternative to development”, a notion widely rejected by some Aymara proponents.16 This suggests a strategic inclusion of Suma Qamaña’s grammar into the State’s Living Well discourse, as observed in several passages of the NDP, according to which the latter expression is defined as “the demand for development’s humanization” that would transform development into a collective process of decision-making and acting of society as an active subject […] Hence, Living Well is the access to the enjoyment of material resources and of effective, subjective, intellectual and spiritual fulfillment, in balancing with nature and in community with human beings. (Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo 2007: 9) Following this intrinsic relation constructed by the official discourse between Living Well and development, the document stresses the inefficacy of the modern concept of progress to comprise the NDP once this “new proposal of development” would require “integral, holistic, radical and accumulative understanding capable of including non-homogenous situations and because it also incorporates cultural, economic, political and social features. It unites practices and knowledge from different social actors” (Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo 2007: 9). In another passage, the document states that: The new policy proposes the concept of “development pattern” in opposition to “development model” because it does not search nor utilizes a proved and validated prototype as it seeks to build a new development pattern as a replacement for primary-export model. (Ministerio del Planificación del Desarrollo 2007: 12. Emphasis in the original) Through the manipulation of those terms, State’s discourse provides a critique towards development as an ethnocentric understanding of the world, that reproduces power asymmetry and silences other forms of knowledge. In that sense, it seeks to transpose to the NDP the tension expressed in Suma Qamaña literature under the mechanisms of classification, denunciation/

92  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well accusation, between two opposite worlds: indigenous and Western one. Moreover, its elaborated grammar establishes a nexus with the propositions of some decolonial authors, as observed in the use of “intercultural coexistence” or the idea that “interculturality is the driving force” of the new development’s pattern (Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo 2007: 13). Besides interculturality, other expressions are widely found in the Plan and in decolonial literature as well: decolonization, coloniality, colonialism, colonial State (Quijano 2005, Walsh et al. 2006). Nevertheless, as one proceeds with the document’s reading, the emphasis on the empowerment of historically marginalized actors gives way gradually to the prominence of the State as a “transforming force of change” (Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo 2007: 15), a “new power bloc” whose capacity of guaranteeing the necessary shifts in Bolivian society is linked to the State’s return as the promoter of development. The observation above suggests that in order to express its propositions, the government makes use not just of a discursive grammar proper to Suma Qamaña but also of concepts presented by great schools of thought in Social Science. In fact, not rarely, those propositions found resonance in decolonial work, such as Dussel’s (2008) typification of Bolivian decolonization as a Cultural Revolution. The latter expression, frequently mobilized by Evo Morales, is understood by the philosopher as representative of intercultural dialogue and identitarian defense against the homogenizing politics implemented by the local elite previously. Thus, governmental rhetoric strategically incorporates the Suma Qamaña narrative, which follows the deployment of a theoretical grammar to achieve legitimacy in national and international spheres to its developmental, centralizing project. Similar to the Constitution, in NDP the centralization of power by the State is justified as a condition for recovering Bolivian natural resources, which plays a crucial role in the redistribution of wealth, and the exercise of sovereignty amid Morales’ government decision to nationalize hydrocarbons and transnational companies: “Strategic sectors are composed of hydrocarbons, mining, electricity and environmental resources, that protect nationality because they comprise natural resources, regained and recognized as State property” (Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo 2007: 133). Such sectors would demand a high investment which explains the necessity of having the State as the protagonist of development by creating or refounding State companies that promote development of these sectors, maximize surplus, its appropriation, use and distribution through reinvestment […] in a context of balancing with environment. (Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo 2007: 134) Part of this scenario is the industrialization of natural resources that has received the administration’s attention, as suggested by the advance of

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  93 gas’s processing, the settlement of an industry of urea in partnership with Samsung, etc. Those examples have no connection to the Suma Qamaña propositions; on the contrary, they relate to a development project sustained in the following pillars (also reflected in Bolivian Constitution, as mentioned before): State interventionism, reduction of poverty through wealth redistribution, industrialization and economic growth.17 These pillars are pointed out by several authors as the characteristics of developmentalist governments in 21st- century Latin America and their focus on the extraction and export of natural resources (see Boschi and Gaitán 2009, Gudynas 2009, Svampa 2013, Vidal 2008). In parallel, the implementation of social policies which, presented in all Latin America as showed by Bastagli (2009), in Bolivia is represented by the so-called bonos (Juancito Pinto, Juana Azurduy, Dignidad) as a means for Morales’ administration to assist the population and stimulate consumption. Regarding the high dependency on natural resources by the Bolivian economy, the direct intervention of the State is justified as an urge once those are considered part of “strategic sectors”, particularly in the case of hydrocarbons, whose income might promote the development and sustain social policies. In that sense, the NDP would fit the extractivist regional agenda, which completely shocks the indigenous rights, as shown in the construction of dams in Northern Brazil, the exploitation of Yasuní Park in Ecuador, the TIPNIS’ case and the criminalization of indigenous leaders who opposed governmental policies in Bolivia. Besides, the State’s protagonism presents itself in the document together with mechanisms of social participation (such as the creation of associations, regional councils) as a means to transform indigenous groups into policymakers, this co-responsibility feature of the government lost its relevance gradually, as clarified in the next chapter (Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo 2007: 144). That is the case, for example, of the National Council of Social Control, created in 2012 by the government and composed of members of indigenous organizations, unions, citizens from other organizations, with the task to check policies, not to co-elaborate them with the Executive (see Paredes 2012). So, distinct from indigenous decision-making process, which consists of long debates that could last several days in order to achieve a consensus among its participants, political participation employed by the government seems to fit a notion of inclusion of and not necessarily a recognition of otherness. Moreover, the emphasis on natural resources’ exploitation and their administration by the State seems relevant since they encompass a market logic that differs diametrically from the idea of harmony and respect for nature reflected by the literature on Suma Qamaña. Transformed into commodities, nature is presented as resources whose progressive extraction and export are fundamental to the developmentalist project, as pointed before. In other words, nature is converted into an object of human intervention, domination, which is the opposite of indigenous cosmology and the idea

94  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well of nature as a subject of rights, as discussed in the next chapter. For that reason, many indigenous and non-indigenous academics in the country criticize Morales’ administration as far from the “governance by obeying” slogan, frequently mobilized by the president, or from Tapia’s (2006) notion of co-government. In that sense, it would be closer to the exclusionary inclusion pattern aforementioned, that is, including otherness narrowly while excluding indigenous peoples from decision-making and the implementation of the cosmology underlying Suma Qamaña. Regarding the national sovereignty, the issue figures as a principle to be achieved through State’s empowerment to guarantee development, national unity and a new political pact, despite other types of sovereignty are mentioned (food sovereignty, sanitary sovereignty, indigenous land’s sovereignty). So, on the one hand, the document attests to popular participation based on State decentralization and Living Well. On the other, the Plan promotes power recentralization via policies of nationalization, industrialization and the provision of public goods, making the State the promoter par excellence of change in Bolivian society. In this process, the focus on natural resources control and the incorporation of Suma Qamaña/ Living Well as the pillar of a “new type of development” function as a device to accomplish a national Project and, simultaneously, to express Bolivian State self-image, its uniqueness in the international sphere. This confirms Inayatullah and Blaney’s (1995) observation on State sovereignty realization and its connection to wealth access, which makes it difficult for the Third World States due to the inequality that marks the global division of labor. Because States need economic means to exercise their sovereignty, understood by the authors not just as independence but also as the expression of a state’s exceptionality in the international community, the property of natural resources for Bolivia would consist in a condition for the government to accomplish its unique national Project and, consequently, to realize its self-image abroad, as discussed below. Living Well in the international sphere Suma Qamaña’s discursive instrumentalization as a source of legitimacy and exceptionality found in the minister of Foreign Affairs, David Choquehuanca, a relevant broker. As one of the few indigenous ministers at Morales’ cabinet and a well-known proponent of Suma Qamaña, Choquehuanca mediated the contact between the international and the national sphere for almost a decade. Once absorbed in presidential discourse through the articulation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Living Well is catapulted into the international fora, projecting simultaneously the country, Morales’ administration as an “indigenous government” and the President himself. Besides Morales’ diverse statements and active participation in meetings, conferences, particularly those related to the UN and civil society organizations, the minister’s

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  95 speeches and texts prepared for courses ratify the points highlighted before. Official documents of the Ministry frequently stressed a correlation among indigenous movement’s empowerment, the emergence of Morales’ government as part of indigenous peoples’ achievement and their mission towards the rest of the world (also referred to as “the West”). In this narrative, Bolivia is presented as the one capable of protecting Mother Earth and promoting Living Well abroad and, therefore, a necessary subject for the indigenous struggle internationally. This attempt to “globalize” Bolivia is observed in Choquehuanca’s words during the possession of the first ministerial cabinet under the Plurinational State. Alluding to the Warriors of the Rainbow prophecy, the minister attested that the transformations undertaken in the country were not just about improvement but a profound change that entailed indigenous peoples ruling themselves, the search for Living Well, and added, our message is not just for Bolivia […] Bolivia consists in a Messenger for Peace and a Guardian of Life for the entire planet. […] The profound change and transformation we are achieving are not just for us, they are proposals and alternative for the world, humanity and the planet. (Choquehuanca 2010a: 72) The idea above is reflected as well in Living Well as solution to the Global Crisis (Vivir Bien como solución a la Crisis Global), publicized on Bolivia’s page on the UN website (see Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores 2009a). Prepared in 2009, the document summarizes previous publication in which Living Well is proposed by the Bolivian government as a response to environmental and capitalist crisis, a key to achieving a balance with nature, happiness, food and communities’ sovereignty. Important to mention here that several other texts were released from the first term of Morales’ administration till 2019 and most of them presented not just the centrality of Bolivia but also of indigenous communities as a reference to this new kind of proposal. In that sense, communities’ land, production and modes of life are highly expressed as part of an identitarian recovery and the emergence of indigenous peoples as political actors. In Living Well as a response to the Global Crisis (Vivir Bien como respuesta a la Crisis Global), prepared by the Ministry and released in October 2009 on the website of Journal America Latina en Movimiento, those themes are reinforced by the idea that 21st century represents a new era, a time marked by indigenous nations and the necessity to achieve communities’ sovereignty, clearly a reflection of Bolivia’s plurinationality: It’s up to us to deepen democracy […] decolonize the country, consolidating and reconstructing life and sovereignty in our communities, ayllus […], the sovereignty of originarian peoples and nations, afro

96  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well descendants, migrants, men and women, social organizations and movements, where there is harmony, […] balance between man and nature. (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores 2009b: 172) The quotations above reveal a sophisticated discursive strategy: by applying either pronouns such as “we”/“us” as a reference to originarian peoples and stressing the Andean country experience, those documents construct an overlapping image between Bolivia and indigenous peoples/nations. An image that tends to be reproduced each time Bolivian diplomats and, particularly, its highest representative, Evo Morales (both President and Aymara) express propositions mobilizing indigenous symbols. As a result, Bolivia is framed as the epicenter of a resistance process of originarian peoples that should be replicated internationally and, equally relevant, that are necessary to a chaotic world. Nevertheless, that strategy reproduced by Morales (as well as Choquehuanca) in his active participation abroad and endorsed (at least, initially) by many indigenous movements and leaders, encompasses an inherent contradiction: despite the recognition of indigenous peoples’ sovereignty in the Bolivian Constitution, as stated in plurinationality, indigenous nations are not necessarily circumscribed to the State’s territorial marks. Actually, Aymaras, Quéchuas, guaranies and others are constituted as indigenous peoples against the State and, as nations, they sometimes surpass state borders. In that sense, the overlapping image pointed by the official narrative to the international not just tends to silence this ongoing contradiction but, in doing so, it promotes the enclosure of indigenous sovereignty by the State. This contradiction, crystallized in Living Well discourse, will openly come to the surface during the TIPNIS conflict when indigenous demands from the lowland confront the limits of the Bolivian State and its colonial logic. While in the national plan the Executive pursues policies that reaffirm the State’s centrality and developmental policies despite communities’ criticism, in the international it presents its “indigenous facet” (and Bolivia’s as well) supporting indigenous peoples’ meetings, the UN Declaration of Indigenous Rights, for example, and promoting Living Well. Not by coincidence, after moving to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) as Secretary-General, Choquehuanca is replaced by Huanacuni, which demonstrates the centrality of the Aymara proposition for the elaboration of a “unique” agenda. Those passages demonstrate, therefore, the government’s initiative to project itself and Bolivia, crediting the country’s relevance for the planet to its process of decolonization which, in turn, is linked to Living Well as the bedrock of an exceptional national Project expressed in the Constitution, economic policies and reforms in general. Suma Qamaña’s definition as an alternative for humanity is, thus, absorbed and transposed to the Nation-State as the official representative of such proposal in the international arena. Those observations are also illustrated by the President, during his speech in the Climate Change Meeting, held in

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  97 Copenhagen, in which he called for the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth to be hosted by the Bolivian government the following year. For him, the latter event presented for Bolivia the chance to “keep our strategy towards Living Well’s reconstruction and the defense of Mother Earth, to advance Ten Commandments’ propositions for saving the planet […], to take our responsibility in maintaining Balance with Nature” (Morales 2009 quoted in Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores 2010: 27). But Suma Qamaña’s transformation into Living Well involves also an academic framing which, reproducing the strategy adopted in the NDP, reflects the administration’s effort to sustain legitimacy among its intellectual allies from abroad by applying their conceptual tools and, in parallel, advance the construction of an exceptionalism. Thus, the idea of creating a “new socialism” or a “communitarian socialism” to improve “21st-century Socialism”, stated in official documents, relates not just to the Bolivarian model employed by Chaves’ government (Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores 2009c, 2010). Indeed, the expressions unveil a closer connection with Santos’s Good Living Socialism, mentioned before. The words of President Evo Morales and vice president Álvaro García, pronounced during VIII Congress of MAS, in 2012, made clear this approach. While the former claimed that this new socialism was grounded on Living Well, going beyond class conflict, García explained: these are the sources of our socialism: on the one hand, the working class, contemporary science and technology and, on the other, communitarism, communitarian distribution; the sum of worker’s world and communitarian world […] are the sources of Communitarian Socialism. (quoted in Villanueva Imaña 2012) Similar but further developed than Santos’ theoretical interpretation, Communitarian Socialism corresponds to a transition from capitalism to socialism that, according to the party thesis, would precede Living Well in terms of a “paradigmatic” revolutionary stage project (Arkonada 2012). In that sense, the term would correspond to Schavelson’s (2015) observation of a long-term project because officially framed as a project that should not impose itself on material interests, that is, development. Early on, Living Well was already pointed by the president in the Opening Ceremony of the Seventh Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) in 2008. In his speech, Morales propounded Communitarian Socialism, based on Living Well and the protection of Mother Earth, as one of the Ten Commandments that humanity should compromise in order to overcome capitalism and promote a real transformation (see Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores 2008). Mimicking the denunciation/accusation strategy employed by Suma Qamaña’s proponents regarding colonialism, capitalism and the West (as in the case of NDP), such

98  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well a discursive construction is further reproduced on several occasions, many of those with the attendance of indigenous peoples and diplomatic representatives. The Ceremony to celebrate Pachakuti is particularly relevant: in the event, extremely publicized by the Ministry of Foreign Relations and attended by indigenous peoples from all over the world, diplomats, tourists, Morales publicized the Manifesto of Isla del Sol, that synthesizes the Ten Commandments. Evoking the memories of Manco Kapac and Mama Ocllo as founders of Tawantinsuyu, the president praised the fact that the celebration took place in the Titikaka Lake region, considered a sacred location by indigenous peoples, and stressed that the Plurinational State of Bolivia, in response to peoples of the world’s urge, had accepted “an ethical obligation to the planet” that included the need for human beings to “recover a sense of unity and relevancy with Mother Earth” (Fidler 2013). Morales goes on in his speech to highlight that it was a decisive moment for the planet and, due to that fact, the time had come to promote the redistribution of wealth, eradication of poverty and harmony with nature and between the material and spiritual realms. He, then, emphasizes that those who decided to get together with Bolivians in Isla del Sol were Warriors of the Rainbow, Warriors of Living Well, and concluded: “we are the insurgents of the world” (Fidler 2013). Finally, Morales mentions Communitarian Socialism of Living Well as the one that considers rights, human happiness and the “full complementary of the rights of peoples, persons, states and Mother Earth” as opposed to the dictates of the market (Fidler 2013). Reproducing many of the points presented before, the president stressed Communitarian Socialism of Living Well as a long-term goal, critical to extractivist policies, the reduction of State’s role in the economy (a point also highlighted in the NDP), interventionist policies held by international institutions such as the UN. Emerging in a context of indigenous peoples’ empowerment, the expression is described as a proposition based on the Bolivian experience that could inform the liberation of other peoples all over the world. Once again, Living Well conforms to the overlapping image aforementioned and, in parallel, converted into theoretical proposition that could inform resistance in international and global terms, predicting that “another word is possible”. It’s important to highlight that the discursive construction of Communitarian Socialism of Living Well, or simply Communitarian Socialism (an expression previously mobilized by Indianist authors in order to differentiate their interpretation from what they perceived as a Western, traditional leftist interpretation) was held against growing criticism among diverse theorists towards the government, depicted as either extractivist, post-neoliberal or as a right-wing one, especially after the violent repression of the TIPNIS protesters (Atahuichi Lopes 2013, Escobar 2012, Lander 2010). A former enthusiast of Morales’ administration, Santos (2012) himself referred to the episode and criticized authoritarian measures

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  99 adopted by the Executive against indigenous movements in order to sustain an extractivist project. Hence, the considerations above disclose Suma Qamaña/Living Well’s framing so it could provide academic support and, at the same time, fit the cosmology into slogans and governmental policies. Here, what is at stake is not the implementation of Living Well in accordance with indigenous intellectuals’ proposals, which are presented as radically distinct from the Western world and its capitalist and socialist models. On the contrary, what is at stake is the instrumentalization of Suma Qamaña, transforming the expression into an authentic proposal of socialism under Morales’ administration, different from other socialist experiences developed around the globe. Because of its supposed uniqueness, Communitarian Socialism would function not just as an appealing construct to the academic field but also as a source of power to its advocates, that is, governmental authorities that would detain what Inayatullah (2009) names as exclusive knowledge. Related to civilizing and evangelist policies of colonization, as well as to international donation to Third World countries, this expression indicates the superiority of one group based on their singular knowledge about the world, which would endow them with legitimacy and authority over the Other. In the Bolivian case, Communitarian Socialism works to project the State and the government abroad by capturing the reclaiming of exceptionality made by former proponents of Suma Qamaña and transforming it into something else. In parallel, the absorption of its conceptual tools also functions as a strategy that seeks to gain recognition from indigenous and peasants’ organizations, which forms the major support base of Morales’ administration, despite the opposition of many indigenous and non-indigenous intellectuals. Also, it seeks to gain recognition from the international indigenous movement and other collective actors critical to neoliberal globalization and capitalism. In that sense, international meetings, particularly those under the UN umbrella and regional organizations, as well as those organized by the government, will be crucial spaces to propagate the official discourse. Thus, while Suma Qamaña instrumentalization might look at first as an opportunity for indigenous movements to transpose it to the international and global spheres, giving resonance to their mobilization, this projection seems delusional once one realizes that such a process entails the concept’s inclusion in policies that put the sovereign State as the protagonist of the political game. Through such an inclusion, Suma Qamaña’s proposals are adjusted by the official discourse, which reproduces the maintenance of exclusionary structures by a supposedly indigenous government. Similar to what is observed in Ecuador, Suma Qamaña’s transformation into Living Well works in order only to legitimize governmental practices.18 In this way, it functions to propagate the exclusionary inclusion pattern that operates under internal colonialism and that finds in the international a necessary dimension to sustain its dynamics.

100  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well This pattern might point to issues regarding the institutionalization of indigenous and peasant organizations, which were frequently encouraged by the Bolivian government to “defend proceso de cambio” as a means to support official politics. This subject will be addressed in the next chapter. Nevertheless, what has been discussed so far suggests that the discursive process regarding Suma Qamaña/Living Well encompasses somehow an alliance between those social organizations and the government with controversial results for the former, among those, the fragmentation of indigenous peoples and the transformation of grassroots politics: once characterized by a contention towards the State observed in many protests in previous years, as aforementioned, and called in literature by Tarrow (1998) as contention politics, some indigenous movements and peasant organizations seem to have accommodated their objectives with the institutional/official ones. This change would reflect a process of moderation and transformation described by Kriese (1996) regarding collective actors once they integrate pre-established systems that mediate interests. In the Bolivian case, political and material opportunities initially represented by Morales’ election for those actors that conformed to the Pact of Unity brought to the fore disagreement among themselves, as made evident during the protests in defense of the TIPNIS. Division among indigenous peoples themselves and between them and peasant organizations are reflected in positions pro or against Morales’ administration, a change of perception expressed by leader Celso Padilla on what Guarani people understand as Living Well (Ñandereko, or Teko Kavi for them): Living Well is, for us, a word very utilized in real life, in practical life. It should not be confused with a politician’s discourse when nowadays government is using it [Living Well] a lot. Living Well is related to the idea of family and the maintenance of culture, values, spirituality […] We are talking about culture but also about a sustainable economic model. We are also thinking of Living Well in Society, of holding a good relationship within families in communities and beyond those communities. Guaranie people has always been very integrative…We practice Living Well in the communities in which we live, we live it, it should not be thought of as a developmentalist issue. Guaranie people never thought big, in doing something big to commercialize; it’s about having what is necessary, practicing reciprocity, hospitality […]. Nowadays, government says ‘let’s implement food security, food sovereignty’, but in a much more commercial, unionist sense, talking about microbusiness associations, and those have nothing to do with us […]. We also promote communitarian work such as faena, which means ‘help each other mutually’ […]. There cannot be other term more adequate to us than ours […] If somebody wants to impose other vision, a more developmentalist one, more commercial, that might bring a change in life itself, a change

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  101 in culture, a change in identity. In the political plan, Living Well means having territory… (Interview with Celso Padilla. Santa Cruz de La Sierra, October 2012) Padilla’s words reveal a dispute between the government and indigenous peoples from the lowlands, transposed to the discourse on Living Well. Not so much addressed by academics when compared to Suma Qamaña and Sumak Kawsay, Ñandereko, or Teko Kavi, would point to an identitarian issue and practices very different from governmental policies, considered as developmentalist and contrary to the indigenous mode of life. Here, Padilla aims to confront Guarani’s cosmology with the official version reproduced by State institutions, by groups from the high and lowlands that support the government and eventually adopt a racist vocabulary. In this way, the inclusion of the term in governmental rhetoric transforming it into Living Well expresses one of the dimensions regarding the discursive strategies and disputes over decolonization and recolonization in Bolivia that will be employed by narratives over the TIPNIS conflict as well.

Conclusion In this chapter, I’ve argued that Suma Qamaña/Living Well entails a strategy of power by both the Aymara people and the government. Initially attributed to an Aymara intelligentsia, such a discourse worked to reinforce difference, giving it a positive facet, and promote indigenous self-affirmation. Considering the context in which it emerged, Suma Qamaña cannot be detached from the mobilizations developed in the Bolivian highlands nor from the restructure of the ayllu. In that sense, it played a crucial role in the recovery of identity and the promotion of awareness among indigenous peoples, especially Aymara, an issue pointed by Cesaire (2000) as relevant for the liberation of the colonized. Nevertheless, Suma Qamaña/Living Well’s construction is also linked to conflicts of power in the discursive field. On the one hand, it evokes criticism by many Bolivian intellectuals, some of them Aymara. On the other, its framing as a “paradigm for humanity” enables its internationalization as the concept is absorbed and reproduced by scholars abroad. This incorporation by international academics works in diverse ways: be it through the preponderance of Sumak Kawsay/Good Living, the emphasis attributed to it as a synonym of “Andean indigenous thought” or even as an alternative to development, to capitalism and to colonial logic. In any case, Suma Qamaña is transformed by theorists into expressions that tend to confirm their theoretical hypothesis, leaving aside political disputes that take place in the local dimension. Regarding IR scholars, they don’t just reproduce previous Social Science literature on the issue but also reinforce the tendency mentioned above as their focus is first and foremost a theoretical one. The concern with ontological

102  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well difference presented by non-Western colonial “worldviews” and their prospects for the discipline has resulted in the depoliticization of Suma Qamaña. In this case, they put in second place divergence over the Aymara cosmology, which involves indigenous and non-indigenous intellectuals. Because such divergence reflects not just an effort to provide conceptual accuracy but also the growing tension between the government and indigenous movements that lead to the fragmentation of the latter, IR theorists miss the strategies employed by those actors in the Bolivian political game as well. In doing so, they mention only partially political implications regarding the emergence of this Other ontology in Bolivian society, stressing the friction between Suma Qamaña and Modern/Western logic but not necessarily the continuing process of domination and resistance that crosses those disputes, nourishes them and puts into check the progressive, essentialist and delusional character regarding decolonization and indigenous movements in Bolivia. As a result, IR authors tend to promote a romanticized critique vision of Modern/rational versus Non-Modern logics, the latter represented by a homogenized knowledge/mode of life. And because homogenization and essentialization remove memories pervaded by struggles and stories of the other, as pointed out by Barthes (2013), they depoliticize the colonized. Thus, in the discipline’s literature theoretical issues take precedence over empirical research, and the political component of Suma Qamaña, as developed in the local dimension and projected to the international, is underestimated. In doing so, IR authors reproduce and reinforce a similar pattern of depoliticization advanced by Social Scientists. Suma Qamaña’s depoliticization is prompted by Morales’ government, although in a distinct manner when compared to academic literature. In that case, the official discourse makes use of a sophisticated strategy that combines Suma Qamaña’s grammar with theoretical concepts that relate to international literature on resistance and decolonization. The Aymara proposition is incorporated by the ruling elite through the exaltation of otherness whilst its cosmological content is not followed by political leaders in public policies. Converted into Living Well, Suma Qamaña is, then, applied as a useful slogan in official propaganda and framed in “global” terms. This globalized discourse, that emphasize mechanisms of denunciation/accusation, classification and the tensioning of difference applied by Suma Qamaña proponents, will be reproduced by the ministers and Evo Morales in terms of “an alternative for humanity” not just in the local but also in the international dimension: meetings, conferences. As an expression of what is essentially different in Bolivia, Living Well serves to legitimize the administration and, in parallel, project Bolivia and its government, as well as its indigenous president. While internal colonialism operates through this renovated grammar, such a projection through the mobilization of Living Well and its associated notions (Pachamama, Mother Earth, decolonization) works to sustain support from the allied base and minimize critiques towards the allegedly “indigenous government” and the head of Morales’ administration.

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  103 In that sense, the international poses as a necessary dimension to the exercise and permanence of colonialism in the local, whose update is provided by the government and its absorption of indigenous cosmology. And this is not just necessary but possible because the international has been historically constituted by colonial logic, whose exercise traces back to colonization and the production of the Other, as mentioned in Chapter 2. Once again, Latin America, represented by Bolivia, serves as a site to reinforce colonialism and renovate the exclusionary inclusion pattern through the reproduction of a narrative that allegedly represents indigenous peoples and their difference. While the international looks crucial to sustaining internal colonialism in the country, Morales’ administration provides a “cosmological cover” for colonial international based on Living Well. Thus, as an organizing principle of discourse, Suma Qamaña is immersed in political disputes that develop in the local sphere and inform the international and the global, which in turn also impact the local, creating a dynamic process that sustains internal colonialism.

Notes 1 Qamaña is translated as estar siendo and Kawsay as ser estando. See Huanacuni (2010) and Oviedo Freire (2012). 2 Pacha, in Aymara and Quéchua, means “life”. Pa indicates number two, paya, and cha comes from the word chama, which denotes force/energy. Personal notes. 3 In those communities, ceremonies are usually related to the Andean-Amazon calendar, marked by agricultural cycles, and consist of celebrations of life. During ceremonies, rituals are guided by amawtas or yatiris, who mediate relations between visible and invisible worlds and experts in healing through the usage of traditional knowledge about the cosmos and nature, followed by music, dance and, many times, with the presence of animals with, together with indigenous families and what non-indigenous peoples consider “nature”, form part of their Community. Personal notes. 4 Among diverse editions of this journal, see América Latina en Movimiento, No 457 “IV Foro Social Américas: Desafíos para profundizar los processos de cambio”, and América Latina en Movimiento, No 452 “Sumak Kawsay: Recuperar el sentido de vida”. 5 See Keck and Sikkink (1998) and Haas (1992) for more on these concepts. 6 Juntas are associations formed by neighbors. In some cases, as in War over Water, Mamani (2005) argues that juntas could evolve into microgovernments, whose autonomy and decision-making capacity might put into check State institutions. 7 The Inca Empire, or Tawantinsuyu, was subdivided into many administrative regions (suyus). One of those was Kollasuyu, which comprehended the highlands of Peru, Bolivia, as well as Northern Chile and Argentina. Kolla is the one who is original from Kollasuyu. 8 Communarians relate to indigenous peoples who live in local communities, also called by Bolivians as comunarios. 9 Katarismo consists in other ideological strand influenced by Fausto Reinaga’s propositions and represented by several Aymara intellectuals such as Victor Hugo Cárdenas (vice president during Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada’s government in the 1990s), Roberto Choque, Silvia Rivera. See Ayar Quispe (2011).

104  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well 10 It is worth mentioning that, regardless of community practices, Bolivian peasant unions remained historically attached to State institutions and political parties due to either the availability of financial resources or political opportunities. That’s the case regarding unions’ relation to the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement party (Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, MNR) in the 1950s and the Military-Peasant Pact in the following decade, during dictatorship. The objective of the pact was to conform a lump of government’s supporters that, controlled by the Army, could counterpoise protesters lead by Bolivian Worker’s Center (Central Obrera Boliviana, COB), the greatest union organization of the country till the 1980s and main protagonist of 1952 Revolution. On Bolivian peasant unions’ bond to institutions, see Rivera Cusicanqui (2003). For further information on resource mobilization and political opportunities, see McAdam et al. (1996). 11 Intervention during the Plurinational State versus Republican State Open Forum, held in La Paz, Bolívia. November 2, 2012. Personal notes. 12 During the Lecture Series Desarrollo y Vivir Bien, organized by the Development Sciences Postgraduate Institute (CIDES) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), some academics described Living Well as a theoretical formulation that, made by indigenous intellectuals, does not exist on a daily basis and tends to mythicize indigenous peoples (La Paz, 25/10/2012. Personal notes). On the subject, Stefanoni (2012) also criticizes the discourse on Suma Qamaña, pointing to what he perceives as inconsistencies, lack of precision and transformation into purposeful projects. 13 According to the Aymara historian, jakaña means “to live” while qamaña relates to qamiri, the wealthiest person in a community/ayllu (Interview. La Paz, January 2013). This etymology is contested by Medina (2006) who, based on Mario Torrez’s concepts, asserts that qamaña relates to the idea of community while jakaña holds for the family circle. Mamani (2011) stands in a similar position compared to Medina and understands that qamiri is the holder of material and spiritual wealth, while qhapaq would be the one who permanently shares his belongings and transmits life in plenitude. 14 Informal conversation with Oviedo Freire. Personal notes. Quito, 20/06/2013. 15 Some of those policies are found in Viceministerio de Tierras: Memoria 2012, “Sembrando esfuerzos para vivir bien”; Agenda Presidencial 2012 “El Presidente en Acción…”, Año 1, No. 1, Ministerio de Comunicación, Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, and the National Tax Service`s website: http://www.impuestos. gob.bo/index.php?option=com_content&view=featured&Itemid=435 16 A prominent Aymara leader maintained in several meetings that Suma Qamaña/ Living Well was not about an alternative to development but a new paradigm for humankind. Personal notes. 17 Those pillars are observed not just in official documents but also in diverse news. See Agenda Patriótica 2025, Vásquez (2013), Quispe (2013) and Agencia Boliviana de Información (2013, 2013a). 18 Walsh (2010) warns against Sumak Kawsay and interculturality’s absorption by Correa’s government and their transformation into official policies.

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108  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well ——— (2007) “Evo Morales entre revolución india o contra revolución india.” Willka, 1 (1): 15–49. ——— (2010) El rugir de las multitudes. Microgobiernos barriales. La Paz: La mirada salvaje. ——— (2011) “Qamir qamaña: Dureza de ‘estar estando’ y dulzura de ‘ser siendo’” in Ivonne Farah H. and Luciano Vasapollo (Coords). Vivir bien: ¿Paradigma no capitalista? La Paz: CIDES-UMSA, pp. 65–75. ——— (2012) Wiphalas y Fusiles. Poder comunal y el levantamiento Aymara de Achakachi-Omasuyus (2000–2001). La Paz: Flacso. ——— (2013, April) Interview. Interviewer: Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado. El Alto, 2013. 1 archive mp3 (60 min). McAdam, Doug et al. (eds) (1996) Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Oportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Medina, Javier (2006) Suma Qamaña. Por una convivialidad postindustrial. La Paz: Garza Azul Editores. Memmi, Albert (2000) Racism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ministerio de Comunicación (2012) “El Presidente en Acción…” in Agenda Presidencial, Año 1, No. 1. La Paz: Gaceta Oficial de Bolivia. ——— (2013) Agenda Patriótica 2025. 13 Pilares de la Bolivia Digna y Soberana. La Paz: Gaceta Oficial de Bolivia. Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo (2007) Plan Nacional de Desarrollo. Bolivia Digna, Soberana, Productiva y Democrática para Vivir Bien – Lineamientos Estratégicos 2006–2011. La Paz: Gaceta Oficial de Bolivia. Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores (2008, April 23) Ten Commandments against Capitalism for Life and Humanity. New York. Retrieved 2013, July 1 from https:// www.un.org/development/desa/indigenouspeoples/unpfii-sessions-2/seventhsession-of-the-unpfii.html ——— (2009a) “Vivir Bien como solución a la crisis global” in Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores (Ed) Vivir Bien. Mensajes y documentos sobre el Vivir Bien 1995–2010. Diplomacia por la vida, vol. 3, pp. 206–218. La Paz. ——— (2009b) Vivir Bien como respuesta a la Crisis Global. Diplomacia por la vida, vol. 2. La Paz, segunda edición, Diciembre. ——— (2009c). La Tierra no nos pertenece a nosotros. Mensajes del Presidente Evo Morales Ayma sobre la Pachamama y del cambio climático 2006–2009. Diplomacia por la vida, vol. 1. La Paz. ——— (2010) Vivir Bien. Mensajes y documentos sobre el Vivir Bien 1995–2010. Diplomacia por la vida, vol. 3. La Paz. Morales Ayma, Evo (2009) “Referéndum Mundial y Conferencia Mundial de los Pueblos sobre el cambio climático para elegir la Cultura de la Vida o la Cultura de la Muerte” in Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores (Ed) Vivir Bien. Mensajes y documentos sobre el Vivir Bien 1995–2010. Diplomacia por la vida, vol. 3, pp. 27–29. Laz Paz, 2010. Muppidi, Himadeep (2012) The Colonial Signs of International Relations. London: C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd. Nueva Constitución Política del Estado (2008) Vicepresidencia de la República, Presidencia del Honorable Congreso Nacional de Bolivia. Oviedo Freire, Atawallpa M. (2012) Qué es el SUMAKAWSAY. Tercera Via: Vitalismo, alternativa al capitalismo y el socialismo. La Paz: Garza Azul Editores.

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  109 ——— (2013, June). Personal communication (Personal communication in Quito). Padilla, Celso (2012, October). Interview. Interviewer: Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado. Santa Cruz de la Sierra, 2012. 1 archive mp3 (45 min). Paredes, Iván (2012, November 4) “Sectores y profesionales serán la cabeza del Control Social”, La Razón. Retrieved 2013, March 4 from https://www.la-razon.com/ nacional/Sectores-profesionales-cabeza-Control-Social_0_1718 Patzi Paco, Felix (2013) Ilusiones y Desilusiones del “proceso de cambio”. Seguimiento cotidiano de los principales conflictos en el Gobierno del Movimiento al Socialismo 2006–2012. La Paz: “All Press” Labores Gráficas. Perreault, Tom (2017). “Tendencies in tension. Resource governance and social contradictions in contemporary Bolivia” in Lori Leonard and Siba Grovogui (Eds) Governance in the Extractive Industries. Power, Cultural Politics and Regulation. Routledge, pp. 17–37. DOI: 10.4324/9781315226576 Portugal Mollinedo, Pedro (2013, June) “Desarrollo, progreso y cosmovisión: mitos y verdades”. Markapacha: Red Intercultural de Todos los Pueblos. Retrieved 2013, July 1 from http://www.markapacha.com/blog/?p=814 Postero, Nancy G. (2017) The Indigenous State: Race, Politics and Performance in Plurinational Bolivia. Oakland: University of California Press. DOI: 10.1525/luminos.31 Postero, Nancy G. and Leon Zamosc (Eds) (2004) The Struggle for Indigenous Rights in Latin America. Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press. Querejazu, Amaya (2016) “Encountering the Pluriverse: Looking for Alternatives in Other Worlds”. Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional, 59 (2): 1–16. DOI: 10.1590/0034-7329201600207 Quijano, Anibal (2005) “Colonialidade do poder, eurocentrismo e América Latina” in Edgardo Lander (org) A colonialidade do saber: eurocentrismo e ciências sociais. Prespectivas latino-americanas. Argentina: CLASCO, pp. 117–142. ——— (2014) Cuestiones y horizontes: de la dependencia histórico-estructural a la colonialidad/descolonialidad del poder. Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires: CLACSO. Quisbert Quispe, Máximo (2007) “Gobierno de Evo Morales y los cercos politicos criollos-mestizos”. Willka, 1 (1): 51–93. Quispe, Aline (2013, January 28) “La industria será esencial para cumplir Agenda 2025”. La Razón. Retrieved 2013, January 29 from https://www.la-razon.com/ economia/industria-esencial-cumplir-Agenda_0_1769223076.html Quispe, Ayar (2011) Indianismo. Qullasuyu: Ediciones Pachakuti. Quispe, Felipe (2013, April) Interview. Interviewer: Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado. La Paz. 1 archive (60 min). Radcliffe, Sarah (2012) “Development for a Postneoliberal Era? Sumak kawsay, Living Well and the Limits of Decolonization in Ecuador”. Geoforum, 43 (2): 240– 249. DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2011.09.003 Ranta, Eija (2018) Vivir Bien as an Alternative to Neoliberal Globalization: Can Indigenous Terminologies Decolonize the State? New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781315180441 Reinaga, Fausto (2011) La Revolución India. El Alto: Imp. “Movil Graf”. Rivera, Silvia (1993) “‘La Raíz: Colonizadores y Colonizados’” in Xavier Albó and Raúl Barrios (Coords) Violencias encubiertas en Bolivia. La Paz: CIPCA – ARUWIYIRI. ——— (2003) Oprimidos pero no vencidos. Luchas del campesinado Aymara quechwa 1900–1980. La Paz: Mirada Salvaje.

110  Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well Rojas, Cristina (2007) “International Political Economy/Development Otherwise”. Globalizations, 4 (4): 573–587. DOI: 10.1080/14747730701695836 ——— (2015) “The Place of the Social at the World Bank (1949–1981): Mingling Race, Nation, and Knowledge.” Global Social Policy, 15(1): 23–39. DOI: 10.1177/1468018114527471 ——— (2016) “Contesting the Colonial Logics of the International: Toward a Relational Politics for the Pluriverse”. International Political Sociology, 10: 369–382. DOI: 10.1093/ips/olw020 Salazar De la Torre, C., J. M. R. Franco and A. E. S. Guzmán (2012) Intelectuales Aymaras y nuevas mayorías mestizas. Una perspectiva post 1952. La Paz: PIEB. Santos, Boaventura S. (2008) Conocer desde el Sur. Para una cultura política emancipatoria. La Paz: CLACSO. ——— (2009) “Para além do Pensamento Abissal: das linhas globais a uma ecologia de saberes” in Santos, Boaventura S. and Meneses, Maria P. (Orgs) Epistemologias do Sul. Coimbra: Edições Almedina, pp. 23–71. ——— (2010) “Hablamos del Socialismo del Buen Vivir”. América Latina en Movimiento, 452 (34): 4–7. Retrieved 2011, June 3 from https://www.alainet.org/es/ revistas/452 ——— (2012, August 21) “Oitava carta às esquerdas: As últimas trincheiras”. Carta Maior. Retrieved 2012 August 22 from https://www.cartamaior.com.br/?/Coluna/ Oitava-carta-as-esquerdas-As-ultimas-trincheiras/26907 Schavelson, Salvador (2015) Plurinacionalidad y Vivir Bien/Buen Vivir. Dos conceptos leídos desde Bolivia y Ecuador post-constituyentes. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala, Clacso. Shaw, Karena (2008) Indigeneity and Political Theory: Sovereignty and the Limits of the Political. London: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203891148 Shilliam, Robbie (2011) International Relations and Non Western Thought: Imperialism, Colonialism, and Investigations of Global Modernity. London: Routledge. Smith, Karen (2012) “Contrived boundaries, Kinship and Ubuntu: a (South) African view of the ‘international’” in Arlene Tickner and David Blaney (Eds) Thinking the International Differently. London: Routledge, pp. 301–321. DOI: 10.4324/9780203129920 Sieder, Rachel (Ed) (2002) Multiculturalism in Latin America: Indigenous Rights, Diversity and Democracy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1057/9781403937827 Spedding, Alison (2010). “‘Suma qamaña’ ¿kamsañ muni? (¿Qué quiere decir ‘vivir bien’?)”. Fé y Pueblo, 17: 4–39. Svampa, Maristela (2013). “‘Consenso de los Commodities’ y lenguajes de valoración en América Latin”. Nueva Sociedad, 244: 30–46. Retrieved 2016, December 1 from www.nuso.org Stefanoni, Pablo (2010) “Governo Evo Morales: permanências, mudanças e desafios”. Lutas Sociais, 24 primeiro semestre: 115–131. ——— (2012) “¿Y quién no querría vivir bien? Encrucijadas del proceso de cambio”. Le Monde Diplomatique, 200: 23–24. Tapia, Luis (2006) La invención del núcleo común. Ciudadanía y Gobierno Multisocietal. La Paz: Muela del Diablo Editores. ——— (2011) El estado de derecho como tiranía. La Paz: CIDES-UMSA y Autodeterminación.

Narratives on Suma Qamaña/Living Well  111 Tarrow, Sidney (1998) Power in Movement: social movements and contentious politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511813245 Tarrow, Sidney and Doug McAdam (2005) “Scale shift in transnational contention” in Donatella Della Porta and Sidney Tarrow (Eds) Transnational Protest and Global Activism. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, pp. 121–147. Taylor, Lucy (2012) “Decolonizing International Relations: Perspectives from Latin America”. International Studies Review, 14 (3): 386–400. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2486.2012.01125.x Tickner, Arlene B. and David L. Blaney (2012). “Introduction: thinking difference” in Arlene Tickner and David Blaney (Eds) Thinking the International Differently. London: Routledge, pp. 1–21. DOI: 10.4324/9780203129920 ——— (2013) Claiming the International. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203758366 Untoja, Fernando (2012). Katarismo. Crítica al indianismo e indigenismo. La Paz: Impresión Creativa. ——— (2012a) Retorno al Ayllu. Una Mirada Aymara a la Globalización. La Paz: Ediciones Ayra. Van Cott, Donna L. (2005) From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/ CBO9780511756115 Vásquez, Walter (2013, January 1) “Redistribución de La riqueza impulsa La economía”. La Razón. Retrieved 2013, February 2 from http://www.la-razon.com/ nacional/Redistribucion-riqueza-impulsa-economia_0_1766223382.html Viceministério de Terras (2012) Memória Sembrando esfuerzos para vivir bien. La Paz: Gaceta Oficial de Bolivia. Vidal, Hernán (2008) “Retornando a cuestiones indispensables: neoestructuralismo, Estado, cultura nacional” in Mabel Moraña (Ed) Cultura y cambio social en América Latina. Madrid: Iberoamericana, pp. 269–280. Villanueva Imaña, Arturo D. (2012) “¿Quo vadis socialismo comunitario para Vivir Bien?” Nueva Crónica y Buen Gobierno, 115: 10–11. Walsh, Catherine (2010) “Development as Buen Vivir: Institutional Arrangements and (De)colonial Entanglements”. Development, 53 (1): 15–21. DOI: 10.1057/ dev.2009.93 Walsh, Catherine, Álvaro García Linera, and Walter Mignolo (2006) Interculturalidad, descolonización del estado y del conocimiento. Argentina: Ediciones del Signo. Warren, Kay B. and Jackson, Jean E. (Eds) (2002) Indigenous Movements, SelfRepresentation and the State in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press. Yampara, Simón (2001). El Ayllu y La Territorialidad en Los Andes. Una aproximación a Chambi Grande. El Alto: Ediciones Qamán Pacha CADA. ——— (2005) “Comprensión Aymara de la tierra-territorio en la cosmovisón andina y su ordenamiento para la/el qamaña.” Revista Inti-Pacha, 1–7: 13–44. Yashar, Deborah. J. (2005) Contesting Citizenship in Latin America – The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge. New York: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511790966

4

The TIPNIS case and the deconstruction of the indigenous myth

Introduction During the initial years after the founding of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the TIPNIS emerged in the media as the focus of a conflict apparently over the building of a road already under construction that would connect San Ignacio de Moxos, in the department of Beni, to Villa Tunari, in Cochabamba, crossing right through the interior of the park.1 The project, driven by Morales’ government and initially executed by the Brazilian contractor OAS, with funding from the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), was initially justified by the fact that the road had long been demanded for the region. Moreover, the government maintained that the road would bring development to an area inside the park that was difficult to access, especially during the rainy season. This discourse was opposed by the lowlands indigenous peoples, organized under the banner of CIDOB. With support from part of the CONAMAQ members, CIDOB staged the 8th Indigenous March in Defense of the TIPNIS. The protest, planned as a walk from Trinidad, the capital of Beni, to La Paz, was cut short in Chaparina and quashed by the Armed Forces, following which an exchange of accusations between the parties involved and a protracted legal investigation ensued. The repression enjoyed wide repercussions in the Bolivian society and abroad. At the international level, the case was criticized by several foreign scholars regarding the direction taken towards decolonization (Ceceña et al. 2012, Santos 2012). Also known as proceso de cambio, it should be remembered that decolonization had its greatest milestones not just in the election of Evo Morales but also, and more importantly, in the defense of indigenous autonomies. On the domestic front, the number of voices and discourses multiplied. On one hand, government representatives and grassroots organizations (many also comprised of indigenous members) that supported it tried to denigrate and delegitimize the lowlands community resistance, seen either as “inept” or dishonest. Also, they were often described as contrary to decolonization and/or at the service of the interests of foreign powers, especially the United States. In that sense, governmental allies associated indigenous resistance leaders with the idea of “enemy” and updated a racist vocabulary.

The TIPNIS case  113 On the other hand, the multiplication of voices reflected discourses against the government and in favor of the lowlands indigenous peoples. Those discourses included leaders and ex-members of the top seats of the government, as well as the opposition from the region known as Media Luna among its political proponents.2 Composed primarily of large landowners of the Bolivian East who had historically taken a combative and racist stance against indigenous peoples, this latter group found itself gradually shifting away from power after the rise of the MAS party and its branch in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. Citizens with no party affiliation also mobilized in support of the TIPNIS. Denunciations of governmental plans to exploit hydrocarbons in the park, the demand to expand coca farming and even the adaptation of a project under Brazilian hegemony, under the auspices of the Initiative for the Integration of Regional South American Infrastructure (IIRSA), were indicated as the underlying motives for the construction of the road (see Fishermann 2012, Paz 2012, Prada 2012, Tapia 2012). The event, therefore, seemed to embody a growing dissatisfaction directed towards the administration of the Plurinational State, as part of a broader process that links extractivism, the quest for development, and Brazilian leadership. In fact, the Chaparina Massacre, as it came to be known, was evidence of the existence of the so-called neoextractivism in the region. The issue has gained the attention of theorists from different fields, such as Veltmeyer and Petras (2014), Lang and Mokrani (2011), Aráoz (2012), Acosta and Machado (2011), Gago and Mezzadra (2015), Kröger and Lalander (2016), Picq (2014), to name a few. Gudynas (2009) defines it as the intensification of extractivist activities, encompassing different sectors, like hydrocarbons, minerals and monocultures, with large scale production targeted for export. For the author, the strengthening of these activities is tied to the emergence of progressivist governments, and their adoption of a developmentalist model. Critics of neoliberalism, the left and center-left governments would define extractivism as indispensable to the generation of wealth and its redistribution through social programs focused on development. Bolivia is referred to by Gudynas as an example of a radical type of progressivist government, whose implementation of extractivist projects is prompted by a centralized State. This regional scenario is characterized by Svampa (2013) as the Commodities Consensus in opposition to the Washington Consensus. Driven by the high value of natural resources in the international market, the phenomenon would also bring with it an emphasis on the construction of regional infrastructure, and a series of environmental and social implications, among other negative consequences. Following those interpretations, Chaparina could be read as synonymous with the emergence, or even the recrudescence, of social conflicts involving State repression of minorities affected by neoextractivism and by the construction of megaprojects within the scope of IIRSA. But the event also reflects relevant issues that, in the case of Suma Qamaña as well, demonstrates the persistence of and resistance to internal

114  The TIPNIS case colonialism and its relation to the international and global dimensions. Specifically, it puts into check and subverts the categories of the colonizer and the colonized, demonstrating that the oppressed might assume an attitude as oppressive as his/her own oppressor did, reproducing colonial logic. Also, Chaparina highlights the political restructuring of the government’s support base, condensed under the Pact of Unity, and the reconfiguration of forces in the country. At first, a rift in the Pact was observed, then its decimation; this was followed by its re-articulation, bringing the internal divisions to the attention of the organizations. From the moment the elite of the East was unstructured, the distinct and latent interests of each of the organizations that originally made up the allied base became ever more apparent, even incompatible in some cases. In this context, internal disagreements of the groups erupted and the so-called “parallel” organizations emerged, the empowered leaders of which preserved the governmental alliance, promoting a re-articulation of the forces and the marginalization of indigenous opposing groups at the local scene. As a result, indigenous peoples from the lowlands mobilized the international as a source to resist internal colonialism. In this chapter, I argue that the clashes around TIPNIS were actually “the tip of the iceberg” of an underlying web of asymmetrical relationships and power struggles involving old and new players in the Bolivian political scene. The case reveals the tensions inherent to the process of decolonization, which could have been silenced by an analysis centered on the regional scope, although events in both spheres don’t occur in isolation from each other. Next, I offer a history of the land and territory mobilization in Bolivia, highlighting the disputes and alliances between indigenous and peasant organizations, particularly in the lowlands and, more specifically, in the TIPNIS. I continue with an analysis of the articulation and reconfiguration of political forces during Morales’ administration, and a brief discussion of the discursive strategies used by the government, its support base and the lowlands indigenous peoples after the repression. My goal is to contextualize the Chaparina episode, demonstrating the relevance of the local and national political panorama for evaluating the case, and its connection with other dimensions and a myriad of themes, some of them mentioned above. I conclude the chapter with a few considerations about internal colonialism and the role played by the international and the global concerning lowlands indigenous peoples’ resistance.

Mobilization in the lowlands and the struggle for land/territory On 25 September 2011, Bolivian and foreign television networks broadcasted images of military forces in the act of repressing the participants of the 8th Indigenous March. The excessive use of violence, including the use of clubs and gags, the tear-gassing of the protestors and their arrest and transfer in trucks, was aimed at demobilizing the march after attempts at

The TIPNIS case  115 dialog had failed and Foreign Minister Choquehuanca (one of the several interlocutors of such dialog) had allegedly been held hostage by indigenous women and forced to follow the protest (Amnesty International, 2013). The march was provoked by the fact that the government had shown its assertiveness in building the road without the agreement of the residents of the park-territory. Indigenous peoples had demanded, at least since 2007, a consultation prior to the execution of any project in their territories, a right guaranteed under Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization (ILO 2003) and by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.3 As observed by Oyarzún (2010), Bolivia was the first one in the States society to approve and internalize the Declaration into its legal framework. In that sense, such an approval coincides with the idea of exceptionality addressed in the previous chapter, as part of an international and global image projected by Morales’ administration that condenses the defense of indigenous peoples, decolonization and a criticism to capitalism through the reproduction of Living Well discourse. Also coinciding with this idea of exceptionality is the defense of Mother Earth as a subject of rights by the Bolivian government, which is expressed in several speeches and documents, usually as an inseparable element of Living Well. The presentation of a proposal to create an International Day of Mother Earth by Morales to the General Assembly of the United Nations, in 2009, and the organization of the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth the following year in Tiquipaya, Cochabamba, symbolize the strategy pursued by the administration abroad. Although the Conference resulted in the Peoples’ Agreement, containing the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, and the approval in the Andean country of the Law of the Rights of Mother Earth (Law 071), a comprehensive legal framework on the issue was only approved by the end of 2012. While previous law reflects points discussed in the universal declaration and defines Mother Earth as a dynamic system conforming to all living beings that are considered sacred by indigenous peoples, Law 300 (Ley Marco de la Madre Tierra y Desarrollo Integral para Vivir Bien) provides for a detailed regulation in order to protect Nature and, as such, guarantee the promotion of Living Well through what is considered as an integral development. In that sense, the latter law coincides with NDP, whose document absorbs particularities of Suma Qamaña discourse, such as the notion of integrality, and links those to development as a means to present a “new development proposal” purportedly based on Living Well and respectful of indigenous peoples. Moreover, Law 300 advances the obligations of the Plurinational State and Bolivians regarding Mother Earth and incorporates indigenous rights presented in the international treaties stressed above, which would demonstrate the State’s compliance before international society. Nevertheless, prior consultation is only mentioned in articles 16 and 33 of the extensive legal text specifically regarding the themes of intercultural education and

116  The TIPNIS case sustainable stewardship without further elaboration, which contrasts with indigenous peoples’ demands and the administration’s international effort. The principle of prior consultation had been incorporated into the Constitution of the Plurinational State of Bolivia (Nueva Constitución Política del Estado 2008) (in articles 30 and 304) and the Framework Law on Autonomies (Ley Marco de Autonomías y Descentralización Andrés Ibánez) that requires its execution by the State through indigenous community organizations and authorities, whenever it was felt that these people could be affected by administrative or legislative measures or by the exploitation of natural resources in their territories. The issue discloses a close link between the principles of autonomy (self-government) and self-determination, namely, the nonsubmission of indigenous peoples to any external determination involving their territories. Therefore, the conflict over the TIPNIS is related to these principles, whose compliance would imply de facto government recognition of indigenous peoples as political subjects. It is also linked to the defense of indigenous territory, access to which has historically been problematic, given the distinct forms of expropriation to which its peoples have been subjected, especially since the second half of the 20th century with the expansion of the agricultural border. Thus, autonomy, self-determination, and access to the territory are issues that cannot be disassociated from one another, or from the concentration of land ownership and environmental degradation. It is worth remembering that since colonial times, the territory inhabited by indigenous peoples has been systematically reduced, a trend that has continued throughout the Republican period. In the case of the Bolivian lowlands, in addition to the presence of the Catholic Church through the establishment of missions, the areas destined for farming, ranching and rubber extraction were factors that increasingly restricted the space available to these people. Extractivist activities, in particular, mirrored colonial relationships even after independence, a period in which the profitable chinchona bark trade gradually gave way to the exploitation of rubber. To maintain their business, the rubber barons promoted forced recruitment of indigenous peoples, impacting the dynamic of displacement of the latter, who began to seek out different regions where they could live, sometimes involving tensions with the Catholic missionaries, as highlighted by Córdoba (2012). In the highlands, Aymaras and Quéchuas continued to live under the pongueaje system, providing forced labor to the ranchers. As stressed in Chapter 2, in Bolivia, even though the colonial institutions had been formally abolished after independence, practices like pongueaje did not come to an end until after the Revolution of 1952. Agrarian reform, implemented during the revolution, reached a turning point in the highlands with the restitution of lands and their subdivision, promoting the conversion of the natives into peasants (Campesinos). This also encouraged the formation of agrarian unions that, linked to the State structure, became part of Bolivia’s modernization policy under which the identity of the peasants reflected an attempt to “overcome the backwardness” attributed to indigenous peoples

The TIPNIS case  117 and, consequently, to the countryside as his fitting dwelling place. In this process, communal production and the traditional politics of the indigenous Andean communities were replaced or subsumed by the modernizing logic of syndicalism, and by the close relationship of its leaders with the government, consolidated in the Military-Peasant Pact instituted in the 1960s by General Barrientos. Another measure adopted at the time was the State-directed colonization of Aymaras and Quéchuas to the lowlands, which contributed to a decrease in the pressure for fertile land and reduced the population concentration of the Andean region. Decree 3464 (Decreto Supremo 3464), which established rules for agrarian reform from 1953, targeted tropical and subtropical zones, in particular, as areas available for colonization, a process that intensified at the beginning of the 1960s with the creation of the National Institute of Colonization (INC). Among the tropical zones, the region of Chapare, in Cochabamba, responded not only to directed colonization but also to movements of spontaneous migration, mainly in the 1970s and 1980s, prompted by mine closures, a severe drought in the highlands and an economic crisis. Over the years, coca rose to prominence over alternative local crops, due to the growing international demand for cocaine. In this process, the “colonizers” (settlers) were gradually contributing to the expansion of the agricultural border, sometimes penetrating spaces inhabited by other ethnic groups, stirring up land/territory disputes among indigenous peoples themselves, while the large estates of the landowners remained untouched. They organized themselves into unions, grouped under the Syndicalist Confederation of Bolivian Colonizers (CSCB). Throughout its existence, the CSCB had constantly demanded land and for the establishment of infrastructure, given the abandonment experienced by many settlers who participated in processes of directed colonization. Corruption in the issuing of land titles, and even State repression during the breakdown of the Military-Peasant Pact, were also relevant factors that prompted CSCB demands.4 In the case of Chapare, the colonizers would organize themselves into the Six Federations of Coca Growers. Although linked to the CSCB, the Federations would assume a more independent stance and a prominent role in the Bolivian political life during the 1990s and 2000s, as mentioned in Chapter 3. In the lowlands, in addition to directed colonization, the government promoted the donation of large tracts of land to logging companies and agribusiness, especially after the 1950s. While modernization was viewed as desirable in the highlands, where Aymaras and Quéchuas were farming their plots of land, it would become even more necessary in regions inhabited by nomadic indigenous peoples, who subsisted on hunting and gathering. Those regions included, for example, the Amazon that was considered a “demographic emptiness”, as in the case of Brazil during the military dictatorship, which as De la Cadena (2000) pointed out, suggests geographic racism. Thus, the decree, in articles 129 and 130, not only determined that “the savages in the tropical and subtropical regions, found in a wild state

118  The TIPNIS case and primitively organized, must remain under the State protection” but it also granted the “incorporation of the savages into the national life” to the peasants and reductions (reducciones), seeking to convert indigenous peoples into “independent farmers”. In that sense, it reflected and ratified a modern, progressist thought that equates the dichotomous pair civilized-backward to sedentary-nomadic, according to which indigenous peoples from the lowlands would occupy the most elementary stage of human development. Moreover, it seems to replay somehow narratives on Historia Patria, that stressed the existence of great civilizations in pre-colonial times located in the Andean region, Mexico or Central America, but not necessarily in the Amazon. Such narratives, based on the racist division of the colonial world, will be observed not just institutionally (in State structures): those considered inferior by racist colonial logic (that is, indigenous-originarian-campesinos) will introject it and reproduce a false hierarchy among themselves, as revealed in the TIPNIS case. Thus, both colonization and the concession of huge tracts of land were strategies aimed at civilizing the indigenous groups of the lowlands and modernizing the region. In the 1990s, land speculation and concentration saw a new boom, following the expansion of soybean production all over South America, as Urioste (2011) stated. The development of this process in Brazil and Argentina, for example, resulted in the search for new land in neighboring countries, including Bolivia. Hence, the lowland indigenous peoples found themselves constrained by a rapid process that entailed the loss of their territories, which led them to form the CIDOB in 1982, and to organize the 1st Indigenous March for Territory and Dignity in 1990. This unprecedented mobilization gained support of a large number of protestors. Given the organizational difficulties among the regional groups, the fact that the march was held successfully was something of a surprise. It was from this moment that the defense of the territory, understood as a space that encompasses community life, emerged as a demand capable of uniting and creating a common identity among the lowlands indigenous peoples, who belong to more than 30 distinct ethnicities (Chiquitanos, Guarayos, Guaranis, Ayoreos, among others). And because indigenous communities’ modes of life involve the action of the traditional political authorities, the discussion around defending the territory also reveals demand for recognition of indigenous autonomy: “The Bolivian State must recognize our right to rely on our territory, to have our own natural organizations, and to elect our traditional authorities” (Orozco et al. 2006: 69). This banner, based on the term indigenous territory-autonomy, will remain on the agenda of indigenous peoples, unfurling in the idea of land/ territory-autonomy/self-determination, and defended by other groups, like their highlands counterparts grouped under CONAMAQ. The demand was incorporated into the Constitution of the Plurinational State under the term Indigenous Native Peasant Territory (Territorios Indígena Originario Campesinos, TIOC), reflecting the dispute between the indigenous native groups

The TIPNIS case  119 (communities) and those defined as peasants (among them, colonizers and coca growers). Although many of them share the ethnic-origin issue with the others, for the peasants, private property is the basis of their production and their relationship with the land. This context is reflected in the relationships around the TIPNIS, involving tensions between indigenous peoples and coca growers, as well as agriextractivists. Created in 1965 by Law 07401, the Park was also recognized as an indigenous territory after national pressure resulting from the first March and international pressure, with the latter favoring the protection of tropical forests.5 Inhabited by Yuracarés, Mojeños-Trinitários, and T’simanes, these groups organized themselves under Subcentral TIPNIS, created in 1987, faced with the constraints in the region. In the mid-1990s, the Park was classified as Communal Land of Origin (Tierras Comunitarias de Origen, TCO), having been the constant target of vassalage and exploitation by players from outside its constituency.6 Figure 4.1 illustrates the location of the park. On the one hand, the expansion of the border by agribusiness and the extractivist forestry market involved the elite of Beni, favored by the State. On the other hand, this same process was led by the expansion of coca farming into the TIPNIS in the decades following the decree, in the municipality of Villa Tunari in Chapare, notably in small villages in the so-called Polygon 7 (a Park settlement area). Due to these initiatives, which stirred up tensions between the natives and the colonizers/coca growers, the so-called Red Line, an area located on the border between Polygon 7 and the TIPNIS TCO, was created through an agreement with governmental authorities. Figure 4.2 shows the groups inhabiting Polygon 7, composed in their majority by peasants in comparison to indigenous communities. However, this measure did not prevent the penetration of colonizers into the TIPNIS, just as its transformation into a state park did not stop the logging activity. Both of these trends demonstrate the vulnerability of indigenous peoples to the gradual loss of their territory through the continuous process of colonization, which is also expressed in the difficult relations between the colonizers/coca growers and the TIPNIS’ original inhabitants. This difficulty, as well as the strategies employed by the former and its consequences to life in communities, are pointed out by an Anthropologist in La Paz as follows: Colonizers are penetrating in TCOs, as in the case of Mosetén people’s territory, and simply remove log. Indigenous communarians see how the logs pass by the Beni river, they are from their territory. Colonizers marry indigenous women to get into TCOs and what they do first is to open a store. After that, they hire people. Then, they take 5 hectares in the community. Some communities get totally unstructured, others defend themselves, establish a 2-year proof […] There is this conflict between two thoughts that are incompatible… (Personal interview. La Paz, February 2013)

Source: Fundación Tierra. Available at: http://www.ftierra.org/index.php/opinion-y-analisis/780-tipnis-bajo-asedio

Figure 4.1 General characteristics of the TIPNIS and its inhabitants.

120  The TIPNIS case

Source: Fundación Tierra. Available at: http://www.ftierra.org/index.php/opinion-y-analisis/780-tipnis-bajo-asedio

Figure 4.2 Polygon 7.

The TIPNIS case  121

122  The TIPNIS case The quotation above is quite revealing about the change in the communities’ mode of life once colonizers started to enter TCOs. In the TIPNIS case, the scenario seems crucial since the relations developed after the penetration of the latter into the park/indigenous territory involve those historically marginalized and, as such, do not fit easily the oppressor-oppressed/colonizercolonized pair. Moreover, because colonizers/coca growers are composed to a great extent of Aymaras and Quéchuas, this fact could suggest some sort of correspondence among “worldviews” on cosmological grounds. Certainly, coca growers maintained some traditions exercised in the ayllu, such as the practice of ayni, the celebration and offerings to Pachamama. This is documented in several interviews made by Orozco, García and Stefanoni with diverse coca growers, as expressed by the former councilor of Villa Tunari, Rodolfo Bazos, whose father used to work as a miner in Oruro. As Bazos explained, families from the highland gradually moved into the locality and, in a way similar to practices reproduced in Andean communities, they first worked mutually helping one another (Orozco et al. 2006: 73). Nevertheless, concerning their link with land but not necessarily the territory, this diverse group seemed to demonstrate a logic closer to peasants than communarian indigenous peoples. In her study on coca growers’ communities in the Yungas (department of La Paz) and the Chapare, Spedding (2004) admits that, in the latter case, there has been a change of perception among themselves since the 1970s, when accumulation became the main goal for them. Thus, while the reproduction of the ayllu traditions could present commonalities with indigenous peoples from the lowland, coca growers’ increasing ties with the market (especially the younger generation) seems to constitute a decisive issue that will foment the enlargement of coca crops and, as a consequence, struggles between both collective actors.7 In that sense, the expansion of agricultural border reveals a process of constant colonization that indigenous peoples were subject to which followed the lack of their territory, the privatization of space and the establishment of another mode of life. Finally, such a process put into surface disputes of power between deprived groups that initially occupied more horizontal positions in the national dimension and that, on several occasions, cooperated against the State and landowners. So, despite divergent customs and interests, the differences did not correspond to a barrier for cooperation nor homogenized collective identities. In fact, what should be emphasized is how the difference is framed, articulated and realized by those actors in the TIPNIS grammar considering the context. The TIPNIS grammar I: the relation between indigenous groups and coca growers The field research conducted by Orozco, García and Stefanoni provides the reader with a mapping of the difficult coexistence between coca growers and indigenous peoples. Even though that situation has not forecasted interpersonal cooperation or even the formation of circumstantial alliances, it is

The TIPNIS case  123 known that the relationship between these two groups was affected on different occasions by a dispute around access to the land and defense of the territory, as will be explained later on. The analysis of Bautista Durán on the colonizers’ settlement process is quite revealing of divergent “worldviews” between both groups, as suggested by the testimony of one of the members of women’s organizations of Chimoré, Cochabamba: “When my parents arrived, they found savages, we discriminated Chimane women, Yuquis, but they were always savages, they didn’t dress, didn’t work and didn’t understand anything, they lived like animals” (Bautista Durán 2012: 51). A similar notion of civilization, that equates indigenous peoples from the lowland to savages and animals, reflecting Fabian’s (2002) denial of coevalness, is also reproduced by the leader of Yucumo’s Federation. Although his words do not express openly the idea of civility and superiority as the quotation above, the difference is framed in terms of work and accumulation as representative of coca growers: they are not envy people, they don’t want to work but they don’t envy, they don’t want to make money. Then, we thought we could live that way but no, it seems that those who came from the highlands we simply want to accumulate. (Bautista Durán 2012: 51) This thought is observed as well in the colonization area at the TIPNIS and, according to Orozco et al. (2006: 95), expressed mostly in informal conversations by coca growers, to whom indigenous peoples would not make progress unless they worked. Interestingly, the logic underlying those quotes will be evoked by diverse actors, including indigenous groups from the highlands (some of them communarians) years later during the conflicts over the road. In that sense, expressions I heard during fieldwork, such as “they are very different from us”, seemed to reflect a negative connotation that emerged crossed by political disputes over proceso de cambio. Contrary to those opinions, the TIPNIS’ oldest inhabitants (particularly those members of the park’s Subcentral) also contributed in reinforcing stereotypes concerning the colonizers amidst the formation of new organizations inside and outside the TCO. Moreover, the transformations in the modes of life of indigenous peoples resulting from their coexistence with coca growers and the search for legitimacy of both groups concerning their demands, respectively, formed part of that context. In this case, the construction and reproduction of such an economy of stereotypes, an expression used by Doty (1996: 10) regarding the creation of classificatory schemes, find the possibility of their existence in the maintenance of internal colonialism. Despite the claim that Bolivia was under a decolonial period in history, it is known that change in the norms is not necessarily followed by their compliance and that decolonization, as a process, does not correspond to a progressive notion of time. The latter suggests a dynamic still permeated by colonial logic that, once introjected by those

124  The TIPNIS case groups involved in such a context, will be expressed in conflictual moments through the employment of a discursive grammar. In this sense, whether involving an offensive to decolonization or resistance to institutional violence, this logic will be observed in mechanisms such as classification, whose application will be crucial once it enables differentiation between players. As mentioned above, differentiation might be marked either by superiorityinferiority pair or by claims directed towards the State, landowners or colonizers/coca growers. In the TIPNIS case, indigenous inhabitants claim their ancestry over the park/territory, sometimes framing coca growers as “tenants”, evoking a similar thought in Felipe Quispe regarding the Whitemestizo. The interview of Modesto Noza, the former authority of community San José de Angostura (bordering the Red Line) to Orozco, García and Stefanoni illustrates this differentiation: They have destructed the hill, see? […] they want to convert the hill into pasture… they have already fenced it all and don’t let us enter their lot. If we go there, they want us to buy palms, wood; but they are also tenants, […] because they are not from here. (Orozco et al. 2006: 101) The indigenous authority adds that settlers came from the highlands and the valleys, from departments such as Potosi, Oruro, Cochabamba, and expresses his discontent regarding the transformation of territory into lots and the charge over it since, for him, they were not the “owners” there (Orozco et al. 2006: 101). Thus, Noza’s words point to the overlapping image of physical and identitarian “borders”, delimiting those who pertain to that territory, understood not just as land but as a space-time marked particularly by a distinct mode of life. And despite the existence of sedentary practices (or even the increase of those practices in the park/territory in late years), those issues do not necessarily imply a dissolution of difference. The same holds for what could be possibly understood as the “benefits of progress”, which actually consists of economic, social and civil rights never accomplished by the State (i.e. health assistance, public education, better quality of life). Also, the fact that some native families that cultivate coca leaf do not approximate them to coca growers once the latter is perceived by indigenous peoples as colonizers, foreigners whose customs diverge from the TIPNIS’ original inhabitants’, as explained by Cayo Cueva to Orozco, García and Stefanoni: Coca leaf is harmful when there is no control because colonizers cultivate very much, they prefer having money […]. We, indigenous peoples, don’t have this ambition […] half cato, less than half cato is what is cultivated by Trinitarios; but collas that come to the community, they do have. (Orozco et al. 2006: 95)

The TIPNIS case  125 The overlapping image is ratified by the idea of accumulation, associated with the colonizers’ progressist mentality, the cultivation of a cato (approximately, a 1,600 m2 plot) and by the regional factor as well since collas (or kollas) are those that come from the highlands, while cambas designate people from the lowlands. The emphasis on modes of life and regional distinctiveness complements one another and reveals disputes either between coca growers and indigenous peoples that cultivate coca leaf or between the former and the communarians, specifically. In both cases, indigenous peoples found their space restricted by the migration of colonizers into the lowlands. By reproducing rhetoric that stresses their ancestry and conservationist potential as features that legitimates and affirms themselves against the “others”, indigenous leaders point to an ongoing process of territorial reduction, that at that time corresponded to an “enclosure” since the forest is transformed into pasturage and divided into lots. This commodification represents a “border” regarding indigenous communarian groups, whose holistic perspective addresses nature as a living organism indissociable from what is classified in Western logic as cultural, social, spiritual and space-temporal issues, as mentioned in Chapter 3. Moreover, the expression colla and its use in the quotations before will be relevant to understand alliances made by indigenous leaders from Subcentral TIPNIS and CIDOB with the opposition from Media Luna during the Morales’ second term (first one under the norms of the Plurinational State). The tension between native communities and colonizers/coca growers is reflected in the rearticulation of forces in the Park. In this point, it is important to mention the formation of new organizations, especially the Indigenous Council of the South (CONISUR), that groups together some of the indigenous families located close to the Red Line and, therefore, in constant contact with the colonizers. Unlike the Subcentral TIPNIS, which maintained its position against the expansion of coca farming and concentrated itself in the Department of Beni, the new organization adopted a close relationship with the municipality of Villa Tunari, governed by MAS and with the strong presence of the Chapare Coca Federations. According to Orozco et al. (2006: 68) the creation of CONISUR “is framed within the perception that the communities of the southern Park are not included in the decisions made in Trinidad, at the leadership level”. The geographic isolation and marginalization of CONISUR from decision-making by Subcentral TIPNIS were key factors to understand the disagreements between leaders from both organizations around the construction of the road, which was meant to benefit those who lived in the south of the Park. This rearrangement of forces is, thus, connected to the advance of coca cultivation in the TIPNIS, which will be mobilized later on by several authors, such as Sarela Paz, to explain the position of some indigenous groups favorable to the governmental project and contrary to CIDOB and Subcentral TIPNIS. Referring to indigenous communities located in the region of Polygon 7 and the changes resulting from the growing dynamic of coca crops production, Paz (2012: 28) argues that several families from such communities started to cultivate coca

126  The TIPNIS case leaf and became members of coca growers’ unions, being the ones demanding the construction of the road. However, conflicts between the colonizers/coca growers and the communities in the lowlands sometimes gave way to the creation of a unified common strategy against the agribusiness sector and the local racist elite. As in the case of disputes among the natives, their history of collaboration predates the formation and rise to power of the MAS party and proceso de cambio itself. Those moments of cooperation include the 2nd National March for Land and Territory, Political Rights, and Development, in 1996. Also called the March of the Century, the mobilization was a result of the combined forces of CIDOB, CSUTCB, Bartolinas Sisa and the CSCB, whose members left various regions of the country and headed for La Paz to negotiate a set of demands (García 2004). Among these demands were the titling of indigenous territories and lands, as well as changes to the INRA Law, created during Sanchez de Lozada government and whose content included the agro (or areas capable of becoming agrarian and, therefore, commodities) at the heart of the neoliberal reforms adopted in the country. Thus, the project of privatization of the space and its colonization reached a new offensive at that time, exacerbating the marginalization of the players already excluded from the formal political process. In this sense, the issue of access to land and territory, as presented up to that point, placed the general interests of large landowners against those of the minorities who were actually majorities composed of indigenous communities and small producers, many of them colonizers and coca growers. Nevertheless, tensions with landowners did not suppress the disagreements among the indigenous peoples themselves and between those and the group composed of colonizers/settlers, coca growers, peasants. In fact, those conflicts will remain latent and come to the surface after the promulgation of the Plurinational State Constitution. It is important to remind that this dichotomous division, depicted by minorities in terms of “colonizers/criollos/ White-mestizos” versus “colonized/indigenous/peasants” will become more complex and fragmented over the years. Regarding the last chain of identities/identification, the difference will work among social players as a necessary “border”, a “frontier” to delimitate their interests and political position in the local and national scene. And because borders are characterized by porosity, so is the difference, which will be exceeded and put into check by indigenous peoples and coca growers, giving place sometimes to alliances between them. The organization of the March of the Century and relations inside the TIPNIS point to this shift. The same dynamics hold for relations between the elite and indigenous peoples from the lowlands, as analyzed further.

The formation of the Pact of Unity and its fragmentation The empowerment of the natives, colonizers (specifically, coca growers) and peasants, manifested in their growing political presence, cannot be separated

The TIPNIS case  127 from a long process of resistance. One of the more recent driving forces of this process was the execution of neoliberal policies, as they coalesced groups guided by interests and objectives that were sometimes conflicting. From the 1980s onwards, indigenous peoples expanded their participation in formal politics as they were elected in small cities. Curiously, while the Popular Participation Law promoted State’s multiculturalism and, in that sense, an exclusionary inclusion, as mentioned in Chapter 2, it also contributed in propelling indigenous claims regarding more institutional participation. Linked to issues such as the defense of land and territory, those claims stood as the bedrock for the articulation of alliances and political parties, as is the case with MIP and MAS, projecting those collective actors into the national sphere. By the time they managed to “capture the State”, giving rise to a new ruling elite and the passing of various reforms by Morales’ administration, the polarized Bolivian scenario had been transformed into the stage for a series of clashes. In the governments of Sanchez de Lozada and Carlos Mesa, the intense mobilization in the departments of La Paz and Cochabamba already reflected the rising tension in the Bolivian society. Such protests soon spread to other localities, encompassing more “universal” themes (for instance, the defense of hydrocarbons and water) and other groups besides indigenous peoples, such as coca growers, vecinos. Episodes of repression promoted by the State (an entity that symbolized the notion of Criollo/White-mestizo to part of the population and, as such, the expression of political- economicsocial privilege) as well as the representative crises of traditional parties created a scenario in which demands and collective actors, long held as “inferior”, emerged as political subjects. During that period, indigenous peoples from the lowlands organized two important walks: in 2000, the march for Land, Territory and Natural Resources (Tierra, Territorio y Recursos Naturales), and two years later, for Popular Sovereignty, Territory and Natural Resources (Soberanía Popular, Territorio y Recursos Naturales). In the latter march, joined also by peasants and colonizers, those groups demanded the organization of a Constituent Assembly, a claim already made in the 1st Indigenous March. Thus, the victory of the MAS party in the elections and the convening of the Constituent Assembly, to build a new pact that represented a transformation in Bolivian society and the effective presence of indigenous peoples, colonizers, peasants, coca farmers in State institutions, seemed to reflect a cataclysm. In Chuquisaca, that had its troops defeated in the indigenous riot lead by Pablo Zárate Willka during the Federal War by the end of the 19th century, groups guided by the mayor and other prominent people from the department’s capital (such as the president of Chamber of Councilors and the dean of San Francisco Xavier University) tried to corner small indigenous peasants, threatening to lynch and burn them alive.8 Those peasants, who belonged to diverse organizations and composed part of the government’s support base, went to Sucre to receive ambulances from President Morales.

128  The TIPNIS case During the conflict (also referred to in Bolivia as the Journey of May 24, 2008), groups that opposed MAS and demanded the recognition of Sucre as the constitutional capital repudiated the governmental party and indigenous peasants, women especially: “Cholas, masistas, índias!”, “Fucking Chola masista!”, “Long Live Sucre!”, “Not with the police, nor militaries, nor peasants! We are sucrenses, nobody will ever defeat us!”. Moreover, those groups defended departmental autonomies, an issue extensively claimed by the local elite from Media Luna, as they sang Chuquisaca’s anthem and shouted: “Long live autonomous Chuquisaca!” (Álvarez et al. 2008). This overlapping image of indigenous, peasant and masista categories is also observed in other parts of the country. A year before the episode in Chuquisaca, hundreds of indigenous peoples, peasants and coca growers were repressed and wounded in Cochabamba. Members of the Federations of Coca Growers of the Cochabamba Tropic, Departmental Workers’ Center, Bartolinas Sisa, Peasant Workers’ Union Federation of Cochabamba (affiliated to CSUTCB), among other organizations, went to the department’s capital to demand governor Manfred Reyes Villa to resign from office. The governor intended to call a local consultation to decide if Cochabamba should declare its autonomy, even though the national referendum organized in 2006 attested popular rejection to departmental autonomies.9 As observed in Sucre, local elite exercised systematic violence against protesters: together, students’ movement under the banner of Youth for Democracy, members of the Civic Committee of Cochabamba and from civil society, in general, made use of sticks, rocks, clubs to expel protesters from the city. Supporters of Reyes Villa pronounced: “I hope these fucking Indians go back home and rule where they should, go back to their village… How are they allowed to come and invade our home? […]”, “The signs of racism I see from the part of the government, calling us q’aras”, “We should kill masistas” (Colectivo Ukhumanta Pacha 2007). The quotations above reveal the association of indigenous peoples with the idea of “enemies”, outsiders, in geographic and institutional terms. It would be up to them to remain in the countryside, to provide goods for townsfolk and not be part of the decision-making process in the State. While reflecting on the submission of the rural area to the city, the association above aims to reinforce the segregation observed in colonial times and asseverated in the Republican period. Of course, this division has not resulted in the prohibition of indigenous peoples to migrate to the cities but the fact that their locus par excellence was not the city, they should occupy the urban periphery and develop activities considered less distinguished, as stressed in Chapter 3. In that sense, the relation between non-indigenous and indigenous peoples should be based on the latter’s subservience and reflect the pair colonizer-colonized, Criollo/Mestizo-Indians. Thus, it is not surprising that (at least until the beginning of the 21st century) most indigenous peoples did not reside in zones traditionally occupied by the elite even in cases of economic prosperity. Because the election of MAS to the Presidency

The TIPNIS case  129 symbolized the victory of this excluded mass, the inclusion of masista in the overlapping image “indigenous-peasants” updates the colonial logic; it reveals the old elite’s deep rejection of the possibility that indigenous peoples (whether they were also peasants, coca growers or communarians) could be part of political institutions and, consequently, rule the country. This same world vision that intends to reinforce colonial difference will be reproduced in the department of Santa Cruz de la Sierra as well, a region considered by many Bolivians as the cradle of the departmental autonomies’ project. Between 2005 and 2007, in the economic epicenter of the country dominated mainly by agricultural and livestock activity, a wave of violence against peasants and indigenous peoples was observed. Although they were of diverse lowlands ethnic groups or Aymaras and Quéchuas who had migrated to the capital, these people were classified as belonging to or sympathizing with the MAS. In this instance, members of the elite, organized as the Civic Committee of Santa Cruz, and with the Santa Cruz Youth Union (Unión Juvenil Cruceñista) and the Camba Nation (Nación Camba) as their armed wings, demonstrated all their “civility” in physical and verbal attacks against groups and citizens in favor of a political change in Bolivia.10 Notable statements include: “it was [the Constitutional project] protected by the peasants, who do not have discernment”, “I want to remind you that 148 socialist constituents, resentful Indians, cannot make decisions for more than 9 million inhabitants. We are organized to act, whether with fists, ideas, or bullets” (see Mujica et al. 2007). The aggression multiplied in the interior of the department, involving attacks on the homes and headquarters of peasant and indigenous organizations (see CEDIB 2013). It was also in Santa Cruz that the so-called Autonomous Junta was formed, comprised of the political leaders from Media Luna (a region that also supported the opposition from other departments, such as Cochabamba, for example), with the aim of drawing up departmental statutes. The drafting and approval of these statutes took place alongside the completion of the Plurinational Constitutional Project, thereby subverting the National Electoral Court, responsible for carrying out the entire electoral process relating to the issue. Set against the idea of indigenous autonomies, departmental autonomies alluded to political and economic decentralization and represented a way for this old elite to remain in power in these regions. Initially claimed by indigenous peoples from the lowlands and related to the right of self-determination and the demarcation of territories, the notion of autonomy was, then, detached from its original context of resistance to racism and colonialism. It must also be considered the increase in the number of land invasions in Santa Cruz during the years immediately following the rise of MAS to the Presidency, and the adoption of the Agrarian Reform of 2006, which mostly affected the lowlands.11 This period of mobilization throughout the country condensed popular expectations around the institutional transformations in the process. Considering the historical marginalization of indigenous peoples by the local elites, the facts highlighted above seem to

130  The TIPNIS case suggest a strong connection between the idea of rupture, represented by the new government and the reforms adopted, and the wave of racism that was clearly spreading throughout Bolivian society, especially in the East. In 2004, in the context of the struggle for the realization of a change in Bolivian society, which at the time meant reaching the executive branch and drafting a Charter that would reflect its plurality, that the native, peasant, coca farmer and colonizer organizations decided to form the Pact of Unity. As mentioned before, despite their disagreements on several instances over the access to land and territory, these same groups had already acted as allies against the neoliberal offensive, as in the case of the March of the Century and the 4th March. In the 21st century, the Pact’s creation represented their effort to consolidate a union of the main sociopolitical forces of the support base, organized under the leadership of CIDOB, CSUTCB, Bartolinas Sisa, CONAMAQ and CSCB and their affiliates, which would then back each other whenever called to action. Given that the resistance involved a violent conflict of the opposition with these organizations, particularly after the MAS presidential victory, the creation of the Pact of Unity represented a way of ensuring a contingent of constant mobilization of governmental support and in defense of the refounding of the State, acting directly within the Constituent Assembly. It must be emphasized that although the organizations of the Pact supported the government, such support didn’t represent an unconditional or automatic link between the former and indigenous peoples who preserved their independence. Unlike CSUTCB, Bartolinas and CSCB, indigenous peoples did not join the MAS. Within the scope of the Constituent Assembly, the Pact drew up the new Constitution project amidst various attempts by the opposition to hinder the process. In that period, then, the differences between the distinct categories were negotiated in parallel, sustained by an alliance in defense of change and, therefore, against the offensives of the old elite. However, this scenario began to be placed in check starting with the second Morales administration from 2009 onward, as the disagreements between the government and indigenous groups became more frequent. The interview of Lázaro Tacóo, one of the top leaders of CIDOB, expresses this shift: The president’s first term was interesting. He would hold government meetings with all his ministers and we would hold social movement meetings. There was synchrony during his first term, and we reached an agreement: “Minister, why don’t we find a solution for this?” And in this way, we moved forward. But this changed during the second term. […] Look, of these five organizations [that make up the Pact], those that belong to the party complain to the president that some of his ministers are not playing by the rules, in accordance with the process of change and that they are asking for change. Peasants from La Paz were the first ones to complain. And the president, instead of sitting down and discussing this internally, goes public, before the media and says: “I’m

The TIPNIS case  131 wasting time meeting with the peasants. And the natives of the East are blackmailers”. Please, the natives of the East?! In our indigenous territories, where we already have a constitution, if there has to be a megaproject of extractivist resources or some other project of interest to the State, there must be a prior consultation, open, informed, in good faith, to discuss the pros and cons of the project. And once the results of the environmental and social impact studies are available, there is compensation. The president, instead of understanding this, calls us blackmailers. […] We, the indigenous peoples, are disillusioned…. During his first term, we held a march because they wanted to eliminate the TCOs, at least we were able to consolidate this. But in 2010, when he was reelected, he distanced us further through the Temporary Electoral Law. We had submitted a proposal for 18 representatives to the Plurinational Legislative Assembly: 18 members and 18 alternates. So each group of people would feel represented. When we spoke to the president, he reduced the number to 14 […] and as they were drafting the law, it suddenly became 11, and then 7. During the vigil we held here in La Paz, we said: “Hell, the president played at the expense of our rights” […] That was our first clash, but then the Framework Law on Autonomies appeared. […] They wanted the basis for achieving autonomy to be five thousand inhabitants. In the East, the peoples are minorities. Therefore, we requested inclusion because otherwise, we would not be represented in the Plurinational Assembly. So those groups with less than five thousand would never achieve autonomy. That was our issue and, since they did not want to resolve it, we held a march, a demonstration in 2010. […] We demanded inclusion based not on the number of votes, but on the number of peoples. With the Framework Law on Autonomies, our disagreement with the government increased. We asked for respect for the Constitution. Then, in 2011, there was the TIPNIS issue. […] (Interview with Lázaro Tacóo. La Paz, October 2012) The passage above clearly illustrates a change of image during the second term of President Morales. Initially, this change was associated with governability, and with the decision-making process within the executive branch that had previously included the direct participation of social movements but was gradually replaced by the relative isolation of the cabinet. Tacóo’s words point to a breakdown of direct participative democracy in the form in which it was established in the first years of government, and that denoted a form of governing together with the members of the Pact of Unity, the protagonists of proceso de cambio. As stressed in Chapter 3, participation, which was primarily accompanied by decision-making, shifted to consultation of the support base and its supervisory role, which does not necessarily translate into the direct intervention of these participants in the politics of the country. At the same time, and complementing this change, the government established an alliance with the opposition and restructured its link

132  The TIPNIS case with the indigenous communities, peasants, colonizers and coca growers. In order to understand the complex political game in Bolivia, that is, how the government was able to construct an alliance with the opposition and, in parallel, sustain the support of the majority of actors that compose the Pact of Unity, I should deepen the analysis. One of the issues addressed in the interview relates to the TCOs. On this point, Tacóo refers to the fact that the non-community members of the Pact of Unity were against the replacement of the term by indigenous territories as this would exclude the peasants and their demand for access to land. Negotiations during the Constituent Assembly resulted in a decision to refer to TIOCs, which would encompass both groups. Other themes were also a cause of alarm for indigenous peoples, some involving the direct intervention of governmental representatives, such as the debates over the property of natural resources. Nevertheless, as the government began to adopt a reportedly unfavorable position towards the cries of the communities on issues that were causing disputes with the non-community (and several nonindigenous) allies, the political scenario took on new colors for the former. In this case, while the decision-making process at the national level was recentralized, establishing a gap between the cabinet and the movements, the alliance with peasants, colonizers and coca growers (many of them formally linked to the MAS) was being reinforced at the same time. Negotiations over the Electoral Law (Ley Electoral) and the Framework Law on Autonomies illustrates this strategy, which also had implications for the landowner and extractivist opposition in terms of “good offices”. In a move ostensibly aimed at improving governability, the number of indigenous representatives in Congress were reduced, and conditions introduced for achieving indigenous autonomies ratified this “agreement”, as the agriextractivist elite had maintained a combative posture against the proposal from the moment it was presented. In the case of the latter legislation, it should be emphasized that its provisions laid out a series of requirements that ended up restricting the creation of autonomies within the TIOCs. Among the barriers encountered were not just the number of inhabitants in the interior of the territories, but the need for these territories to be contiguous (a characteristic that affects most of the TIOCs, since they occupy non-contiguous spaces), or even the requirement that they comply with departmental boundaries.12 Since achieving autonomies implies the exercise of self-government and free determination by the communities in indigenous territories, this would signify an even tighter restriction on their exploitation by those located outside of territorial boundaries. Therefore, this issue affected not just the agriextractivist elite but also the peasants, colonizers and coca growers seeking land titles in the midst of the implementation of agrarian reform, the scarcity of available fertile land, and the fact that the already cultivated land had become worn out through use. Even in the case of the coca growers, where the State recognized an increase in the area occupied by the planting of coca from 12,000 hectares to 20,000 hectares, as

The TIPNIS case  133 stated in the Strategy to Confront Drug Trafficking and Revalue Coca Leaf 2007–2010 (Estrategia de Lucha Contra El Narcotráfico e Revalorización de la Hoja de Coca 2007–2010), access to land would be problematic, especially when confronted with the halting of agrarian reform later. Initially, the implementation of such a reform was focused on the lowlands, through the drainage of lands and titling of several TIOCs. It was applied mainly to the Amazon region and the fields of Santa Cruz, creating a clash with the old elite, who reacted not only by formulating “independent” autonomic statutes, as stressed earlier, but by also being involved in an attempted political coup, through the financing of a group of mercenaries. Led by the Hungarian-Bolivian, Eduardo Rózca Flores, this group’s mission was to assassinate Evo Morales and the vice-president, Álvaro García Linera. The coup was foiled by Bolivian intelligence in 2009, and the elites were gradually disassembled and politically isolated, with several leaders being dismissed or even imprisoned. At the same time, the MAS broadened its bases in the lowlands, taking in several members of the Santa Cruz Youth Union, as shown by Núñez et al. (2010). The events related so far, seemingly paradoxical at first, are expressions of the same political strategy, which contemplates both the majority of the allies and the opposition from Media Luna as well. In the case of the old elite, its isolation is accompanied by measures taken to not intensify conflicts, thus, neutralizing it. Among these initiatives are those that are mentioned above, as also the respect for legal security of large productive estates, promoting some sense of assurance to landowners. The slowdown of agrarian reform, starting with Morales’ second term, also fits into this framework. The government was thus weaving a superficial and fragile alliance with the agri-entrepreneurs. It must be remembered that many of these were Brazilian producers with the strong support of Lula’s government of Brazil, as Gimenez (2010) emphasizes. Considering this scenario, and Brazil’s role as the great promoter of a regional developmentalist project, in addition to being the largest buyer of Bolivian gas, this political maneuver by the Morales government became important to avoid creating tensions in their relations with the neighboring country as well. Thus, to keep itself in the State institutions, the new governing elite sought to annul their counterparts politically, expanding the rolling party bases in the East (especially, Santa Cruz de la Sierra) and creating an environment whereby the opposition adapted to the new scenario, while protecting Brazilian business interests. In the beginning, this process was associated with other measures that legitimized the government along with its allies and sought to establish a minimum of consensus among them, such as the idea of joint governance with social movements and the titling of the TIOCs. Regarding the latter, while on one hand, it corresponded to the indigenous communities demands, on the other, it was a relatively quick means of implementing the agrarian reform in that, according to Urioste (2011), a large part of the space occupied by indigenous peoples was public land. But, once the numerous

134  The TIPNIS case demands from the allied base started to restrain the new governing elite, the same strategy for remaining in power would be carried out to the detriment of indigenous peoples. The titling of the TIOCs and the “alliance” with the lowlands’ elite, ensuring ownership in a region where a large percentage of land acquisitions were irregular, and the halting of agrarian reform from 2010, created a context of pressure on the part of the peasants. This pressure translated into constraints on indigenous territories, especially in the lowlands, where the most extensive TIOCs were concentrated, some with thousands of hectares, mapped in the Atlas of the Indigenous and Native territories of Bolivia (Atlas de Territorios Indígenas y Originarios de Bolivia 2010).13 That’s the case of the TIPNIS, which corresponds to an area of 1,091,656.9404 hectares. TIPNIS’ title of ownership was issued by the government and delivered to the Subcentral in 2009, the same year in which the contract for financing the construction of the road was signed with OAS and BNDES, as stated in the Resolution 0300/2012 of the Constitutional Tribunal of Bolivia.14 Through the implementation of different measures, thus, the government managed to “neutralize” the elite in the lowlands and ensure the support of many of the allies (peasants-colonizers-coca growers), having as the background of this maneuver the enclosing of the decision-making process. Also important to this achievement, as I shall demonstrate in the next section, was the construction of an official discourse against indigenous communities, contributing to the escalation of tensions within the support base while maintaining pro-indigenous rhetoric with an emphasis on Living Well. By now, it’s sufficient to state that, starting with the case of TIPNIS, those tensions will culminate in the fragmentation of the Pact of Unity, with CIDOB and CONMAQ deciding to withdraw from this alliance, as documented in the resolution issued by these organizations in 2013 (Resolución 01, 18 January 2013). The fact that this initiative was formalized nearly two years after the 8th March is relevant because it seems to reflect an attempt of those organizations to conserve the Pact and their alliance with the government. The rupture of the Pact, then, represented their last resort following a process of increasing marginalization of indigenous communities as the words of Fernando Vargas, former director of Subcentral TIPNIS state: Supposedly, what the government was saying is that this road has to connect Beni to Cochabamba. In the beginning, for example, it was well understood that it was a matter of joining one department to another. But as time passed and some investigations were made, we perceived that it was not connecting one department to another, but rather one continent with another […] the Pacific with the Atlantic. And, from that point, the Subcentral began to draft resolutions that did not agree with the road and presented them to the government. But we were never listened to. And after that, and with more emphasis, Evo started to say, (because of our position as people): ‘Here, the road will be constructed no matter who opposes it’. Despite this, [the inhabitants of TIPNIS] continued to

The TIPNIS case  135 resist peacefully, at first without threatening mobilization, approaching the government…but nothing happened. And by June, May of 2011 […] the CIDOB directors went to Trinidad and I recommended a directive [from Subcentral TIPNIS] to meet with CIDOB management to present the demand to the government and that, if the government did not listen, we should mobilize […] Nor could we understand that in an indigenous government indigenous rights are violated, that in an indigenous government we have to march demanding respect for our territories, demanding respect for indigenous peoples, demanding respect for life, demanding respect for the environment. And, supposedly this indigenous government protector of the environment, supposedly this indigenous government protector of indigenous peoples, supposedly lawful indigenous government converting itself into a violator of the Constitution, national law, international treaties. It was ridiculous… (Interview with Fernando Vargas. Santa Cruz de la Sierra, April 2013) The reconfiguration of the Bolivian political scenario became more apparent, therefore, after the conflict over the TIPNIS, motivated by divergent interests and strategic moves adopted by Morales’ administration. And that is because this episode exposes the exercise of colonial logic in its most basic form and, with some exceptions, without any discursive sophistication (especially, when compared to Suma Qamaña’s absorption by the official documents). What happened after Chaparina Massacre reflects such a logic, which will be reproduced not just by the ruling elite but also by governmental allies, revealing asymmetrical relations based on race and crossed by a cosmological factor as a device to justify political and economic choices. Thus, the attempt to impose a distinct “worldview” to indigenous peoples (communarians) will be followed by a search of coca growers/colonizers/ peasants to be part of a progressist, modern project designed by the government despite Bolivia’s institutional and normative transformation into a Plurinational State. This rearticulation of forces is reflected in the interviews reproduced above. I shall now examine how the grammar around TIPNIS is framed by the government after the Chaparina confrontation. The TIPNIS grammar II: the governmental reaction The repression of the 8th March and the arrival of its members at the administrative headquarters of the country, intending to put pressure on the President, resulted in the creation of Law 180, which attributed the characteristic of intangibility to the TIPNIS. Thus, not only the building of the road but also the execution of any project in the park, directly affecting the local populations dependent on tourism and other activities, was prohibited. The creation of this law was not divorced from the national context, also involving pressure from those in favor of the road. These, largely

136  The TIPNIS case organized under CONISUR, provided the support that later justified the publication of Law 222, which called for “prior” consultation. This was followed by the organization of the 9th March by CIDOB against the law, and the division in the interior of the Confederation. Such a division culminated in the creation of the so-called “parallel CIDOB” which, contrary to the original organization’s stance, conserved the alliance with the government. In the course of these events, the transformation of the discourse directed towards indigenous community groups was increasingly emphatic, changing from a formal apology to a convincing rhetoric focused on discrediting them. In this process, I argue, the Morales’ administration updated a racist grammar evocative, in more recent times, of the agriextractivist elite, stereotyping and minimizing the Other. This grammar found all over the country presented the most violent expression of it in the East, as mentioned before. In its use by the government, the profiles of “criminal” and “enemy” were added to the idea of backwardness attributed to indigenous peoples, updating the economy of stereotypes mentioned before that manifest in discursive strategies to maintain and reproduce a hierarchization of social relationships. In the Bolivian case, I observe discrediting and criminalization besides classification as rhetorical strategies used in the governmental narrative that update the racist colonial grammar already evoked by the Media Luna elite. In Geopolítica de la Amazonía, published a year after the Chaparina Massacre, Álvaro García Linera (2012) summarizes the discourse adopted by Morales’ government in relation to the case. Similar to what’s observed in Living Well, the vice president seems to stand out once again as an academic interlocutor, expressing the official narrative to Bolivian society and to foreign scholars that supported decolonization in the country (many of whom criticized the repression of indigenous peoples and the governmental project in the park/territory, as discussed in Chapter 3). So, instead of simply making statements to the press, Linera elaborated a work based on the pair revolution-counterrevolution and other concepts created by Marxist academics aiming to deconstruct the idea that the road would serve the Brazilian government’s interests. Consequently, the project would not relate to IIRSA or a regional developmentalist model. One of the ideas defended in his book is that the road consisted of a project of interdepartmental connection devised by previous administrations, a point also confirmed publicly by other members of the government, such as the minister of Presidency, Juan Ramon Quintana. As reported by Pérez (2013) in the Bolivian newspaper La Razón, Quintana presented two resolutions formulated by the government of Beni and the Subcentral TIPNIS in 2000 approving the construction of the road. According to the minister, these documents would demonstrate that the indigenous peoples’ march in defense of the TIPNIS was motivated by conservative political interests, stressing that indigenous leaders such as Pedro Nuni worked in Beni’s government, ruled by members opposed to Morales’ administration.

The TIPNIS case  137 This last issue is expressed in the other idea defended by Linera in the book: the TIPNIS case would involve many issues besides the construction of the road. In fact, as observed before, such a case reveals diverse and divergent demands as well as relations among distinct political actors that will gain new “color” during the decolonizing process. But, in his analysis, the Vice-president stresses that the building of the road would be against the interests of the old agricultural elite. Because of this, the arrival of MAS to the Presidency and the changes promoted from that moment on, he maintains that the opposition from Media Luna had used TIPNIS to discredit the government and coopt indigenous leaders. Nevertheless, Linera develops his rationale in such a way that historical demands claimed by indigenous peoples from the lowlands and put into check by the governmental project are minimized. His discursive focus changes from presenting the legitimate demands of indigenous peoples and peasants, both framed as subjects of the revolution, to highlighting the old elite’s manipulation of the former and the clientelism maintained between them. Within this dynamic, CIDOB and its directors represented the old elite’s struggle to keep a colonial structure, whose mechanisms would be renewed. Those mechanisms would have been found in NGOs that finance the lowland indigenous organization, an important agent for masking the interests of other governments, in particular those of the United States, which would be closely linked to those of the landowners. Thus, CIDOB would reproduce “mechanisms of clientelist cooptation and ideological and political subordination to mostly the European and US funding agencies, such as the USAID” (Linera 2012: 26). The following year, Morales’ government expelled from Bolivia not just the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) but also Danish NGO Ibis accusing them of conspiracy and political interference in the Andean country, similar to the position adopted by Correa’s government in Ecuador regarding the American agency and national organizations. Some years later, this criminalizing and nationalist discourse towards NGOs was retrieved by Linera in a press conference after he adverted that the historical Bolivian NGOs and research centers, such as Bolivia Information and Documentary Center (CEDIB) and Labor and Agrarian Development Studies Center (CEDLA), would be banished. Following the rationale developed in Geopolítica de la Amazonía, he minimized the work of NGOs and praised State’s empowerment, which coincided with the analysis developed in Chapter 3 that demonstrates the governmental goal to foment the State’s protagonist role in Bolivia: “We criticize some NGOs as liars. We congratulate the majority for their social work although they are less necessary. Before, when there was no State, NGOs accomplished State’s role but now there’s a strong State that takes its responsibility” (Layme 2015). In his book, underlying what Linera calls colonial environmentalism, practiced by NGOs, were not only clientelist but also illegal relationships between the directors and the elites. Such relationships would convert the

138  The TIPNIS case park/territory into a space directly connected to capitalism and its international division, that is, a periphery whose role was to provide raw material to be industrialized by the center. Thus, the TIPNIS case would reflect colonialism from part of the local elites that historically made use of the indigenous workforce reproducing power asymmetries crossed by the racial factor, and external colonialism in its neoliberal facet. Such narrative encompasses several issues regarding the discourse on decolonization and holds relevant functions: by pointing illegal activities that allegedly took place in the park/territory, it justifies State intervention through the building of the road, for example. Moreover, by stereotyping NGOs as entities that would serve international capital and local elites, this narrative promotes an association between those organizations and neoliberalism, whose damaging consequences to the country have propelled resistance from several sectors of Bolivian society. It is important to recall that one of the facets of the neoliberal model and its privatizing measures was the active presence of multinational companies. In this way, while alluding to issues that bound together diverse actors under the banner of decolonization and that gained the support of academics that studied the theme in national and foreign universities, Linera’s words evoke Bolivian nationalism. Likewise, the occurrence of irregularities and the reference to a gap between the organizations and the bases, something that is relatively common to social movements, give shape to a narrative that caused the leaders to be discredited and criminalized by the vice president: An important part of TCO’s from the lowlands sells wood illegally to lumber companies […] A significant number of leaders of the indigenous marches of 2011 and 2012, like Vargas and Fabriciano, have been reported for the illegal sale of lumber for years, including the sale of wood from TIPNIS. (Linera 2012: 35) Interestingly, Linera does not mention the government’s non-compliance to international norms and the Plurinational State Constitution regarding the consultation of the park/territory’s inhabitants earlier to the project’s execution. Nor does he mention the history of conflicts between original communities’ members and coca growers’ families that have moved inside the TIPNIS and exceeded the Red Line, which is detailed in his work with Orozco and Stefanoni, published in 2006. In Geopolítica de la Amazonía, Linera refutes the idea that the project would be a road to coca growers, defending that such a claim would consist in a prejudicial and non-groundbased discourse related to the American government since the Coca Federation had agreed to compromise and decided to respect the Red Line. Nevertheless, coca growers’ difficulty in keeping such a compromise has been one of the main reasons for the disagreement between them and indigenous peoples from local communities, as observed before. Instead,

The TIPNIS case  139 Linera emphasizes a change of perception directed to indigenous peoples from the lowlands: moving from subjects of the revolution to the Other in the decolonial process, his discursive strategy carefully focuses on the role of indigenous leaders. In this way, this discourse discredits and criminalizes the leaders and their regional organizations (once recognized as crucial actors for indigenous peoples’ struggle and decolonization) and, simultaneously, seeks to maintain the alliance with other indigenous groups from the lowlands. Parallel to that move, the discursive mechanisms (classification, discrediting and criminalization) also point to an attempt to demobilize resistance to Morales’ administration, which recalls colonial practices exercised by the Executive. The same grammar used by Álvaro García is found, to a greater or lesser extent, in other documents, propaganda or even in statements of politicians from the MAS party. In Qué se esconde detrás del TIPNIS, the government rhetoric is reinforced by a list of activities inside the Park that, according to the archives, would reflect the corruption and predatory exploitation of natural resources. The profits of those activities would be concentrated in the hands of the leaders and entrepreneurs, in addition to NGOs, at the expense of the Park’s inhabitants. This apocryphal work, obtained at the Bolivian Consulate in Rio de Janeiro in July 2012, presents various documents within its 200 pages, approximately – among them are, contracts and receipts of selling wood, the mapping of paths and illicit airstrips; technical detailing of livestock farming; the selling of alligator’s leather of foreign companies; a contract to implement a project of ecological tourism that stipulated a 20-year concession for fishing in the Secure river, and an electronic message of all the services that would be offered to tourists; official departmental receipts and documents that allegedly predicted an investment of 9 million Bolivianos to maintain the road between San Ignacio de Moxos and Santísima Trinidad from 1999 to 2007; requests for money from Subcentral TIPNIS´s and Subcentral Sécure’s indigenous leaders directed to the government of Beni between 2006 and 2008 to implement projects that, despite the amount received, were not executed, according to the apocryphal work. The text mentions the proliferation of national and international NGOs inside the park/indigenous territory as well and classifies them as part of an imperial environmentalism, stressing USAID’s role. The long list also includes photocopies of checks and identification documents of the leaders, agreements between CIDOB and the political elite of Media Luna, and the minutes of a Brazilian Court process. Moreover, the compilation contains the transcription of a phone conversation that would attest to the elite opposition’s financial support to the organization of 9th TIPNIS March. A thorough investigation sought to ratify this argument in the current work of Linera, and to confirm its veracity in that the documents are presented as “documented evidence”, all numbered and authenticated. The criminalization and discredit of the main indigenous leaders who opposed the government are also promoted, identifying each of them and

140  The TIPNIS case pointing out their involvement in crimes or formal and informal alliances with politicians from the opposition. As a complement to the exposition of these documents, the deliberate use of categorical statements, such as, “Adolfo Chávez, Pedro Nuni, and Fernando Vargas sell themselves to the government of Santa Cruz”, “Ex-director of CONAMAQ, political lackey of the United States Embassy”, “Nelly Romero López, former-candidate under the NFR (Nueva Fuerza Republicana) party and allied to fugitive Manfred Reyes Villa” (Qué se esconde detrás del TIPNIS 2012: 186) is also observed. The following statement was made of Fernando Vargas: “In the 1990s, he trafficked lumber located in the heart of TIPNIS. He sold 100 trees […] without the authorization of the communities” (Qué se esconde detrás del TIPNIS 2012: 186). Alluding to communitarian leaders from the lowlands and their alliance with the opposition from Santa Cruz, the document states “Separatists and racists subjugate once again indigenous leaders” (Qué se esconde detrás del TIPNIS 2012: 190). This sentence seems quite revealing: while previous quotations express an attempt to criminalize indigenous leaders mobilizing a grammar and presenting a list of documents that would allegedly prove their involvement in acts of corruption, the last phrase reproduces the same prejudiced discursive structure employed by cruceña elite. Because it emphasizes domination from the part of the opposition and, simultaneously, does not address authoritarian measures adopted by the government, the above sentence promotes a double meaning. On the one hand, it decontextualizes the formation of alliances circumscribing those to the cooptation of indigenous leaders and to some sort of political maneuvering led by the landowner elite. As discussed elsewhere, the elite opposition’s attempt to capitalize on the TIPNIS case is not divorced from a complex political scene. In that sense, some factors should be considered: relations developed among the sector that composed the government’s allied base and its fragmentation, the disarticulation of Media Luna elite, bilateral relations (Bolivia-Brazil), the dislocation of indigenous communarians that resisted the governmental project. On the other hand, because this narrative suggests the manipulation of indigenous leaders by the old elite, it removes agency from the former. As a result, it minimizes indigenous peoples’ capacity to evaluate political issues, which is similar to the notion that they “do not have any discernment” while, in parallel, their agency is stressed in order to criminalize and publicly discredit them. In this way, communarian leaders are presented as actors that commit illegal activities moved by egoistic interests and, simultaneously (and by the same reasons), as toys in their alliance with the Media Luna elite. This point reflects the main rationale defended by Morales’ administration, whose elaboration is grounded on the tergiversation of facts and political choices put into practice by the heads of the State. In this discursive strategy, the government’s closer ties with elite members from Santa Cruz are obliterated along with the progressive isolation of indigenous

The TIPNIS case  141 communarians from the political process after the Constituent and the erosion of what could be a co-ruling administration otherwise. Simultaneously, the official discourse stresses the exploitative, racist-colonial history of the old elite members, their presence in State institutions and their effort to put an end to “revolution” and maintain internal colonialism. But, above all that, the government narrative silenced any mention of the Chaparina Massacre and the responsibility of the State in this episode. And, given that it is associated with classification, criminalization and discrediting, this narrative reveals to us an economy of violence that goes beyond its physical form, consisting of what Shapiro (1997) understands as discursive violence. However, unlike the obliteration of the indigenous peoples observed by the author, or even their relegation to museums and their identification as noble savages mentioned by Earle (2007), their presence was accepted by the current official discourse aimed at diminishing them. In this sense, such strategies work as tools to construct representations that denigrate indigenous groups contrary to the government, counterposing them to a positive image attributed to the State and promoting their marginalization in the political sphere. Linera (2012: 14) depicts the TIPNIS protests as part of a counterrevolution promoted by a section of the revolutionary subjects that, for corporative or regional interests, disregarded the correlation of forces in the country and abroad and ended up defending the interests of the old, right-wing elite and debilitating proceso de cambio. Another element missing from the governmental narrative relates to the pragmatism of indigenous peoples in constructing closer ties with the conservative elite, which is reflected not just in the conflict over the TIPNIS but in the history of their relationship. Thus, besides corporative interests, the creation of an Indigenous Secretariat by the departmental government of Santa Cruz as well as the Framework Agreement between the Secretary and CIDOB to design and execute projects for the benefit of indigenous peoples corresponds to strategies employed by the old elite and indigenous peoples from the lowlands. While for the former those measures could result in allies against their political isolation, the same holds for CIDOB members and indigenous deputies who opposed the Executive. Moreover, a holistic analysis reveals that, in previous moments, the creation of closer ties between these two groups succeeded over distinct issues, especially regarding the park/indigenous territory. As Orozco et al. (2006) pointed out, on several occasions indigenous leaders contrary to the expansion of coca-growing have allied themselves to Beni’s elite members, who have historically combated native people and employed a regionalist vocabulary. That is the reason they used the word colla, mentioned before. And, even in debates during the Constituent Assembly, indigenous peoples from the lowlands were favorable to questions evoked by departmental autonomies’ project and, in that sense, questioned the financial resource division between the West and the East, colla and camba regions, respectively.

142  The TIPNIS case The same logic underlying Linera’s argument (and reproduced in the apocryphal document) is observed in the official propaganda and in the words of several members of the government’s allied base, who accentuate TIPNIS’ precariousness and the construction of the road as a synonym for development.15 Moreover, they evoked the idea that indigenous peoples who opposed the government and were once understood as the “subjects of proceso de cambio” would have become “enemies” of such a process. Thus, during the mobilization of the allied base in La Paz, organized to support the government and oppose the 9th March, former CSUTCB leader Rodolfo Machaca stated: “We won’t allow brother Evo’s process of change to be attacked” (Aliaga 2012). But other declarations will express more assertively the permanence of colonial racist logic, frequently associated with the landowner-mestizo elite and reproduced not just by the new ruling elite but by members of the allied organizations as well. Alluding to the benefits of San Ignacio de Moxos-Villa Tunari road, the Executive Secretary of CSUTCB, Roberto Coraite, expressed: We should differentiate what benefits the most our brothers from the territory, the road or keep themselves in clandestinity, keep themselves as indigenous, as savages. What is more important? I think those differences should be admitted, if the road (is constructed) they will possibly have education immediately, […] medical assistance. (La Razón, September 2011b). Countering the environmental-conservationist framing of the conflict, Coraite also affirmed that The territory is no virgin, so let’s not talk that we want to conserve it because our brothers themselves want to hand it as a gift, great businessmen had abused our brothers’ trust or ignorance paying crumbs or miserable cents to compensate them and take advantage of their natural resources. (Eju.tv, September 2011) The references cited above show the permanence of a racist thought through the renewal of a vocabulary widely present in the discourse reproduced by the old elite but already displayed in official documents long before Morales’ election, as shown in the previous section. In this sense, the perception that the lowlands indigenous groups were criminals or profiteers replaced old ones, such as the idea that they were “savages” or “ignorant”, and broadened the gap built since colonial times (and ratified during the Republican period) between the elite and the rest of the population, composed mostly of indigenous peoples. This new grammar exhibits a sense of superiority, used to justify governmental domination towards indigenous communities and between them amidst the conflicts of interest and power

The TIPNIS case  143 struggles during Morales’ administration. Once linked to racial hierarchy, constituting what Memmi (2010) understands as the substrate of colonial domination, this sense of superiority will be introjected by the participants of this experience, as addressed by authors such as Rivera (1993, 2010), Nandy (2007). In the case of Latin American States, especially those located in the Andean region, such an experience is not divorced from a civilized notion reproduced by Historia Patria, the formation of a national imagery that frequently glorified a past represented by the Inca Empire, as discussed in Chapter 2. Therefore, an analysis on the reproduction of a racist colonial logic by members of the Pact of Unity (including participants of organizations other than CSUTCB) should consider not just contemporary factors in isolation but their historical perspective as well. The last point requires further explanation. As addressed in the previous section, CSUTCB has historically demanded access to land. Such a claim will be strengthened by its members after the TIPNIS conflict, as observed in several statements publicized in Bolivian newspapers either defending the elaboration of a new law to regulate land relations or the revision of ILO’s Convention 169 (Alarcón 2011, La Razón 2011c). In that sense, when compared to other members of the Pact of Unity, CSUTCB adopted a more assertive position which also reflects the attempt of the peasants to distinguish themselves as the vanguard of decolonization. And to achieve their goal, peasant leaders will find in their support to the government an instrument for political bargaining, that will be mobilized against attempts of the Executive to minimize the union, demonstrating the difficult balancing to sustain governmental alliance.16 In this context, notions reproducing colonial difference will emerge, being evoked not just by peasants but also by indigenous communarians from the highlands favorable to the government. Thus, Carmelo Titirico, one of mallkus of CONAMAQ, remarked thus on the TIPNIS inhabitants, Indigenous peoples [from TIPNIS] don’t have schools, don’t have health assistance, don’t have anything, and for this reason we support that the road gets into the mountain ridge and we want them to live like us in the 21st century. (Mealla 2011) The quotations above, made by members of distinct organizations, demonstrate the permanence of the racist-temporal facet of colonial logic and otherness towards indigenous peoples from the lowlands, demarcating an internal border among the oppressed themselves. In that sense, they introject the grammar of criminalization and discrediting adopted by the official discourse, sometimes being publicly encouraged by governmental members to reproduce it. Also, those statements reveal disagreements among members of organizations, as illustrated by Titirico’s words, that will result in CONAMAQ’s division and the founding of its “parallel” council, similar to

144  The TIPNIS case what was observed regarding CIDOB. In both cases, this fragmentation was followed by acts of physical violence between their members, invasion of their offices and accusations of clientelism between supporters and Morales’ government, as well as the arrest of relevant opposing leaders for corruption (Ariñez 2014, Opinión 2012, Página Siete 2015a, 2015b). The TIPNIS grammar III: indigenous peoples searching for the international The division of local organizations will inform strategies adopted by their members abroad. Thus, while Melva Hurtado, the elected leader of the CIDOB faction supportive of the government in 2012, will join meetings promoted by the UN such as the 12th Section of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), Adolfo Chávez, whose term was supposed to end in 2015, and other opposing leaders will search the international to counteract the strategies adopted by Morales’ administration that reinforce internal colonialism. It is important to remember that indigenous peoples have usually appealed to the international as a dimension to denounce violation of their rights either through their active participation in organizations, such as the UN, or/and through an alliance to NGOs. In that sense, while the international has produced indigenous peoples as modernity’s Other, as observed in the Valladolild Debate and the thought of Francisco de Vitoria and the colonization process put into practice in Latin America, Hurtado and Chávez mobilization seems to suggest that the international might work as a locus of possibility as well (or a necessary locus to employ their strategies). While Hurtado, who has already been an active indigenous representative in the UNPFII, will reproduce official discourse in those meetings, stressing the role of Bolivian government and President Morales’ propositions, in contrast, Chávez will find in the international what theorists of social movements defined as an open sphere against authoritarian measures adopted in the local (see Della Porta and Tarrow 2005, Keck and Sikkink 1998, Tarrow 1998).17 Thus, CIDOB and Subcentral TIPNIS leaders will denounce what they called the “parallel” Confederation and the government’s role regarding the vulnerability on indigenous peoples and the environment, sometimes through their participation in regional organizations, such as Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations from the Amazon Basin (COICA) and the Andean Coordinator of Indigenous Organization (CAOI). That was the case of the UN 18th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP18), when native leaders refused Hurtado’s presence in the meeting of the Indigenous Forum of Abya Yala (FIAY) as part of the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC) (Erbol 2012b). FIAY is composed of representatives of organizations from Latin America and the Caribbean, among those COICA and CAOI. The following year, COICA publicized two resolutions after a meeting held in Santa Cruz de la Sierra: one on IIRSA,

The TIPNIS case  145 BNDES and great infrastructure projects (Resolución Sobre IIRSA, BNDES y Megaproyectos Amazónicos) reporting the violation of indigenous rights by States and companies responsible for projects related to IIRSA, the Union of South-American Nations (USAN) and financed by BNDES. The other resolution (2013a) reinforces the defense of indigenous peoples’ rights and highlights the role of CIDOB members during proceso de cambio. In that sense, while emphasizing not just the foundation of the Plurinational State but also Living Well (a notion highly publicized in local and international dimensions by the official discourse as characteristic of Bolivia’s Cultural Revolution) the document somehow promotes an attempt to return decolonization to some of its original protagonists (indigenous peoples) and disentangles it from Morales’ government: the construction of the Plurinational State and Living Well was started by indigenous peoples’ struggle […] The effective and not seeming decoloniality of power will never depend on what a party or a passing government do or not do but on respect […] the peoples and social movements’ decisions. (Resolución sobre los derechos de los pueblos indígenas en Bolivia, COICA, 2013a, April 2) Native leaders from the lowlands also found instances in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the International Rights of Nature Tribunal to submit petitions demanding equitable relief from Bolivian Plurinational State in 2012 and 2017, respectively. As in past times, when indigenous peoples used denunciation to counteract colonialism, in the first decades of the 21st century those groups were once more mobilizing this discursive mechanism to resist what was considered to be a decolonized State, putting into check a government that locally and internationally represented itself under the banner of indigeneity. Documents concerning the TIPNIS in the Tribunal’s archive are particularly interesting to observe how the case was framed internationally by petitioners and the organization as well. Instead of focusing just on the violation of indigenous rights, recognized by Bolivian and international norms, native leaders also emphasized the relevance of Mother Earth and their role in protecting it due to their mode of life. We, the community, the jungle, nature. That is where we live together, taking care of all living beings, animals. Therefore, we protect nature and Mother Earth. Because we live from that. Because if there were no land, we would not be alive. Those words were pronounced by Marqueza Teco (2019), president of the Women Organization of TIPNIS, during the 4th Section of the Tribunal, in 2017. Together with statements of other leaders from the park/territory and members of the Committee formed to visit TIPNIS, they are exhibited in the

146  The TIPNIS case TIPNIS video organized by the Tribunal and available on its webpage since October 2019. Teco’s presentation is followed by Cecilia Moyoviri’s interview, in which she asserts that the building of the road would lead to the destruction of indigenous peoples, their relationship with “Mother Earth” and “other life forms” (Moyoviri 2019). Similar ideas are reproduced in the video El TIPNIS y los Derechos de la Naturaleza, also organized and released by the Tribunal in October 2018, after members of the Commission created by the Tribunal visited the park/territory. In the last document, Moyoviri (2018) says, “Day by day, hour by hour […] we were screaming to defend Mother Nature”. On Evo Morales, indigenous rights and the 8th and 9th Marches, Benigno Noza (2018) argues that if the president was indigenous “he should have come to meet us before we marched”. Among other leaders’ statements regarding the case, Darío Noza (2018) declares that indigenous peoples from the TIPNIS didn’t want to be “slaves of the settlers” and adds that they wanted to be “free”, retaking a historical issue expressed before regarding the colonization of the area, whose protagonists have changed over the years. Besides Church members and White-mestizo landowners versus indigenous peoples, disputes around the TIPNIS also included 20th century colonizers, i.e. settlers composed mainly by coca growers localized in the Polygon 7. Therefore, Benigno e Dario Noza’s words demonstrate an update of the colonizer figure, pointed at that time as coca growers and the new ruling elite, headed by an Aymara president that publicly stood as defender of indigenous peoples’ agenda to diplomats, governmental representatives and social movements. The quotations above demonstrate that indigenous peoples from the park/territory reproduce a strategy observed in Chapter 3 regarding identity formation and narratives on Suma Qamaña, absorbed by Morales’ government. By expressing their intrinsic connection with nature, pointing to what is essentially different in their modes of life, as theorized by Fanon (2004), indigenous peoples from the TIPNIS try to subvert the official discourse pointing to its contradictions. In that sense, they make use of “alterity”, the mechanisms of self-affirmation and, especially, denunciation to expose the gap between what is projected in the international by Morales and the Minister of Foreign Affair as an “indigenous State, government and president” and the measures adopted in the local against indigenous peoples that oppose the road. So, instead of finding in the State’s administration an ally to propel natives’ rights and strengthen the movement internationally, those leaders along with others from CIDOB mobilize a grammar similar to the one used by Suma Qamaña proponents and leaders from the highlands towards the White-mestizo Western world, marked by colonial logic. But, in this case, this Western world is represented by Morales’ government, the Plurinational State and the enduring enactment of internal colonialism through repression, extractivism and, as mentioned earlier, the criminalization and discrediting of native leaders.

The TIPNIS case  147 Thus, similar to the process of identity construction in resistance to colonial logic in the highlands, once more indigenous leaders denounce the exercise of domination by accessing essence. Distinct from narratives on Suma Qamaña, in the TIPNIS case the mechanism of self-affirmation is mobilized to state “who is really indigenous”, as Benigno Noza’s words suggest, a dispute centered on what Fabricant and Postero (2019) pointed as the idea of virtuous Indian reproduced by indigenous leaders and activists in Bolivia and abroad. In fact, soon after the repression, a video called Message from TIPNIS to the World was uploaded by leaders of the march on YouTube containing the following statement by the former president of the National Confederation of Indigenous Women of Bolivia (CNAMIB), Justa Cabrera (2011): For us, the indigenous peoples, the TIPNIS is our home, our life. We the indigenous people live, hunt, and fish, our life is based on the contact with nature. And so, we demand that this government respect our cosmovision and our life… While Fabricant and Postero analysis on the case highlights the politics of performance, in the same vein, indigenous peoples from the lowlands seem to exercise what could be pointed as cosmopolitics, as mentioned before in the case of Yampara’s work specifically, based on the theorization of the De la Cadena (2010). By stressing contradiction between the implementation of a developmental/extractivist/repressive agenda locally and the indigenous/ Mother Earth defender discourse reproduced by the government internationally, they managed to create an alliance with non-indigenous/Western groups based on a radically distinct, integral and relational mode of life that assumes human beings as just one of the components composing a harmonic whole (see Chapter 3). In that sense, indigenous peoples highlighted not just the disrespect of their collective rights in the TIPNIS case but the cosmological difference as well, mobilizing the latter to construct a political strategy against mechanisms adopted by the government to sustain colonial logic locally and internationally. This is clear in the leaders’ emphasis on indigenous peoples as “defenders of Mother Earth”, reproducing an idea also presented in narratives on Suma Qamaña concerning the necessary role they have for humanity in preserving life, saving the world. Such a role, recognized by members of the Tribunal in videos, reports on the case and in the final sentence, is reinforced by their pledge in advocating the Rights of Mother Earth. And this framing of their demands concerning the TIPNIS case coincides with the politicization of the indigenous difference as a strategy to achieve their goals and implement indigenous peoples’ agenda, to which the creation of the Tribunal is representative. It should be remembered that the Tribunal’ creation is inspired by the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth, presented in Tiquipaya, in 2010, during the World People’s Conference on Climate Change

148  The TIPNIS case and the Rights of Mother Earth. The document represented not just a political gain to indigenous peoples, that succeeded in promoting their claims on “Nature”, but a watershed to the international and the non-indigenous world in general precisely because indigenous peoples succeeded in constructing a document based on their cosmology. This is expressed in the notion that Mother Earth consists of a subject of rights and, as such, should be respected and protected by men and Nation (or plurinational) States. So, instead of stressing the division between man and nature so peculiar to Western world, indigenous peoples, together with non-indigenous allies such as scholars, environmental activists, managed to highlight that Mother Earth is a living being of which humans and other species form a part in an interconnected way. In doing so, they subverted the asymmetrical relation that has usually presented human beings as the subject of rights and conferred “nature” a passive role to be extracted, cultivated or protected depending on human needs. And because it transcends human existence, Mother Earth (also presented as Pachamama by several indigenous peoples in the Andean region and by Morales’ government) stands as the one to which humanity should respond. In that sense, the Rights of Mother Earth represent an attempt to refute a logic that establishes a hierarchy between living beings and that is also expressed in the colonial world through domination based on the superiority-inferiority pair and colored by racism: colonizer’s control over nature and the colonized, the latter always understood as backward, sometimes as non-humans, which posited indigenous peoples closer to “Nature” in this dichotomous divide, than to “Culture” as synonymous of civilization, of those who “knows what should be done”. That is the case of Morales’ advice that colonizers from Chapare should convince TIPNIS indigenous inhabitants not to oppose the road (Chipana 2011). While his advice might not look blatantly racist compared to other interviews, when observed through a postcolonial and political ontology lenses, the president’s words reveal his position of superiority (an aspect that is reproduced in one way or another by governmental and support members, as showed before). In that sense, it represents the idea of exclusive knowledge, pointed in previous chapters about Inayatullah (2008), and it stands as an example of what Blaser (2013) identifies as reasonable politics: the attempt to frame claims that express a distinct world (ontology) under the logics of modernity, stressing hierarchical power relations. So, while embodying natives’ mode of life and their enactment of existence, the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth also reflects a proposition to confront locally and internationally the permanence of internal colonialism, exercised by distinct ruling elites. Despite its purely ethical aspect when compared to the biding effects of international organizations, the International Rights of Nature Tribunal consists of an unprecedent instance to express and demand respect to Mother Earth. Created by the network Global Alliance of the Rights of Nature, the Tribunal is composed

The TIPNIS case  149 by several members, among scholars and indigenous leaders such as Yaku Pérez and Blanca Chancoso, from Ecuador, which demonstrates the enactment of a dialogue between two distinct modes of life. More than that, as in the case of Suma Qamaña, the TIPNIS or the Tiquipaya event, it unveils a sophisticated ability exercised by indigenous peoples to promote a common project against colonial relations together with the non-indigenous. In that sense, while questioning what should the subjects of rights consist of and the exclusivity of agency attributed to men and States and their representatives, the Tribunal works as an international platform that provides the possibility for the indigenous peoples to “intervene” locally by introducing the notion of Earth Beings, a complete distinct idea of what is considered political and who should exercise politics. As De la Cadena (2015) argues, precisely because indigenous peoples’ cosmology exceeds rationality frames of the Western/modern world, Earth beings disturb what has been usually understood as the possibility of acting politically. Perhaps, that’s why leaders petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights years before they presented the denunciation to the Tribunal. And this sense of “impossibility” will be ratified by the Morales’ government as a means of discrediting the Tribunal and, as such, reinforce internal colonialism. While official representatives will respond to the InterAmerican Commission request for equitable relief, in the case of the Tribunal such representatives will send a report on the indigenous peoples’ rights in Bolivia but without the survey solicited by the entity.18 Moreover, during the members’ visit to the country to meet with the parts on the conflict and collect information on the TIPNIS case, minister of government, Carlos Romero, characterized them as “good faith environmentalists” whose future information wouldn’t have any legal impact because the Tribunal wasn’t a part of an official organism such as the UN or the Organization of American States but a group of NGOs (see Columba 2018, Los Tiempos 20 August 2018). This notion was ratified by Romero in his letter to the “so-called Tribunal”, in which he did not recognize instances resulting from the Tiquipaya event precisely because of its non-juridical character, counterposing it to the proposal made by “Brother President Evo Morales Ayma and the peoples” of creating an International Tribunal of Climate and Environmental Justice (Ministerio de Gobierno, Despacho 1756/2018). Finally, Romero highlighted Bolivia as a case of success, an international reference regarding its plurinationality and the recognition of the indigenous peoples’ rights. The minister’s letter reveals that while discrediting works as crucial for the government to counterpose its Bolivian and foreign critics as well, in the case of the Tribunal this mechanism operates together with a discursive strategy observed in the official framing of Suma Qamaña: the recovery and exaltation of the essence of what distinguishes Bolivia internationally. And, as analyzed in the previous chapter, this uniqueness of Bolivian experience is linked to indigenous peoples and Morales administration which, in the official discourse, are demonstrated as inseparable. More than that, the latter is

150  The TIPNIS case shown as a necessary actor to defend and empower the former and, as such, promote decolonization locally and internationally. So, against the possibility that the Tribunal’s work on the TIPNIS case could put into check the legitimacy searched by the government in the international sphere through a discourse based on Living Well and Mother Earth, Romero’s words show an attempt to “close this window” by emphasizing what is missing in the Tribunal that is proper to the international and politics: juridical status. And this lack is consistent with the one of Romero’s observations: the Tribunal is about the Rights of Mother Earth not about Climate or Environmental Justice. While those expressions might be read superficially as synonymous, they entail a cosmological difference as alluded to in Chapter 2 and above: according to Western-modern logic, Mother Earth could never be the subject of rights simply because it does not consist of a living organism but in nature/environment, whose opposition to human beings eliminates any possibility of action or of it being a political actor. Therefore, despite mobilizing uniqueness and promising an almost symbiotic relationship between the indigenous peoples and the Morales’ government which, as a result, would suggest a dialog between two distinct modes of life, Romero’s words reinforces the capture exercised by the official discourse which diminishes indigenous cosmology subversive potential. That is why he claims for an international represented mostly by States and international organizations, a “world” where otherness has no room except when it is absorbed by the Self. So, it is not a coincidence that state centralization has been one of the goals of Morales’ administration and officially presented as a need, be it locally or in the international fora as the proponent of “disruptive” projects on behalf of indigenous and other oppressed peoples. The Tribunal, in contrast, expresses an attempt to put into practice a project based on a conversation between two or more worlds, having in the Rights of Mother Earth a fundament that cancels a sense of impossibility, of negation of the Other in his otherness. In that sense, the Tribunal represents not just a pluralistic international against the dynamic of inclusion under the terms of the one who includes. More than that, it entails a sense of pluriversal international that, despite constraints of a supposed universality, offers indigenous peoples from the lowlands an opportunity to resist internal colonialism on a distinct basis when compared to international organizations. Although contrary to the limits of the international that confer on the Tribunal’s sentences a purely ethical dimension as “less than juridical”, this fact does not determine an impermeable character of such a dimension per se to claims of cosmological difference. In the Final Judgement concerning the TIPNIS case, the Tribunal concluded the Plurinational State “violated the Rights of Nature and the indigenous peoples of TIPNIS as defenders of Mother Earth and failed to comply with its obligation to respect, protect and guarantee the Rights of Mother Earth” presented in the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth and Laws 071 and 300 (International Rights of Nature Tribunal 2019: 24). The decision was

The TIPNIS case  151 perceived by indigenous leaders as a tool to be mobilized before the InterAmerican Commission, reinforcing a discourse that aggregates the rights of Pachamama and of indigenous peoples as the “defenders” of the former. As declared by the former president of CIDOB and one of the COICA’s coordinators then, Adolfo Chávez, “It’s been a pleasure to hear from this tribunal that those collective and individual rights and the rights of Pachamama are being violated. We’re going to use it as tool for our defense before the InterAmerican Commission” (Agencia de Noticia Fides, 18 May 2019). Therefore, while based on a distinct ontology, represented by Mother Earth, and the Western notion of “rights”, the Tribunal worked as anOther instance for indigenous peoples from the lowlands to act internationally and, sometimes, reinforce denunciations made previously in legal systems against local activities/internal colonialism.

Conclusion Through the discussion developed in these pages, I have assessed the reconfiguration of forces in the Bolivian political scene, and its relevance in understanding the conflicts around TIPNIS and their consequences. Certainly, any analysis on the subject should consider the role played by the neighboring country during the Lula administration, whose lobby in favor of the Brazilian Santa Cruz landowners was very active and whose neo-developmentalistextractivist model was adopted to a greater or lesser extent in the region. The regional character of this model is emphasized not only by Gudynas and other theorists who address neo-extractivism but also by those who focus exclusively on developmentalism. As regards this last point, the literature identifies, in the ascension of leftist governments in the region, the implementation of an economic model characterized by the “return of the State” and the combination of public and private investments, promoting growth and social equity, albeit with variations in each country, as discussed in Chapter 3. The presence of the state in the Bolivian dynamic finds one of its facets at the economic level in the example of the series of nationalizations in different sectors, starting with hydrocarbons, although these measures did not occur to the detriment of the search for foreign investments. In fact, the Morales government seeks to attract foreign investments through the diversification of partners, an important strategy for boosting the national economy and sustaining its transfer income programs. At the regional level, the country ascribes enthusiastically to the mechanisms of integration led by Brazil, among them USAN, which absorbed the IIRSA project portfolio, linking it to the South American Council of Infrastructure and Planning (COSIPLAN) of the block (Delgado and Cunha 2016). This information demonstrates Bolivia’s adaptation to a project carried out at the regional level. As regards TIPNIS, the road symbolizes adhesion to extractivism since the start of the regional neodevelopmentalist project. It is worth noting that in 2003, the plans for the road were incorporated into

152  The TIPNIS case the Santos-Arica bi-ocean megaproject, as pointed out by Molina and Gómez (2014). On one hand, the local project directly benefits the coca farmers of Polygon 7. On the other, the road also is connected with the exploitation of hydrocarbons, an activity that is critical to the economy of the country, based on obtaining income from the exploitation of natural resources and its concentration in the hands of the State, establishing what Laserna (2006) calls rentier economies. It was no coincidence that in the same month that the Supreme Electoral Court disclosed the final results of the “prior” consultation, Alvaro García Linera announced the government’s decision to start hydrocarbon-related activities in national parks (Corz and Lazcano 2013). In that sense, the TIPNIS case seems to reinforce at first the preponderance of economic factors, confirming Casanova’s (2009) analysis on internal colonialism. Nevertheless, this chapter demonstrates the crucial role played by discourses reproduced either by the government and its allies or by indigenous leaders that oppose road construction. In that context, the clash occurs not only between the new elite and its “traditional” opposition (namely, the old elite) but also strikes at the very core of the allied base, stirring up latent conflicts marked by distinct interests and identities. Once the old elite became weakened by the Morales administration, opposing demands emerged among those who composed the Pact of Unity, presenting difficult constraints to the government. In order to sustain itself in power, which would entail the support of the allies, the government opted, in turn, for prioritizing the alliance with those who make up the majority of the base (peasants, colonizers, coca growers) to the detriment of indigenous communities, sometimes making use of clientelism and assistance measures that promoted an exclusionary inclusion.19 During this process, “parallel organizations” were formed in an attempt to replace the old indigenous ones and assure their political isolation. As for the elite of the East, its neutralization in the political game was assured not just by its impairment but also by the formation of a fragile alliance with the ruling elite. This rearticulation of forces is reflected in the governmental discourse, which reproduces and updates the racist vocabulary, expressed historically by Bolivian elites (especially in Media Luna), through mechanisms of criminalization and discrediting of indigenous peoples who oppose the governmental project. Those mechanisms will be enacted as well by members of the Pact of Unity, sometimes in declarations openly racist and colonialist, overemphasizing arguments stated by heads of the government. Considering that, those groups embody Fanon and Rivera’s point that colonial difference might be performed by the colonized, putting into check the notion that internal colonialism is exercised solely by the elite. And the clash experience in the local will be projected in the international sphere by indigenous leaders. While those allied to the government will reproduce the official discourse, those that oppose the road construction will search in the international a locus to counteract the government. Interestingly, while such a sphere might favor the exercise of colonial logic, whose refreshment

The TIPNIS case  153 is conferred by Bolivian official discourse reproduced by Morales and other heads of government in meetings and conferences, this fact does not translate into the immutable colonial character of the international. In other words, despite the intrinsic colonial condition of the international, political actors might operate in its interstices and make such a sphere an opportunity to counterpose colonial logic. Concerning the TIPNIS, indigenous peoples will mobilize not just legal artifices recognized in international organisms, such as the Organization of American States but also a cosmological difference to project their demands. An example of that is their decision to petition the International Rights of Nature Tribunal, whose creation was inspired by the Universal Declaration of the Right of Mother Earth. While denunciation of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights allows indigenous peoples to access the international under its founding logic, it denies the cosmological difference and finds in colonization a constitutive process that ratifies colonizers’ superiority; the Tribunal, in contrast, offers those peoples an opportunity to bypass this exclusionary inclusion. And this is so because the entity operates through a common project that results from a dialog between distinct modes of life, rejecting the hierarchical relations observed in Bolivia and abroad. In that sense, indigenous peoples that oppose road construction succeed in mobilizing their fundamental difference and operate in the interstice of the international, amplifying their demands framing beyond the issues of extractivism, indigenous rights (self-determination and autonomy), territory versus land. Therefore, the events concerning the TIPNIS case demonstrate a connection of diverse themes, crossing multiple dimensions. The crucial role played by the reconfiguration of forces in Bolivia and the historical roots of the conflicts presented above suggest that any analysis on the subject should contemplate the “domestic” context. Focusing on such a context worked as a crucial method to understand political disputes and how they condition strategies adopted by the actors in the country and abroad. Furthermore, it uncovered the link between the Bolivian political game, discursive strategies adopted by social players and the international, transcending most framings on the literature. The TIPNIS case reveals, thus, an urge of IR theorists to make a “move” towards what might seem apparently as a local/national matter because, as indigenous peoples used to tell me, “all facts in life are interrelated”.

Notes 1 See Maps I and II in the Appendix. 2 The Media Luna encompasses the departments of Beni, Pando, Santa Cruz, and Tarija, all located in the East of the country and characterized by the presence of agribusiness and the exploitation of hydrocarbons and lumber. 3 According to Marxa Chávez (2012), alluding to documents published by CEJIS, in 2007 and 2008 Subcentral TIPNIS requested public company Administradora Boliviana de Carreteras (ABC) and President Morales for information on the

154  The TIPNIS case

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

construction of the road. In 2006, the governmental Project was declared as a departmental and national priority after the promulgation of Law 3477 (see Ley 3477) The crises between the government and peasants are prompted by the official decision to create a tax (Impuesto Único Agropecuario) that would affect all landowners, including small producers. From that moment on, peasants decide to protest not just against general Barrientos but also following presidents, being severely repressed by State forces in 1974, in Cochabamba. The episode came to be known as Massacre del Valle. See Rivera (2003). International concern over tropical forests preservation, usually framed as “the lungs of the world”, became increasingly relevant since the 1970s and 1980s when environmental issues were highly debated in the United Nations’ conferences and turned into an object of North–South disputes. On the subject, see Doyle and McEachern (1998), Faber (2005), Gonçalves (1989), McCormick (1992), Mármora (1992), O’Brien et al. (2000), Spretnak and Capra (1986), Wapner (1996), among others. Vassalage and the deceits directed to indigenous peoples by loggers are mentioned by an anthropologist in La Paz about abilito, there is, a way to make the former dependent through debt (Personal notes). The persistence of other forms of exploitation and deceit of indigenous peoples in Bolivia is reported by Stavenhagen (2007) in Santa Cruz, the Amazon and Chaco. On the subject, some Bolivian scholars argued in an informal communication that, distinct from coca growers that thought for decolonization and the recognition of coca as a sacred leaf, the younger generation responds almost exclusively to the profit obtained from coca business. The main goal, according to those scholars, was to sustain a “capitalist behavior”, to purchase imported cars… Personal notes. One of the most violent episodes of the Federal War was the Ayo Ayo Battle, when the army commanded by Willka broke into a church where the remaining conservative forces from Sucre were sheltered. The conflict resulted in the death of 27 undergraduates. After the end of the war, Bolivia’s administrative capital was transferred from Sucre to La Paz, and the former city transformed into the country’s constitutional capital. The referendum took place in July 2006, together with the constituents’ elections. Final results attested that 84.51% of Bolivians voted and 57.59% of that total were against the Project of departmental autonomies. In Cochabamba, 63.03% of the voters rejected the Project. In Beni, Santa Cruz, Tarija and Pando, rejection varied from 26.17% to 42.31% of votes. See data from the Electoral Supreme Court at Atlas Electoral de Bolivia – Referendum Autonomías Departamental 2006, https://atlaselectoral.oep.org.bo/#/sub_proceso/68/1/2/graficos x The Santa Cruz Youth Union was founded in 1957 and consists of an armed branch of the Civic Committee of Santa Cruz. Nación Camba dates from 2000 and seeks to bring about the ‘full sovereignty’ of the department, that is, its independence in relation to the rest of the country. See http://nacioncamba.org/ and Núñez et al. (2010). According to information available at CEDIB database, the increase in the number of rural conflicts relates largely to the invasion of private properties in Santa Cruz. In contrast, between 2008 and 2012, most invasions took place in communities and areas occupied by peasants, colonizers and agribusiness. The documentation center also highlights the incidence of cases connected to deforestation as indicative of the expansion of agricultural border in the country (CEDIB 2013). According to article 29, paragraph III of the Framework Law on Autonomies, “The Indigenous-Native-Peasant territories that transcend department limits could constitute indigenous-native-peasant autonomies inside the borders of

The TIPNIS case  155

13

14 15 16

17

18

19

each department, establishing manco-communities between them to preserve their administrative unity”. See also Albó and Romero (2009) on this subject. Among diverse news on peasants’ pressure to promote settlements and constraints on indigenous territories, see “Demanda de tierra gesta fricción entre campesinos e indígenas (La Razón, 5 July 2010a) “Campesinos quieren una ley que autorice asentamientos” (La Razón, 30 July 2011a) and “CSUTCB: el censo servirá para contar indígenas en las TCOs y redistribuir las tierras” (Erbol, 23 August 2012a). As Resolution 0300/2012 states, the contract between ABC and OAS was signed in August 2008. See, for example, “TIPNIS, un paraíso lleno de necesidades. Por el derecho de los pueblos indígenas a decidir”. Ministerio de Comunicación, Junio, 2012. See “CSUTCB amenaza con dejar la Conalcam y desafía Morales” (La Razón, 30 September 2010b). The National Coordinator for Change (Conalcam), composed of several social movements and organizations that were also part of the Pact of Unity, was created in 2007 to defend proceso de cambio and Morales’ government against opposition. Melva Hurtado’s participation in previous meetings of the UNPFII is demonstrated, for example, in the Final Report of the European Parliament Ad Hoc Delegation to 7th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2008). In 2013, during her speech in the UNPFII against the carbon Market initiative by the UN, Hurtado stressed Evo Morales’ proposition to preserve nature and the promulgation of Law 300 (Marco de la Madre Tierra y Desarrollo Integral para Vivir Bien). See Hurtado (2013). Regards a debate in International Relations of the openness versus closeness of political spaces to social movements and an analysis of social movements theories, see Keck and Sikkink (1998). The report, entitled Reconocimiento y Efectización de los Derechos de las Naciones y Pueblos Indígenas Originarios Campesinos en el Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia, was sent to the Tribunal a month after Commission members visited the country. At that time, the members met minister Romero and presented a survey requesting information of the Plurinational State on diverse themes regarding the TIPNIS case, among those: studies on the environmental impact of the road, deforestation, coca leaf growth, intangibility, prior consultation, rights of Mother Earth. On the subject, see Cuestionario TIPNIS (2018a), Boletín de Prensa (2018b), available at the Tribunal website: https://therightsofnature.org/?s=tipnis Assistance measures were extensively adopted by the government towards the Park/territory’s inhabitants previously to the consultation over the construction of the road. On the subject, see: “Gobierno lleva bono Juana Azurduy, purificadores de agua y anuncia construcción de viviendas en el TIPNIS”, La Razón 25 December 2012, “Gobierno da sistema eléctrico en el TIPNIS”, La Razón 28 January 2013. Regarding clientelism, it occurs in parallel to power centralization by the Executive, that somehow made allies’ participation in State institutions conditional upon their bonds to MAS. In that sense, the party would function as a structure of “selective inclusion”, promoting exclusion, as pointed by Tapia (2011).

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156  The TIPNIS case paginasiete.bo/nacional/2019/5/18/tipnis-usaran-el-fallo-para-llevar-el-casola-cidh-218399.html Alarcón, Pavel (2011, November 11) “La CIDOB da plazo al Gobierno hasta el 21”. La Prensa. Retrieved 2012, January 15 from http://www.laprensa.com.bo/ imprimir_art.php?id_noticia=11723&fecha=20111111 Albó, Xavier and Carlos Romero (2009) Autonomías Indígenas en la Realidad Boliviana y su Nueva Constitución. La Paz: Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia. Aliaga, Rodolfo (2012, June 27) “La IX marcha indígena del TIPNIS desvía su recorrido para evitar chocar con movilización de campesinos”. La Razón, p. 1a. Álvarez, Javier, César Brie, and Pablo Brie (2008) Humillados y Ofendidos. 1 DVD (42 min), NTSC, color. Amnesty International (2013) Bolivia: Submission to the United Nations Human Rights Committee 109th Session of the Human Rights Committee (14 October–1 November 2013). London: Amnesty International Publications. Aráoz, Horacio (2012) “Los Dolores de Nuestra América y la condición neocolonial. Extractivismo y biopolítica de la expropiación”. OSAL, 32: 51–66. Ariñez, Ruben (2014, January 15) “Conamaq cercano al MAS sacó a golpes a grupo rival”. La Razón. Retrieved 2014, January 20 from https://www.la-razon.com/ nacional/Conamaq-cercano-alMASsaco-golpes-rival_0_198 Bautista Durán, Ruth (2012) “Colonizadores, pero ‘interculturales’”. TIPNIS. Entre desarrollo y conservación. Fe y Pueblo, 20: 39–53. Blaser, Mario (2013) “Notes towards a political ontology of ‘environmental’ conflicts” in Lesley Green (Ed) Contested Ecologies: Dialogues in the South on Nature and Knowledge. Cape Town: HSRC Press, pp. 13–27. Cabrera, Justa (2011, September 28) “Message from TIPNIS to the World”. YouTube. Retrieved 2020, August 20 from https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=uO1H-VRnZVo Casanova, Pablo González (2009) De la sociología del poder a la sociología de la explotación. Pensar América Latina en el siglo XXI. Bogotá: Siglo del Hombre Ediciones y Clacso. Ceceña, Ana Esther et al. (2012) “Debate sobre la emancipación en Bolivia: Desarrollismo, Imperialismo Tipnis y más temas”. Observatorio de la Crisis Sistémica. Retrieved 2013, January 18 from http://forajidosdelanetwar.blogspot.com. br/2012/05/debate-sobre-la-emancipacion-en-bolivia.html CEDIB (2013) Conflictos Territoriales 2006–2012. Cochabamba: Diakonia. Chávez, Marxa (2012) “Los caminos del movimiento indígena de tierras bajas. Hacia la novena marcha” in Marxa Chávez et al. (Eds) Extrativismo y resistencia indígena en el TIPNIS. La Paz: Editorial Autodeterminación, pp. 89–100. Chipana, Willy (2011, August 1) “La consulta por el TIPNIS no será vinculante Plazo: El Presidente dice que espera inaugurar la carretera el 2014”. La Razón. Retrieved 2012, September 18 from http://www2.larazon.com/version. php?ArticleId=134806&EditionId=2608 CIDOB-Conamaq (2013, January 18) Resolución 01. Cochabamba. COICA (2013, April 2) Resolución sobre IIRSA, BNDES y Megaproyectos Amazónicos. Santa Cruz de la Sierra. ——— (2013a, April 2) Resolución sobre los derechos de los pueblos indígenas en Bolivia. Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

The TIPNIS case  157 Colectivo Ukhumanta Pacha (2007) Democracia a Palos: Resistência desde los Valles. 1 DVD (59 min), NTSC, color. Columba, José L. (2018, August 20) “Gobierno dice que informe del Tribunal de Derechos de la Naturaleza no tendrá base legal”. La Razón. Retrieved 2020, August 20 from https://www.la-razon.com/nacional/Gobierno-informe-Tribunal-Derechos Consejo Nacional de Lucha Contra el Tráfico Ilícito (2007) Estrategia de Lucha Contra El Narcotráfico e Revalorización de la Hoja de Coca 2007–2010. La Paz: Secretaría de Coordinación del CONALTID. Córdoba, Lorena (2012) “El boom cauchero en la Amazonía boliviana: encuentros y desencuentros com uma sociedad indígena (1869–1912)” in Diego Villar and Isabelle Combés (Comps) Las tierras bajas de Bolivia: miradas históricas y antropológicas. Santa Cruz de la Sierra: El País, pp. 125–156. Corz, Carlos and Miguel Lazcano (2013, May 24) “YPFB explotará petróleo y gas natural en las áreas protegidas”. La Razón, p. 1b. De la Cadena, Marisol (2000) Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1919–1991. Durham: Duke University Press. DOI: 10.1215/9780822397021 ——— (2010) “Indigenous Cosmopolitics in the Andes: Conceptual Reflections beyond ‘Politics’”. Cultural Anthropology, 25 (2): 334–370. DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1360.2010.01061.x ——— (2015) Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds. Durham: Duke University Press. DOI: 10.1215/9780822375265 Decreto Supremo 3464. 2 de Agosto de 1953. Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia. Delgado, Ana C. T. and Clayton Cunha Filho (2016) “Bolivia-Brazil foreign relations: internal dynamics, sovereignty drive and integrationist ideology” in Maria Herminia Tavares and Gian Luca Gardini (Eds) Latin American Responses to the Rise of Brazil. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 129–144. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-137-51669-5 Della Porta, Donatella and Sidney Tarrow (Eds) (2005) Transnational Protest and Global Activism. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Doty, Roxanne L. (1996) Imperial Encounters: The Politics of Representation in North-South Relations. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Doyle, T. and Doug McEachern (1998) Environment and Politics. London and New York: Routledge. Earle, Rebecca (2007) The Return of the Native. Indians and Myth-Making in Spanish America, 1810–1930. Durham: Duke University Press. DOI: 10.1215/9780822388784 Eju.tv (2011) “Dirigente de la CSUTCB: ‘Los indígenas tienen que aceptar la carretera para que no vivan más como salvajes’”. 6 September. Retrieved 2012, March 3 from https://eju.tv/2011/09/dirigente-de-la-csutcb-los-indgenas-tienenque-aceptar-la-carretera-para-que-no-vivan-ms-como-salvajes/ Erbol (2012a) “CSUTCB: el censo servirá para contar indígenas en las TCOs y redistribuir las tierras”. 23 August. Retrieved 2012, August 23 from https:// anteriorportal.erbol.com.bo/noticia/indigenas/23082012/csutcb_el_censo_servira_ para_contar_indigenas_en_las_tco_y_redistribuir_las_tierras ——— (2012b) “CIDOB dice que Melva Hurtado fue desconocida en una reunión de la ONU”. 27 November. Retrieved 2012, November 28 from https://anteriorportal. erbol.com.bo/noticia/indigenas/27112012/cidob_di

158  The TIPNIS case European Parliament Ad Hoc Delegation to 7th Session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (2008) Final Report. Retrieved 2012, December 1 from www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/200806/20080624ATT32571/ 20080624ATT32571EN.pdf+&c d=3&h l=pt-PT&ct=cln k&g l=br&cl ient= firefox-b-d Faber, Daniel (2005) “Building a transnational environmental justice movement: obstacles and opportunities in the age of globalization” in Jackie Smith and Joe Bandy (Eds) Coalitions across Borders. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield publishers, Inc, pp. 43–68. Fabian, Johannes (2002) Time and the Other. How Anthropology Makes Its Objects. New York: Columbia University Press Fabricant, Nicole and Nancy Postero (2019) “Performin indigeneity in Bolivia: the struggle over the TIPNIS” in C. Vindal Ødegaard and J. J. Rivera Andía (Eds) Indigenous Life Projects and Extractivism, Approaches to Social Inequality and Difference. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 245–276. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-93435-8 Fanon, Franz (2004) The Wretched of the Earth. New York: Grove Press. Fishermann, Bernd (2012) “La carretera del TIPNIS. Racionalidades, racionamientos, derechos y concivencia conflictiva de la naturaleza, indígenas, colonos y empresarios” in Marxa Chávez et al. (Eds) Extractivismo y resistencia indígena en el TIPNIS. La Paz: Editorial Autodeterminación, pp. 51–76. Gago, Verónica and Sandro Mezzadra (2015) “Para una crítica de las operaciones extractivas del capital. Patrón de acumulación y luchas sociales en tiempo de financiarización”. Nueva Sociedad, (255): 38–52. Retrieved 2016, December 1 from www.nuso.org García, Álvaro, coord. (2004) Sociología de los movimientos sociales en Bolivia. La Paz: Plural Editores. Gimenez, Heloisa (2010) O desenvolvimento da cadeia produtiva da soja na Bolívia e a presença brasileira: uma história comum. Mestrado. PROLAM-USP. Gonçalves, Carlos W. P. (1989) Os (Des) Caminhos do MeioAmbiente. São Paulo: Contexto. Gudynas, Eduardo (2009) “Diez tesis urgentes sobre el nuevo extractivismo. Contextos y demandas bajo el progresismo sudamericano actual” in Eduardo Gudynas et al. (Eds) Extractivismo, política y sociedad. Quito: CAAP (Centro Andino de Acción Popular) y CLAES (Centro Latino Americano de Ecología Social), pp. 187–225. Hurtado, Melva (2013). Por la vida sustentable de los bosques y contra la mercantilización de las funciones de la naturaleza. Discurso presentado por Melva Hurtado en representación al Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia. Retrieved 2020, September 10 from http://cendoc.docip.org/cgi-bin/library.cgi?e=d-00100-00---off-0cendocdo-00–2----0–10-0---0---0direct-10----4-------0–1l--10-fr-50---20-about---00–3-1-00– 10--4--0--0-0-01–10-0utfZz-8-00&a=d&c=cendocdo&cl=CL2.4.16.7 Inayatullah, Naeem (2008) “Why do some people think they know what is good for others?” in Jenny Edkins and Maja Zehfuss (Eds) Global Politics: A New Introduction. New York: Routledge, pp. 344–369. International Labor Organization (2003) Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention , 1989 (No. 169). Geneva: International Labour Office. International Rights of Nature Tribunal (2018a) Cuestionario TIPNIS. Retrieved 2020, September 10 from https://therightsofnature.org/?s=tipnis

The TIPNIS case  159 ——— (2018b) Boletín de Prensa. 15 October. Retrieved 2020, September 10 from https://therightsofnature.org/?s=tipnis ——— (2019) Final Judgement. Retrieved 2020, September 10 from https://therightsof nature.org/?s=tipnis Keck, Margareth and Kathryn Sikkink (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Kröger, Marcus and Rickard Lalander (2016) “Ethno-Territorial Rights and the Resource Extraction Boom in Latin America: Do Constitutions Matter?”. Third World Quarterly, 37 (4): 682–702. DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2015.1127154 La Razón (2010a) “Demanda de tierra gesta fricción entre campesinos e indígenas”. 5 July, p. 2b. ——— (2010b) “CSUTCB amenaza con dejar la Conalcam y desafía Morales”. 30 September. Retrieved 2012, March 3 from https://www.la-razon.com/nacional/ CSUTCB-amenaza-Conalcam-desafia-Morales_0_125 ——— (2011a) “Campesinos quieren una ley que autorice asentamientos”. 30 July. Retrieved 2012, March 3 from https://www.la-razon.com/sociedad/Campesinosquieren-ley-autorice-asentamientos_0_14 ——— (2011b) “El campesinado se arroga la conquista del poder”. 3 August. Retrieved 2012, March 3 from https://www.la-razon.com/sociedad/campesinadoarroga-conquista-poder_0_1442855720 ——— (2011c) “El diálogo se estanca en San Borja”. 9 September. Retrieved 2012, March 3 from https://www.la-razon.com/nacional/dialogo-estanca-SanBorja_0_1463853684.html Lang, Miriam and Dunia Mokrani (Comps) (2011) Más allá del desarrollo. Quito: Ediciones Abya-Yala, Fundación Rosa Luxemburgo. Laserna, Roberto (2006) La trampa del rentismo. La Paz: Editorial Milenio. Layme, Beatriz (2015) “Vice: Las ONG son menos necesarias en un Estado fuerte”. Página Siete, 14 August. Retrieved 2015, September 14 from http://www. paginasiete.bo/2015/8/14/vice-menos-necesarias-estado-fuerte-66562.html Ley de Derechos de la Madre Tierra, Ley 071. 21 de diciembre de 2010. Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia. Ley Marco de Autonomías y Decentralización “Andrés Ibáñez”, Ley No 031. 19 de julio de 2010. Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia. Ley Marco de la Madre Tierra y Desarrollo Integral para Vivir Bien, Ley 300. 15 de octubre de 2012. Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia. Ley No 3477. 22 de septiembre de 2006. Retrieved 2012, March 3 from http://www. gacetaoficialdebolivia.gob.bo/edicions/view/2930 Linera, Álvaro García (2012) Geopolítica de la Amazonía. Poder hacendalpatrimonial y acumulación capitalista. La Paz: Vicepresidencia del Estado Plurinacional. Los Tiempos (2018) “Romero sobre Tribunal en el Tipnis: No hubo secuestro y no son un organismo oficial”. 20 August. Retrieved 2018, August 21 from https:// www.lostiempos.com/actualidad/economia/20180820/romero-tribu Mármora, Leopoldo (1992) “A ecologia como Parâmetro das Relações Norte-Sul: A Atual Discussão Alemã em torno do ‘Desenvolvimento Sustentável’”. Contexto Internacional, 14 (1): 23–54. McCormick, John (1992) Rumo ao Paraíso: A História do Movimento Ambientalista. Rio de Janeiro: Relume-Dumará.

160  The TIPNIS case Mealla, Luis (2011) “Indígenas demandan enjuiciar a Coraite por discriminación”. Página Siete, 8 September. Retrieved 2011, September 11 from https://www.paginasiete. bo/Generales/Imprimir.aspx?id=267529 Memmi, Albert (2010) Racism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ministerio de Comunicación (2012). TIPNIS, un paraíso lleno de necesidades. Por el derecho de los pueblos indígenas a decidir. Estado Plurinacional de Bolivia. Ministerio de Gobierno (2018) Despacho 1756/2018. 27 September. La Paz. Retrieved 2020, September 10 from https://therightsofnature.org/tipnis-commission-receivesa-lett er-from-t he -b ol iv ia n-gover n me nt-la- c om ision- de -t ipn is -re c ib e carta-del-gobierno-de-bolivia/ Molina, Silvia and Javier Gómez (2014) “Carretera Villa Tunari-San Ignacio de Moxos” in Israel Gordaliza (Ed) Casos paradigmáticos de inversión del Banco Nacional de Desarrollo Económico y Social de Brasil (BNDES) en Sur América. Lima: Derecho, Ambiente y Recursos Naturales, pp. 59–64. Moyoviri, Cecilia (2018) “El TIPNIS y los Derechos de la Naturaleza”. International Rights of Nature Tribunal. Retrieved 2020, September 10 from https:// therightsofnature.org/tipnis-commission-receives-a-letter-from-the-boliviangovernment-la-comision-de-tipnis-recibe-carta-del-gobierno-de-bolivia/ ——— (2019) “TIPNIS Video”. International Rights of Nature Tribunal. Retrieved 2020, September 10 from https://therightsofnature.org/tipnis-videopublished-on-youtube-page/ Mujica, Florencia et al. (2007) Guerreros del Arcoiris. 1 DVD (55 min), Vive TV, Humana Cooperativa Audiovisual, La Taguara Fílmica, color. Nandy, Ashis (2007). The Intimate Enemy. Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Noza, Beningno (2018) “El TIPNIS y los Derechos de la Naturaleza”. International Rights of Nature Tribunal. Retrieved 2020, September 10 from https:// therightsofnature.org/tipnis-commission-receives-a-letter-from-the-boliviangovernment-la-comision-de-tipnis-recibe-carta-del-gobierno-de-bolivia/ Noza, Dario (2018) “El TIPNIS y los Derechos de la Naturaleza”. International Rights of Nature Tribunal. Retrieved 2020, September 10 from https://therights ofnature.org/tipnis-commission-receives-a-letter-from-the-bolivian-governmentla-comision-de-tipnis-recibe-carta-del-gobierno-de-bolivia/ Nueva Constitución Política del Estado (2008) Vicepresidencia de la República, Presidencia del Honorable Congreso Nacional de Bolivia. Núñez et al. (2010) La Despolitización de la Raza: organizaciones juveniles en la ciudad de Santa Cruz. La Paz: Universidad de la Cordillera. O’Brien et al. (2000) Contesting Global Governance: Multilateral Economic Institutions and Global Social Movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511491603 Opinión (2012) “Indígenas afines al MAS retoman las oficinas de la CIDOB en Santa Cruz. 29 July. Retrieved 2012, July 29 from https://www.opinion.com.bo/ articulo/conflicto-en-tipnis/indigenas-afines-mas-retoman-oficinas-cidob-santacruz/20120729203400426179.html Orozco, Shirley, Álvaro García, and Pablo Stefanoni (2006) “No somos juguete de nadie…” Análisis de la relación de movimientos sociales, recursos naturales, estado y descentralización. La Paz: Plural Editores. Oyarzún, José Aylwin (2010) “La Declaración de Naciones Unidas sobre Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas y sus implicancias para América Latina” in Simón

The TIPNIS case  161 P. Arnold and Boris P. R. Ferro (Eds) Observatorios Pueblos Indígenas. Puno: EMAUS/IDECA, pp. 101–119. Página Siete (2015a) “Vargas fue detenido durante dos horas sin orden judicial”. 7 August. Retrieved 2015, August 15 from http://www.paginasiete.bo/2015/8/7/vargasdetenido-durante-horas-orden-judicial-65754.html ——— (2015b) “Aprehenden al líder indígena Adolfo Chávez”. 4 September. Retrieved 2015, September 20 from http://www.paginasiete.bo/2015/9/4/aprehendenlider-indigena-adolfo-chavez-68934.html Paz, Sarela (2012). “La marcha indígena del TIPNIS en Bolivia y su relación con los modelos extractivos de América del sur” in Marxa Chávez et al. (Eds) Extractivismo y resistencia indígena en el TIPNIS. La Paz: Autodeterminación, pp. 7–50. Pérez, Mariana (2013) “Quintana dice que, en 2000, la Prefectura del Beni e indígenas definieron la construcción de la carretera”, La Razón. Retrieved 2013, June 5 from https://www.la-razon.com/nacional/Quintana-PrefecturaBeni-construccion-TIPNIS_0_18 Picq, Manuela (2014) “Self-determination as anti-extractivism: how indigenous resistance challanges world politics” in Mark Woons (Ed) Restoring Indigenous Self-Determination: Theoretical and Practical Approaches. Bristol: E-International Relations, pp. 24–33. Prada, Raúl (2012) “La guerra de la madre tierra” in Rafael Bautista et al. (Eds) La Victoria Indígena del TIPNIS. La Paz: Autodeterminación, pp. 95–168. Qué se esconde detrás del TIPNIS (2012) DVD, 19 June. Resolución 01. CIDOB-CONAMAQ. Cochabamba, 18 de enero de 2013. Resolución 0300/2012. Tribunal Constitucional de Bolivia. Sucre, 18 de junio de 2012. Rivera, Silvia (1993) “‘La Raíz: Colonizadores y Colonizados’” in Xavier Albó and Raúl Barrios (Coords) Violencias encubiertas en Bolivia. La Paz: CIPCA – ARUWIYIRI. ——— (2003) Oprimidos pero no vencidos. Luchas del campesinado aymara quechwa 1900–1980. La Paz: Mirada Salvaje. ——— (2010) Violencias (re) encubiertas en Bolivia. La Paz: Mirada Salvaje. Santos, Boaventura S. (2012, August 21) “Oitava carta às esquerdas: As últimas trincheiras”. Carta Maior. Retrieved 2012, August 22 from https://www.cartamaior. com.br/?/Coluna/Oitava-carta-as-esquerdas-As-ultimas-trincheiras/26907 Shapiro, Michael (1997) Violent Cartographies: Mapping Cultures of War. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Spedding, Allison (2004) Kawsachun coca. Economía campesina cocalera en los Yungas y el Chapare. La Paz: PIEB. Spretnak, Charlene and Fritjof Capra (1986) Green Politics. London: Paladin Grafton Books, 1986. Stavenhagen, Rodolfo (2007) Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms of Indigenous People, Rodolfo Stavenhagen – Mission to Bolivia. United Nations A/HRC/9.11/Add.2. Svampa, Maristela (2013) “‘Consenso de los Commodities’ y lenguajes de valoración en América Latin”. Nueva Sociedad (244): 30–46. Retrieved 2016, December 1 from www.nuso.org Tacóo, Lázaro (2012). Interview [October 2012] Interviewer: Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado. La Paz. 1 archive (90 min). Tapia, Luis (2011) El estado de derecho como tiranía. La Paz: CIDES-UMSA y Autodeterminación.

162  The TIPNIS case ——— (2012) “Los pueblos de las tierras bajas como minoría plural consistente” in Rafael Bautista et al. (Eds) La Victoria Indígena del TIPNIS. La Paz: Autodeterminació, pp. 253–295. Tarrow, Sidney (1998) Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511813245 Teco, Marqueza (2019) “TIPNIS Video”. International Rights of Nature Tribunal. Retrieved 2020, September 10 from https://therightsofnature.org/ tipnis-video-published-on-youtube-page/ Urioste, Miguel (2011) Concentración y extrajerización de la tierra en Bolivia. La Paz: Fundación Tierra. Vargas, Fernando (2013) Interview [April 2013] Interviewer: Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado. Santa Cruz de La Sierra. 1 archive (60 min). Veltmeyer, Henry and James Petras (2014) A Post-Neoliberal Development Model or Imperialism of the Twenty-First Century? London: Zed Books. Viceministerio de Tierras (2010) Atlas de Territorios Indígenas y Originarios en Bolivia. La Paz: Editorial Imprenta STIGMA. Wapner, Paul (1996) Environmental Activism and World Civic Politics. New York: State University of New York Press.

5

Decolonization, internal colonialism and international relations Considerations on the Bolivian case

“Decolonization?! We have been recolonized”. This sentence was verbalized by a Guarani leader and the former vice president of CIDOB when asked about decolonization in Bolivia, during COICA’s annual meeting.1 Her skepticism regarding the theme somehow reflects the perception that decolonization was converted into a slogan. Such a perception was commonly shared by critics about Morales’ administration, be they former members of the government, old allies or simply those that had initially faith in proceso de cambio. Moreover, the words of Guarani leader relate directly to events that followed the 8th March and that, nonetheless, extrapolate the dimension of this collective action. The TIPNIS conflict depicts a net of power relations already observed in the Bolivian political scene that involved distinct players, such as landowners, campesinos, coca growers (many of them indigenous, of Aymara and Quéchua descent) and communarian indigenous peoples. Those groups, whose interests had been affected by changes implemented since the initial years of the 2000s, had in common disputes over access to land, territory and to the institutional channels of politics. But the central issue regarding her surprise at Bolivia’s contemporary decolonization alludes to a profound dynamic reflected by the expression of internal colonialism and the idea of the colonial horizon, applied by Rivera (1993). Both notions suggest the maintenance of logic underlying colonial discourse that, once introjected by the actors involved in the process, is reproduced on a daily basis in Bolivian society and openly evoked in critical moments of disputes over power and the possibility to change the colonial rule. In that sense, the contradiction observed not only in the governmental elite, conformed mainly by White-mestizo, but also among indigenous peoples themselves, commonly mythicized as the homogenous subject of transformation, consists an intrinsic feature of the colonial phenomenon that, as such, does not vanish once the colonized moves towards liberation. Because decolonization remains a complex process marked by comings and goings and that entails a change in mentality, it should be understood considering its long-term effects or in terms of future generations, as advocated by Fanon (2004) and an Aymara leader, respectively. And precisely because Aymaras, Quéchuas, Guaranis, Chiquitanos, among other ethnic groups,

164  Decolonization and international relations conform to a heterogenous collective actor with internal differences themselves, their participation in the national political scene should not be automatically associated with the liberation that otherwise would correspond to a recolonization of the phenomenon by scholars. If on the one hand decolonization finds in colonized peoples its possibility to exist, on the other hand, the inconsistencies presented by them, reflecting the vicious and neurotic circle of colonial relations, transforms liberation into a process that might find in the colonized subject one of its obstacles. This fact was noticed not just by the postcolonial authors discussed in this book but also by Fausto Reinaga, who stated that “the indianized Indian, the Indian made campesino, the Indian in the West’s psychic, economic and social claws, this Indian is the persecutor most persecutor of his race” (Reinaga quoted in Quispe 2011: 57). Reinaga claimed, then, for an indigenous awareness as a key to liberation, as a condition of possibility to the decolonial process, putting into check romantic interpretations or even works that saw indigenous peoples as a blank slate. Thus, in parallel to the perception that the colonized holds himself colonialism’s destruction, the case analyzed here reveals that the colonial project seems to have left as a legacy the grinds to its maintenance, refreshed in institutional politics and social interaction. Both issues form part of a broader scene, crossed by power disputes based on inequality which, in turn, reflects colonial stratification and the overlapping of race and class. Concerning the institutional problematique, colonial’s re-functionalization is first observed under the exclusionary inclusion pattern that, in Morales’ administration, presents itself through a discursive sophistication, as exemplified in Suma Qamaña’s transformation into Living Well. In this case, specifically, the governmental rhetoric praises decolonization and the colonized as representative of a revolutionary vanguard by the employment of a vocabulary that alludes to the work of great intellectuals who discussed liberation (from Marxists to Decolonialists) and the literature on Suma Qamaña. Although the official narrative depicts self-affirmation and denunciation strategies employed by Suma Qamaña proponents, emphasizing the cosmological grammar and its political use in contrast to the West, the original discourse is minimized by several artifices. So, while praising indigenous peoples, the official discourse conditions the possibility of accomplishing the decolonial process of the Bolivian State, converting the latter into the promoter of liberation and, as a result, displacing the leading role previously attributed to the colonized. Such a dislocation is enabled by the overlapping image of State, government (centered on MAS) and civil society organizations (especially indigenous and peasant ones), promoting a correspondence between the Bolivian state, political party and society. Here, it should be remembered that Morales’ government was commonly characterized by its members as the “government of social movements”. In this way, even though the colonized seemed a crucial figure to ensure change, the association described above will constrain his/her participation,

Decolonization and international relations  165 perpetuating a fragile relationship with the State administration, characterized by patronage. On the one hand, such a relationship ratifies the asymmetry of position between its participants. On the other hand, its fundament rests on a fine line since any rupture with the sectors supportive of the government, and that use their support to bargain political participation and access to funds, would lead to instability, debilitating governance and the maintenance of the new ruling elite in political institutions in a moment of the national expansion of the MAS party. In this political “chess”, some alliances are reinforced while others are undermined. This stratagem resulted in the marginalization of collective actors that previously held a leading role in proceso de cambio and that later faced power disputes between organizations in a context marked by the implementation of a developmentalist national project articulated with the South-American region and the neutralization of the old elite, especially in the lowlands. The TIPNIS conflict expresses this process, that links exclusionary inclusion mechanisms to open segregation, aggregating authoritarian measures by the State’s administration (for example, repression towards protesters), sectorial divisions, the approval of institutional instruments (such as the Electoral Law and The Framework of Autonomies) and agreements previously arranged with part of the government’s support base. This picture has gradually developed from 2010 on, particularly, corresponding to the year that marks the beginning of Morales’ second term (the first one under the norms of the Plurinational State), and that finds in 2011 its turning point. After a period of great changes in the country, such as the nationalization of hydrocarbons, the promulgation of the New Constitution of the Bolivian State, the execution of land reform, Morales’ second term will be distinguished by the reconfiguration of political forces. In this scene, the years of turbulence and violent clashes between indigenous peoples and peasants, on the one side, and the White-mestizo elite on the other side will give way to conflicts among the organizations that conformed to the Pact of Unity themselves and between those and the government. From that point on, previous disputes observed in the relation between the participants of the governmental support base, and that had been silenced to contain a “common enemy”, defending the Constituent and natural resources, emerged in Bolivian society. Once indigenous groups opposing governmental measures decided to carry out collective actions stressing their demands, a series of stereotypes associated long before to the relationship between colonizer and colonized, represented by the old elite and indigenous peoples/coca growers/peasants, respectively, will be reproduced by the new ruling elite. And, in this case, not just the White-mestizo heads of government but also other members of MAS (indigenous, coca growers, colonizers, among others) and those pertaining to unions and communarian organizations (formed mainly by indigenous peoples or their descendants) will make use of a colonial racist vocabulary towards groups and leaders from the lowlands.

166  Decolonization and international relations In this dynamic, the latter will be depicted as backward, uncivilized, which reminds us of the 16th-century discussion on Amerindians, reproduced by kurakas’ statements regarding their subjects. Those notions were also projected in Historia Patria geographical racism, that exalted what was perceived as the great pre-Colombian civilizations which, in the Andean region, corresponded to those from the highlands against indigenous peoples from the Amazon and the Chaco, considered more savage. In that sense, several initiatives and declarations stressed in previous chapters point to the permanence of a colonial horizon and, more than that, to the reinforcement of colonial difference and its renewal sometimes through the mobilization of sophisticated mechanisms, other times by simply recovering and repeating historical measures of indigenous exclusion. As an example of those measures, this book has stressed not just the use of force but also the attempts to criminalize and incarcerate indigenous leaders, reproducing a similar pattern already denounced by Empowered Caciques, as discussed in Chapter 2, while in the national and international dimensions the ruling elite exalts what is essentially distinct. In that sense, Suma Qamaña is mobilized and transformed as part of an official strategy to emphasize the authenticity of Bolivia and its government. While to the inside Morales’ administration adopts the slogan “government of social movements”, to the outside this idea is also contemplated by the expression “indigenous government”, which has as its greatest representatives the president himself and Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca, both Aymara leaders. It should be remembered here that Choquehuanca is one of the most recognized Suma Qamaña proponents, one of those responsible for its governmental framing and for its projection to international conferences. Perhaps the facts exposed above have led many Bolivians to identify in governmental initiatives the promotion of an Aymara hegemony as synonymous with a preponderance instead of a consensus, contrary to what would be expected regarding the Gramscian notion. In any case, such a perception conceals contradictions presented among Aymara people themselves, some supporting Morales’ administration, others opposing it, and both groups composed of proponents and critics to Suma Qamaña. Moreover, the emphasis on hegemony puts into second place the fact that the colonial difference, renewed in later years, is crossed by, but not limited to, classist issues. Otherwise, political conflicts would be exclusive of peasants against communarians. Even though both sides are majorly composed of the aforementioned groups, it’s important to highlight that such disputes are also characterized by disagreement between indigenous communarians themselves, whether they be from the highlands or the lowlands. In those cases, the internal fragmentation of the collective actor was first observed with CIDOB members, followed by CONAMAQ ones. Therefore, in parallel to the introjection of colonial mentality, stressed above, this picture also reveals the tense relation between ethnic and economic factors, forming categories

Decolonization and international relations  167 that either oppose or cross each other aiming to sustain certain positions in the Bolivian social-political scene. In any case, homogenization is commonly stressed by Bolivian scholars considering Aymara people as a privileged political actor in the decolonial process, as stated by an anthropologist in La Paz: During Evo Morales’ first term […] it was formed a support group [to communary indigenous], that counted with many leftist ministers, and what people used to say at that time was that ‘Aymara people and colonizers have already started to pressure’. Little by little, those people left the group. In 2008, the government asked me to elaborate a public policy for highly vulnerable indigenous peoples, which was financed by Denmark, but there was never the intention for that [the policy] to be executed. This government made an agreement with landowners from Santa Cruz in order not to touch them [their lands]. […] There is the colonizer’s pressure now, they want land and they have the right [to have it]. But there are no available lands anymore and the pressure is towards indigenous lands. (Interview. La Paz, February 2013) The following interview, centered on the TIPNIS case, also points to the preponderance of the Aymara as a homogeneous collective actor: The TIPNIS puts into evidence a series of contradictions in Bolivia […]. The conflict over the road faced the government against indigenous peoples from the lowlands. And the government took an open position in alliance with colonizers, who are from the Andean region, the highlands and the valleys, against the interests of indigenous peoples from the lowlands. From that moment on, one might already observe that there are some contradictions that the TIPNIS conflict has put into evidence. One of those is the vision about land. Indigenous peoples from the lowlands, since the 80’s and mainly the 90’s, when they succeeded the recognition of their territories, have clearly put that their concept is territorial. They claim land as a space of life. In no way indigenous peoples from the lowlands will claim land as part of an economic or productive logic. They do so from a historic logic. Those are historic territories that were theirs. Second, they do so from a logic of life: these are their spaces, where they have always lived and where they want to remain living. And the resources that are there are those that enable them to live, and they want somehow to control those resources so they might continue to live however they wish. This vision of indigenous peoples from the lowlands over land demand has collided with the Andean vision, that peasants from the Andean region and colonizers have […] The latter are the artificers and, at the same time, the “sons” of agrarian reform […] And the vision of agrarian reform is that the land belongs to

168  Decolonization and international relations those that work on it […] We are facing two logics: one is the economic, productive logic because peasants relate to the market, produce to the market and do require land; but the other logic is represented by indigenous peoples from the lowlands, who do not relate to the market, who do not want to produce to the market, they want a territory so they might keep living as they are now […] These are completely two distinct logics […] The other contradiction is about economic visions, I think. Andean campesinos, colonizers are related to the market and hold an economic vision of market production. They search for a productive surplus that enables them to accumulate, a logic of capitalist production eminently and, we might say, of development. Is this Living Well? I don’t know but that’s the logic and it works. […] A third contradiction, which is the most severe one, [occurs] in the Plurinational State, in the scheme of State decolonization. Indigenous peoples from the lowlands have supported it [decolonization], they made marches, mobilizations, they are the ones that defended the most the theme of the Plurinational State in the Constituent Assembly. Why? Because they consider themselves as nations and the Constitution says there are 36 nations. And when we talk about the Plurinational State, we are saying that those 36 nations achieve an equal position. That is, the reflection of the Political Constitution of the Bolivian State is not citizen equality, but a pact that establishes equality between these nations that conform Bolivia […] There is no nation more important than the other. This is the Constitution, and this should be the Plurinational State […] This implies the exercise of autonomy, that the Constitution recognizes at the level of each people. Therefore, we are talking about each people with a territorial space, with their own authority, with a political, cultural, ideological vision in conformity with each people. Nevertheless, what the government proposes us regarding the Plurinational State? They propose a Plurinational State with a sole political party, with a national leader, with a national political project composed of 13 points. They propose one single color, a single ideological vision. Is this a Plurinational State? […] The decolonization projects that are in motion have, to me, two visions or two important elements: one, is that people are starting to question a very strong ideological vision of colonization, that comes from the Spanish, the European, as the dominant vision, as the only one that entails language, idiom, even certain principles, values, forms of life. And this sounds positive to me. But the second element that holds this vision of decolonization is that a hegemonic version of other culture, basically Aymara, is being transmitted as the new hegemonic version. Thus, some visons started to be imposed, visions related to the productive vision of land – and that might be observed in the discourse of Bartolinas, CSUTCB, and that indigenous TCOs are unproductive, that they should

Decolonization and international relations  169 be reverted, that they are large properties. And when the government says that, they are also presenting a colonial vision. It is a colonizer vision based on the economic theme, a colonizer vision based on the political theme, colonizer vision based on ideological elements. There cannot be a Plurinational State under a scheme like that, of one political party, one leader, one project to 36 nations that are completely different among themselves. By using the indigenous [subject], we want to homogenize difference. 36 peoples completely different, we want to make them all the same because they are all Indians. And this is colonial. […] (Interview with Alcides Vadillo. Santa Cruz de La Sierra, April 2013) Despite the multiple information and issues expressed in the statements above, what they have in common is the perception that the period of Morales’ administration, particularly from 2010 onward, stands out for a dispute of interests and the government’s effort to account for colonizers’ demands. In that sense, both interviewees establish a correspondence among the government, colonizers, political party and the Aymara, conforming a chain of signifiers that, on the one hand, partially portrays the national scene and, on the other hand, obliterates the controversial feature of the historical process and its particularities. Thus, these observations disregard the resistance movement fostered by Suma Qamaña proponents. It is important to have in mind that built by the colonized as a discourse based on what is essentially distinct, on the cosmological difference and life in the ayllu, Suma Qamaña forms part of a series of initiatives to promote their awareness and empowerment. As stressed before, the expression possibly emerges around the 2000s in the highlands, having as its background a situation of open confrontation against the State and towards indigenous liberation. Thus, Suma Qamaña is created by and to the colonized in opposition to colonial discourse consisting, therefore, of an identitarian-political tool that rests upon the tensioning of difference, the reinforcement of “borders” and, simultaneously, the possibility of connection with the Other (non-indigenous) through cosmopolitics. Against Suma Qamaña’s depoliticization that occurs once it is captured by State’s rhetoric, losing its mobilizing potential, a greater part of its proponents work to rebuild the expression as a way to resist indigenous absorption into institutions, which continue to reproduce a logic intrinsic to colonial relations. As observed before, the exclusionary inclusion pattern adapts to change, reinvents itself and is mobilized by Morales’ government, which appropriates decolonization, presenting itself as the great promoter of such a process, as the only possibility for the colonized to remain in power and realize their particular demands (whether they be classist or not) to the detriment of communarians. The latter group will try to affirm their position in the political game as well, either reinforcing their alliance with the government or opposing it and preserving their political independence, some of them establishing pragmatic ties with the old elite while others try

170  Decolonization and international relations to conform to political blocs. The last case could be represented by the formation of oppositional forces against MAS, many of which have not succeeded, and Fernando Vargas’ nomination for presidential candidacy by the Green Party. Despite possible alternatives regarding the political scene, the facts previously analyzed already pointed to a division in the heart of the collective organization, inside of the doubly colonized subject. At that point, ultimately symbolized by the TIPNIS case, rhetoric and practice (previously distanced by the exclusionary inclusion mechanisms) come across again, openly revealing the segregationist, racist, colonial and violent facet of colonial relations. In this polarized society, Manicheism and the space-temporal abyss of colonialism’s grammar are triggered by members of the government and its support base, demonstrating the power of a logic already ingrained in the Bolivian social tissue and present, for example, in local conflicts between indigenous communarians and colonizers/coca growers. In this way, the coexistence between the Self and the Other remains a “problem” to be dealt with, which includes the State institutional realm. As previously mentioned, while in the Legislature the number of autonomous indigenous candidates has been reduced, privileging representations connected to political parties instead of ethnic groups (indigenous nationalities), in the Executive the presidential milieu has been isolated, distancing itself from what could be interpreted otherwise as a co-government.2 In the Judiciary, the incorporation of indigenous magistrates has not reflected any sort of equality between the communities’ norms and those proper to the modern legal system, which remain hierarchically positioned. In that sense, the possibility to achieve coexistence within the difference has its obstacle in the perennity of a state of mind and its reflection in the State institutions and social dynamics, both reinforcing each other. Such a picture represents the complex relationship between decolonization and State construction which, despite its plurinationality as a means to overcome obliteration and marginalization promoted by the Nation-State, hasn’t surpassed its modern feature. In this case, while Bolivia’s “new” State formation (and nationalism articulated and fomented by Morales’ administration as an attempt to create a sense of commonness among Bolivians of distinct identification) rests on and results from decolonization, as highlighted by Fanon (2004) and Memmi (2006), it also imposes limits on the decolonial process. And that’s because State’s construction, despite any alternative character attributed to it, is not an isolated phenomenon but part of institutional history and conserve bonds with State and non-state actors that cross the local and promote an intersection with other dimensions, including the international one. This web of relations work, then, as a constraining factor that should be considered in any work on decolonization and internal colonialism. The second point that emerges from the transcriptions above, and that relates to the limits of decolonization, consists in the theme of indigenous autonomies, especially those regarding TIOCs. It has already been argued that

Decolonization and international relations  171 the project incorporated into the Plurinational Constitution distinguished itself by proposals that could lead to a qualitative change in the social pact and presented some sort of innovation in the modern legal system, as an example of indigenous autonomies in the municipal and communal spheres. Nevertheless, the implementation of indigenous autonomy encountered its obstacles in several demands presented by the Framework Law, which made autonomies more feasible at the municipal level.3 As a result, the legal instrument maintained communities’ vulnerability to landowners’ and colonizers/coca farmers’ pressures over communal territories, on the one hand, and to the control of wealth exercised by the State in articulation with transnational companies before an international and regional scenario favorable to extractivism, on the other hand, with a view to stimulating growth, income redistribution and strengthening Bolivian economy. It should be remembered that most of the TIOCs are localized in the Amazon and Chaco regions rich in Bolivian biodiversity and natural resources, among them hydrocarbons, that provide great income to the country. Thus, by using legal norms, the government promotes an adjustment between corporative interests, represented by colonizers/coca growers and the agribusiness sector (composed mainly of logger and farming), the “national interest” incorporated by the State under Morales’ administration as synonymous with the construction of a “dignified, sovereign and productive” country, and transnational companies’ interest in exploring natural resources.4 Furthermore, it endorses the interests of those who, irrespective of being communarians, wanted to remain allied to the government for several reasons: either for having access to funds, for feeling that they are represented by the president of the Plurinational State or simply for understanding that proceso de cambio followed as it should. In this way, the government worked to strengthen political ties with part of its support base, leaving aside its critics. Finally, this dynamic has as its consequences the reinforcement of the notion of State sovereignty, which consists of one of the pillars of international politics and had already received tremendous attention from theorists.5 Although the goal of this book has not been to evaluate the Bolivian case in terms of sovereignty and its plurinationality per se, it would be incomplete without considering the subject, as indicated in Chapters 3 and 4. So in Bolivia, State sovereignty, basically understood in terms of territoriality and autonomy, prevails over communities’ sovereignty and their rights to autonomy and self-determination, both established in international norms and recognized in the national legal system. In that sense, State institutions continue to attribute prevalence to the “national” which, in Vadillo’s statement, is symbolized by elements typically identified with the Nation-State (the idea of a unified governmental project, the presence of a sole leader, the expansion of MAS, especially when compared to previous decades, characterized by the protagonist role of civil society organizations to the detriment of political parties) and that foment a homogenization and marginalization of difference associated to

172  Decolonization and international relations the process of State construction, as observed in Chapter 2.6 Not by coincidence, Canessa (2014: 158) identifies in Morales’ government an effort to construct what he perceives as a “homogeneous national culture for the majority” based on indigenous (mainly Aymara, as expressed in the Living Well discourse) symbols, although the author argues that such a national culture wouldn’t correspond exactly to any particular indigenous “culture”. Either way, such an effort deepened discrimination and tension between indigenous peoples from the highlands and lowlands, especially between the latter and the colonizers (coca growers), being sometimes openly stimulated by the government and consisting examples of what Vadillo and former Guarani leader expressed as a colonial practice. Such a practice is bluntly pictured by Morales’ instructions to indigenous colonizers to seduce women from the TIPNIS’ communities, reproducing what one of the interviewees pointed elsewhere about the entrance of colonizers into indigenous territories through marriage: “If I had time, I would seduce yuracaré women and convince them not to oppose; so, Young men, you have the President’s instructions to conquer yuracaré, trinitarian women so they do not oppose the construction of the road”. After that, he consulted: “Approved?” and claps were heard from the audience. (Chipana 2011) In the above case, however, colonial logic corresponds simply to the reproduction of open violence, irrevocably exercised during colonization, that requires sexual domination over indigenous women, over their bodies, symbolizing the conquer of territories.7 This act of extreme violence entails also an ontological, cosmological enactment of establishing and reinforcing borders since indigenous peoples do not necessarily separate themselves from their territory, as they do not separate any constituent parts that compose this living organism called Mother Earth/Pachamama, whether they are animate, inanimate, material or spiritual. All these themes point to the difficulties regarding liberation and the implementation of plurinationality since both phenomena require coexistence as a basic principle which, as Fabian (2002) stresses, is intrinsically related to the recognition of coevalness. In that sense, decolonization consists of a process particularly distinguished by disputes of power and “worlds” that, as Vadillo alleges, are subjacent to different meanings regarding this “new Bolivia” and reflected in diverse modes of life, cosmologies between the White-mestizo and indigenous peoples and among the latter themselves. The decolonial process reflects, thus, borders that are demarcated and loosened, crossed by physical, psychological, discursive violence, as well as by economic and classist divisions. As already mentioned, groups do not conform to a unitary whole just as not all kollas or cambas correspond to a stagnant definition. Therefore, disagreements expressed in this book concerning

Decolonization and international relations  173 Suma Qamaña and the TIPNIS case reveal how borders, usually understood as a separation between groups, are also enacted among those groups themselves while, at the same time, such a division allows the constructions of other alliances. The cases analyzed in this work demonstrate an imminently local character and, simultaneously, a multidimensional one as the events occurring in the internal plane are directly connected to others concerning not just the State’s institutional sphere but also organized civil society. But what is exactly the role of those other dimensions and how do they connect to Bolivia’s decolonization and its multiple elements? It has already been mentioned, for example, that decolonial process in Bolivia relates to a developmentalist regional agenda, propelled somehow by the Brazilian government initiative and the international boom of commodities. This point is commonly highlighted by many authors that frame the Bolivian case in those terms, as observed in previous chapters, and for this reason, will not be the object of further analysis. It has been highlighted as well that such a process relates to the international and the global. But how exactly are these spheres revealed in this local event? What is their relevance to proceso de cambio? To reflect on that, one should return once more to the cases analyzed so far because both present distinct complementary dynamics regarding domination and resistance, which will be informed by strategies that go from a more sophisticated facet to open violence and that, as such, will reflect on how these dimensions will be mobilized by the actors involved in disputes. And this is so because IR does not provide the appropriate lenses to unveil local events that are not bluntly linked to or framed in terms of what is perceived as proper of international politics, that is, wars, security, foreign policy, regional integration and so on, more so when the event to be discussed is enacted by those who have been historically excluded from the realm of traditional politics in general: indigenous peoples. This trend prevails despite the fact that colonialism and the production of the indigenous Other constitute phenomena that enabled and were made possible by ongoing international and global dynamics. As such, they are intrinsically related to and consist of international and global events, an issue already observed by decolonial and postcolonial authors and retrieved by part of IR literature, as mentioned in Chapter 2. As a result, indigenous peoples should be considered as eminent international and global actors despite their “local” activities. Thus, instead of looking for the persistence of those “proper” themes, one should pay attention to the process itself, how it unfolds, how it reflects and helps us to understand a more complex connection to the international and the global that might lead us to overcome commonsense. Again, narratives on Suma Qamaña and the TIPNIS conflict provide some answers to us. In the former case, it has been observed before that Morales’ government exercises a discursive strategy based on the particularities of the colonized, what is essentially distinct, and their prospects for humanity. In this way, the official discourse makes partial use of

174  Decolonization and international relations indigenous cosmoledge originally contained in the Suma Qamaña propositions, transforming it into Living Well, a slogan indiscriminately applied in the propaganda.8 The governmental strategy, then, works in a double way: in the local, it provides some sort of recognition of Quéchua and (mainly) Aymara population, projecting them, even though this supposed projection of indigenous peoples from the highlands is not followed by their effective participation in the government. This strategy goes hand in hand with developmental measures and the emergence of Kolla hegemony asserting the support of part of local indigenous (including urban ones) and peasant populations. In the international and global spheres, the government asserts Bolivia’s (and the administration itself) uniqueness compared to other States in international system and, at the same time, presents Living Well as the solution for a global crisis and a form of resistance to systematic colonial capitalist exploitation. In that sense, the government distinguishes itself and the country in two realms: in formal international organizations, such as the UN, and among social movements, especially the indigenous one, as the official discourse presents the Bolivian experience as part of a global liberation process that finds in Morales’ government and in the president himself crucial actors to carry it on. And because indigenous peoples employ multilevel strategies despite their territorial (local) leaning, constituting diverse connections among themselves, this support of the international indigenous movement will not be constant as tensions in Bolivia unfold. Nevertheless, the success of the official discourse among alterworldist social movements does not seem difficult to understand since Morales’ governmental anti-capitalist/anti-colonial/anti-neoliberal, in sum, anti-systemic and pro-indigenous rhetoric sounds very appealing for those searching for liberation. Founded on binary pairs and modern expressions of linearity, it exemplifies somehow Foucault’s (2008)’s observations on the perils of dominant discourses, easily absorbed and reproduced. Once such rhetoric is put into check by local indigenous movements, who project the administration’s inconsistencies to the international movement, the governmental colonial facet is revealed to the international and global realms. Precisely because local disputes are reflected in those dimensions, contradicting governmental rhetoric, the official discourse works to reinforce the sense of legitimacy pursued in international and global fora since the beginning of Morales’s administration. In order to do so, the official rhetoric continues to reproduce Living Well and its connection to Mother Earth’s protection as propositions in several international meetings, whether they be in the realm of the UN, for example, or civil society organizations, as observed in Chapter 3. In parallel, the government employs a discourse that discredits indigenous peoples from the lowlands who oppose the building of the road inside the TIPNIS. And this double strategy, based on Living Well reproduction and the marginalization of governmental indigenous opponents, is exercised at the local level too, as pointed before.

Decolonization and international relations  175 However, its enactment in the international and global fora seems crucial so the government might assert the legitimacy and distinctiveness before other States, other governments and alterworldist social movements, ensuring foreign allies. So, it’s no coincidence that foreign residents in Bolivia (diplomats, researchers) were usually invited to indigenous ceremonies highly publicized internationally as well. In that sense, in order to promote a model based on a developmentalist agenda, a centralized State, crossed by the construction of a supposedly indigenous empowerment, a model enacted under colonial logic, the government mobilizes the international and the global. Thus, those spheres function as a need for the government, a condition of possibility for internal colonialism to be sustained while decolonization is highly deployed by the official discourse. This observation ratifies, then, former appointments made by Casanova (2009), for example, regarding internal colonialism, but it also adds some complexification to those since it extrapolates economic factors, exploring discursive elements. In that sense, the ways in which Morales’ government enact discursive recourses strategically “abroad” and their connection to the local are crucial factors in the decolonial/colonial dynamics observed in the Bolivian case, especially in globalized times when discourse “travels” instantaneously. Another point that results from this case relates to the resonance of the official discourse in international fora, which is intrinsically connected to the role of the international as a condition for internal colonialism to work. Here I refer to the exclusionary inclusion character of the international, which had been already highlighted considering the process of colonization, on the one hand, and the Valladolid Debate and the thought of Vitoria regarding indigenous peoples, on the other hand. Both (the process itself and theological discussions) were pervaded by hierarchical relations, reflecting what Inayatullah and Blaney identified as the transformation of Pratt’s contact zone into a space of “colonial encounters” marked by difference as synonymous with an inferiority that finds in assimilation “the possibility of a common humanity” (Inayatullah and Blaney 2004: 10). The same logic is observed as well in the Republican period in Bolivia, as discussed in Chapter 2, and neoliberal reforms. As has already been theorized by Walker (1993), the international works as to include difference. But precisely because inclusion reflects hierarchical relations, difference is included and put to the margins. This is so because the constitution of the international corresponds to the universalization of the particular which, centered in modernity’s notions (as exemplified by the principle of State sovereignty, the dichotomous feature of relations), transformed what was provincial (in Chakrabarty’s words) into a cosmopolitical, universal.9 In doing so, it has put difference to the margins even when officially incorporated into the international. This is clearly observed, for example, during the absorption of former colonies into international society, as studied by Keene (2002) and Grovogui (1996) regarding the UN Trusteeship Council and the formation of the international legal system, respectively. Both works demonstrate how the

176  Decolonization and international relations international, through the creation and renovation of norms and a legal apparatus, reinforced colonial logic despite formal rhetoric of inclusion, especially after the Afro-Asiatic decolonization process, in the 1960s. Furthermore, their analysis seems to ratify somehow Walker’s exclusionary inclusion although they move beyond it when considering the colonial feature of the international. But what is crucial to the Bolivian case is that despite their theoretical divergence all these works lead the researcher to think about the necessity of the international to reinvent itself due to this exclusionary inclusion logic that because it incorporates the Other needs to deal with contradictions resulting from the inclusion of difference and, at the same time, maintain hierarchical relations. While Europeans first “solved” this problem creating European public law, exporting territorial disputes of the sovereigns and manorial clans to what is now referred to as the Global South, that is, former colonies, changes over the centuries, especially in the 20th one, which is of interest here, demanded alternatives to sustain inequality. This fact seems to provide some clue regarding the resonance of Living Well/Mother Earth protection discourse in the international fora. Over the years, international organizations and their agencies have incorporated difference in several ways: through the claims of peoples affected by their policies, by violations of rights by Nation-States, the construction of international norms and treaties regarding the Other, the expansion of the UN and so forth. In that sense, the international have included somehow the concerns of marginalized peoples, as exemplified by the creation and strengthening of indigenous rights, the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues among other measures and the very preamble to the UN Charter.10 Interestingly, through such initiatives, the international includes the Other, maintaining the inequalities of power not just between States but between those and non-state actors as well. Simultaneously, this absorption process provides the international some sort of renovation, a necessary mechanism to sustain hierarchy, reflecting the exclusionary pattern thus enacted over the centuries and propagated by the liberal constitution of the international under the “inclusiveness” label. Considering the Bolivian case, the Living Well discourse provides the exact content that enables this “refreshment” without disturbing any fundaments of the international. And this is so because, despite Living Well’s anti-system rhetoric, the official discourse is based on and exhorts State sovereignty as a condition for autonomy and, as such, for the accomplishment of decolonization, as observed before. In this way, Morales’ government reproduces a superficially subversive discourse, whose potential is advocated by the mobilization of Suma Qamaña propositions and critical academic concepts but that, in essence, reinforces the claim for State sovereignty, an enduring feature among peripheral states, as reminded by Inayatullah and Blaney (1995). Thus, governmental discourse reflects Bartelson’s assumption on the concept of sovereignty: it functions not only to achieve the States’ demands but also (and, perhaps, more importantly) to legitimize international political order as

Decolonization and international relations  177 such since any claims made by State representatives are only made possible and understood within this order (Bartelson 2008: 44). By reproducing Living Well discourse in international fora, using all its apparently subversive rhetoric and stressing Bolivia’s exceptionality, Morales’ government works on multiple levels: it legitimizes itself, Bolivian representatives (specially, the president) and Bolivia in the international and the global sphere before organizations, agencies, foreign government representatives and social movements while contributing to legitimizing the purported inclusiveness of the international as well, providing a renewed grammar that reflects partially indigenous (Aymara) cosmology (their cosmoledge) and stresses the “Bolivian experience”, that is, decolonization. On the other hand, the government legitimizes itself in the local, guaranteeing the support of most members of its political base whose demands are privileged to the detriment of communarian indigenous’ ones, especially those from the lowlands. Finally, through this multilevel interaction, exclusionary inclusion is updated and maintained in the international and the local, concealing the exercise of colonial logic and providing, therefore, a powerful, necessary and intrinsic connection between the phenomenon of internal colonialism and international relations, putting the decolonial process into the second plan. All that under the cosmological cover of Living Well. However, there is nothing determined nor enduring regarding the role of the international in such a connection. Rather, the international might function as a dimension to counter-react the exercise of colonial logic, as observed not only in the strategies employed by Suma Qamaña proponents to advance its projection abroad but, mainly, by the TIPNIS communarians. Considering the former, it has already been highlighted that Aymara intelligentsia continued to improve the concept, emphasizing it as anOther proposition for theorists and humanity in general. While some of those supported its capture by the government, most found in their ongoing theoretical effort a strategy to empower indigenous peoples and oppose the appropriation made by the official narrative. In the TIPNIS case, the role of the international (and the global) as a space to enact alternative forms of politics will be reclaimed in diverse manners. Facing governmental refusal to attend to demands for prior, informed and free consultation regarding the road construction, followed by the criminalizing and vilifying official discourse towards indigenous peoples from the lowlands, CIDOB and leaders from the park/territory worked to project the TIPNIS conflict to those dimensions. They did so by strengthening their ties with other indigenous organizations, such as COICA and CAOI, by accessing international organizations such as the Organization of American States and, finally, by looking for alternative spaces such as the International Rights of Nature Tribunal. Certainly, those three great strategies have not exhausted others, such as looking for allies in media, among scholars, environmentalists, students and so forth. Rather, those multiple channels reinforce each other and demonstrate the highly political facet of indigenous activism.

178  Decolonization and international relations To each great strategy corresponds one specific discourse whose emphasis rests upon the defense of indigenous peoples’ rights but adding specific elements. So, in the case of the Organization of American States, they have petitioned the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights arguing the violation of indigenous rights to autonomy and self-determination. In that sense, they mobilized international norms to pressurize the Bolivian State through the mediation of an international organization, a similar strategy to the one identified by Keck and Sikkink (1998) in their study on transnational activism in a hostile domestic political environment. But indigenous mobilization goes beyond that pattern of action and, as such, extrapolates traditional politics. Regarding regional indigenous organizations, CIDOB leaders have successfully deployed a discourse centered not just on international norms but also on notions internationally recognized as “indigenous”, such as Living Well. Although reflecting a transformation of an Aymara expression into an indigenous one, and precisely because of this absorption under the State’s and international literature’s parameters, Living Well became a term extensively reproduced abroad. So, to be heard and understood in international fora, indigenous leaders incorporate such an expression into COICA’s resolution but not in terms of corroborating the official discourse. Rather they use Living Well to contradict Morales’ government, reclaiming indigenous peoples’ authority over the term and as protagonists of decolonization, especially those from the lowlands. Moreover, they call attention to the anti-indigenous and anti- environmental features of the developmentalist regional agenda, as observed in the previous chapter. Thus, by employing Living Well, those leaders work to unveil the official discourse, stressing its contradictions and the enduring feature of colonial logic. Moreover, by mobilizing COICA and CAOI, leaders from the lowlands “export” local disputes between indigenous peoples themselves regarding Morales’ administration putting into check its “pro originarian” native character and, therefore, the perils of sustained support to the State’s government for indigenous movements in general. It should be remembered that, besides regional meetings, representatives of the aforementioned organizations also attend parallel meetings during international summits, as in the case of FIAY, and expose those tensions to international indigenous leaders, constructing and expanding a resistance chain against colonial practices. Although it might include non-indigenous allies, which will be an important element to mediate dialogue with the Other (Western), the fact that such a chain is constructed by indigenous peoples challenges common interpretations that state their supposedly passive and, consequently, non-political feature based on a limited notion of politics as connected to State and international institutions. While these interpretations had already been questioned by anthropologists, whose most recent theorization has led to concepts such as cosmopolitics and political ontology, it was only in the 21st century that IR literature has contested politics on these terms.11

Decolonization and international relations  179 Finally, indigenous peoples have sought to express their demands before the International Rights of Nature Tribunal, stressing not just the violation of indigenous rights but the fundamental connection of such rights to their cosmology. In fact, the sophisticated discourse employed by indigenous peoples from the lowlands in Berlin, during the Tribunal’s section, demonstrates a distinguished way to exercise politics, surpassing the limits imposed by traditional (modern) politics. Recovering an idea already mentioned by COICA members but not so much advanced in the organization’s resolution, leaders from the lowlands (especially those from the TIPNIS) evoke Mother Earth, an expression highly mobilized by the government in Living Well discourse, to emphasize the symbiotic relationship between them and what is commonly referred to as “nature”. In that sense, they construct a connection between distinct “worlds”, not just promoting some sort of correspondence between elements about those worlds but also accommodating them. This is the case of Mother Earth and Nature but also the very idea of the Rights of Mother Earth, which constitutes the raison d’être of the Tribunal, whose creation was inspired by the Universal Declaration presented in Tiquipaya, as stressed before. Simultaneously, indigenous leaders highlight their cosmological difference as a necessary condition to protect the environment and, as such, to guarantee humanity’s future since they establish themselves as guardians of Mother Earth. In that sense, the lowlands indigenous discourse follows somehow Suma Qamaña’s strategic framing, equating human beings’ survival to indigenous peoples’ existence as the only way to conserve the planet. Statements of TIPNIS leaders before members of the Tribunal will, thus, advance the use of self-affirmation and denunciation against the State’s colonialism and the mechanism of criminalization enacted by the Morales’ government. The mobilization of cosmological difference will be reproduced not just by indigenous peoples from the lowlands but also by the Tribunal and the members of the Commission formed to visit Bolivia. It is important to highlight that the former consists of scholars and activists, some of them internationally recognized indigenous leaders, which reflects the protagonist role they have played in constructing the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth. It is also important to remind the reader that, despite indigenous partial rearticulation, the Bolivian administration remained preponderant in international organizations since these institutions consist of favorable spaces for the States. Thus, representatives continue to reproduce the official slogan, silencing resistance and transposing to the international the fragmentation of indigenous movements fomented at the local level by the government.12 In that sense, denunciation before the Tribunal represented a renewed strategy to act parallel to international organizations and their legal system. While such a system is recognized by the States, this is so precisely because it reflects modern logic and its limited notion of politics, the opposite of the Tribunal that represents a space of dialogue between what would be otherwise called distinct “cultures”. In this

180  Decolonization and international relations manner, the Tribunal opens a possibility for indigenous peoples to act politically on their own terms since cosmological grammar is also constitutive of this international entity and, therefore, understood by its members. And due to this very constitutive feature, here indigenous cosmology functions in a similar way to sovereignty regarding modern international order: not only is cosmology mobilized to achieve indigenous demands but it’s also required to be stimulated by the Tribunal to legitimate its own existence, in contrast to formal international organizations. Thus, it is not a coincidence that the Tribunal has released videos reproducing TIPNIS leaders’ testimonies, emphasizing several elements under cosmological framing that relate to the road construction. Among those elements, the State’s arbitrariness, the governmental extractivist agenda, communarians’ perception of settlers/coca growers as colonizers should also be mentioned as well as their discrediting of Morales as indigenous against official criminalizing statements that put into check an idea previously defended by the president himself: that the indigenous symbolized a “moral reserve”.13 Moreover, members of the Commission, such as Enrique Viale (2018) and Alberto Acosta (2018), expressed their positive impressions regarding the TIPNIS in the following statements, respectively: “I feel that I am in the heart of Mother Earth”, “I felt a kind of a territory of freedom”. In that sense, the Tribunal ratifies somehow indigenous resistance discourse and, articulated with the notion of the rights of Mother Nature, subverts the centrality of the humans and the States as the subject of rights. In this way, it propels indigenous cosmopolitics and, as such, the enactment of coevalness towards a pluriversal international and global sphere precisely because the Tribunal constitutes itself as pluriverse. And the fact that the Inter-American Commission was accessed by indigenous peoples years before does not efface the relevance of the International Tribunal when compared to the former. Indeed, this apparent preference for the Inter-American Commission reveals, instead, the position attributed by the international to those institutions that reflect the current legal system and, as a result, the acceptable language adopted and understood in such a dimension. As minorities who have their rights ascribed by the States and the international system, the indigenous’ choice to access the Inter-American Commission does not seem surprising at first. Nor should it be understood in terms of the dichotomous superiority-inferiority pair, which was highly mobilized by Bolivian representatives to discredit the International Rights of Nature Tribunal, as analyzed in Chapter 4. Rather it corresponds to one form of accessing the international in its own language, i.e. demanding respect for indigenous rights, a claim that might be reinforced by actions unfolding in other spaces. At least, that was the perception demonstrated by Adolfo Chávez concerning the Tribunal’s decision over the TIPNIS conflict. Thus, combined with strategies employed through their regional organizations and even in the local, indigenous peoples from the lowlands construct a resistance chain in

Decolonization and international relations  181 multiple spheres that congregate distinct “worlds”. In doing so, they operate with a sense of interconnectedness, of complementarity of opposite forces that are characteristic of their cosmological difference and provide anOther logic to act politically in those spheres. Therefore, the Bolivian case offers multiple layers that, although might be presented somehow as independent due to researchers’ heuristic and methodological choices, are intertwined forming a web of relations that either reinforce or oppose each other. Following the indigenous’ concept of interconnectedness, this book demonstrates the complexities of decolonization and the mechanisms that enable internal colonialism to operate regardless of indigenous resistance. In that sense, it is crucial to emphasize the dynamics developed in diverse spheres, to which the international and the global present themselves as necessary spaces for local political players, especially the Bolivian administration and indigenous peoples from lowlands communities. They did not just retrieve the aforementioned spheres to legitimate themselves but their claims also constitute powerful discursive elements to sustain the international and the global. While the former reinvents itself through Living Well’s reproduction, maintaining the exclusionary inclusion pattern under the cosmological and supposedly subversive mantle of the governmental discourse, the latter finds in indigenous framing of Mother Earth’s defense an indispensable rhetoric to justify organizations, such as the International Tribunal, to act anti-systemically and towards the constitution of “anOther world”. In sum, the Bolivian case unveils how the process of decolonization and internal colonialism is intrinsically related to the international and the global, either as a way to make colonial logic endure or counter-react its exercise, ratifying the relevance of the local as a necessary dimension to rethink the colonial in IR.

Notes 1 Conversation during COICA’s annual meeting held in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, in 2013. Personal notes 2 See Chapters 1 and 3 of this book and Tapia (2006). 3 According to the journal Nuestra Tierra, a common fact observed among indigenous municipalities was the gradual abandonment of community codes by the authorities and their insertion into politics by joining political parties, one of the pillars of the liberal democracies in modern nation-states. The journal also stresses several obstacles to the achievement of indigenous autonomies. See Nuestra Tierra (Fundación Tierra, septiembre 2012). 4 See Development National Plan Bolivia Digna, Soberana, Productiva y Democrática para Vivir Bien – Lineamientos Estratégicos 2006–2011, p. 23. 5 State sovereignty is the subject of an extensive debate in International Relations, encompassing multiple approaches and theorists classified in diametrically opposite poles (from those considered realists to critical scholars, for example). In this book, my goal is not to evaluate the theme exactly but to point to a sociopolitical context that constraints the realization of indigenous autonomies and privileges the exercise of sovereignty by the Bolivian State despite the Plurinational Constitution asserts the opposite. Among the most relevant works in the

182  Decolonization and international relations

6

7 8

9

10 11 12

13

discipline, see, Ashley (1988), Ashley and Walker (1990), Jackson (1990), Walker (1993), Inayatullah and Blaney (1995), Krasner (1999), Osiander (2001), Philpott (2001), Brown (2002), Inayatullah and Blaney (2004), Hindess (2008), Hinsley (1969), Shaw (2008), Adler-Nissen and Gammeltoft-Hansen (2008), Beier (2009), Weber (2016) and Picq (2018). This point reflects the crisis of representativity attributed to political parties as the protagonists of traditional politics, especially during the implementation of neoliberal policies, a phenomenon that has been recently retrieved by political scientists after the election of right-wing State representatives in the second decade of 21st century. For further discussion on the representativity crisis in Bolivia following the neoliberal period, see Tapia (2007). For a detailed analysis of the theme, see Canessa (2013). I use cosmoledge as a free translation of the term cosmocimiento, employed by Amawta Illapa in contraposition to modern knowledge and its dichotomies. Cosmocimiento alludes to indigenous holistic cosmology, according to which men are just part of a whole, of a Cosmos, marked by the complementarity of opposite forces, interconnectedness and relationality among its parts, as discussed in Chapter 2. Illapa refers to the idea of Integral Man, representing this indivisibility as opposed to the compartmentalization offered by modern thought and, consequently, scientific categories. For more on the subject, see Mulino (2006). Another way to interpret this process would be the particularization of the universal if one understands the State as a “universal”, following Hegel’s thought. In that sense, the international would correspond to the particularization of the universal. Either way, the “particular” presents itself as a problem to be dealt with. The preamble to the Charter states “We the peoples of the United Nations […]”. See the UN Charter (1945). Besides the references already mentioned in previous chapters, see the fundamental work of Clastres (1977). See “Bolivia asume el liderazgo de reunión sobre indígenas”, El Deber, 21/09/2014. The article underlines that the 1st World Conference on Indigenous Peoples would be presided by Evo Morales, who would enjoy the support from G-77 representatives as well as leaders from the Amazon Basin and indigenous diplomats in the international organization. During the International Congress of YPFB, held in 2015 in Santa Cruz de La Sierra, Morales asserted that leaders from the Bolivian East, from the lowlands, had been manipulated by NGOs acting in their own behalf, and declared: indigenous movement is not a moral reserve anymore but because of some, here you have data, here you have information that some explore for compensation, put the Money in foreign banks and this money is never returned to the people. (Erbol 2015)

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184  Decolonization and international relations Hinsley, Fancis H. (1969) “The concept of sovereignty and relations between states” in W. J. Stankiewicz (Ed) In Defense of Sovereignty. London: Oxford University Press, pp. 275–290. Inayatullah, Naeem and David Blaney (1995) “Realizing Sovereignty”. Review of International Studies, 21 (1): 3–20. DOI: 10.1017/S0260210500117498 ——— (2004) International Relations and the Problem of Difference. New York: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203644096 Jackson, Robert (1990). Quasi-States: Sovereignty, International Relations and the Third World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keck, Margareth and Kathryn Sikkink (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Keene, Edward. (2002) Beyond the Anarchical Society: Grotius, Colonialism and Order in World Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/ CBO9780511491474 Krasner, Stephen (1999). Sovereignty: Organized Hypocrisy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Memmi, Albert (2006) Decolonization and the Decolonized. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Ministerio de Planificación del Desarrollo (2007) Plan Nacional de Desarrollo. Bolivia Digna, Soberana, Productiva y Democrática para Vivir Bien – Lineamientos Estratégicos 2006–2011. La Paz: Gaceta Oficial de Bolivia. Mulino, Alexandra (2006) “Algunas reflexiones sobre el conocimiento científico y la intraculturalidad-interculturalidad” in Freddy Delgado B. and Juan Carlos Mariscal C. (Eds) Alternativas a la Reforma Educativa Neocolonizadora: Educación intra e intercultural. La Paz: Plural Editores, pp. 81–96. Osiander, Andreas (2001) “Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth”. International Organization, 55 (2): 251–287. DOI: 10.1162/00208180151140577 Picq, Manuela (2018) Vernacular Sovereignties: Indigenous Women Challenging World Politics. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Philpott, Daniel (2001) Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Quispe, Ayar (2011) Indianismo. Qullasuyu: Ediciones Pachakuti. Rivera, Silvia (1993) “La Raíz: Colonizadores y Colonizados” in Xavier Albó and Raúl Barrios (Coords) Violencias encubiertas en Bolivia. La Paz: CIPCA – ARUWIYIRI. Shaw, Karena (2008) Indigeneity and Political Theory: Sovereignty and the Limits of the Political. London: Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9780203891148 Tapia, Luis M. (2006) La invención del núcleo común. Ciudadanía y Gobierno Multisocietal. La Paz: Muela del Diablo Editores. ——— (2007) La igualdad es cogobierno. La Paz: CIDES-UMSA, ASDI-SAREC y Plural Editores. United Nations (1945). Charter of the United Nations and Statute of the International Court of Justice. San Francisco. Vadillo, Alcides (2013, April) Interview. Interviewer: Ana Carolina Teixeira Delgado. Santa Cruz de la Sierra. 1 archive (60 min). Viale, Enrique (2018) “El TIPNIS y los Derechos de la Naturaleza”. International Rights of Nature Tribunal. Retrieved 2020, September 10 from https://

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Index

accusation 28, 84, 92, 97; mechanisms of 37, 102; the notion of 58 achachilas 42 Acosta, Alberto 71, 180; and Machado 113 Administradora Boliviana de Carreteras 153 agribusiness 117, 119, 171; elite 2, 12; sector 126 alterity 27, 71; “alterity” 146 alternative to development 11, 66–68, 81, 101 alterworldist 70; social movements 174–175 amawtas 14, 19, 79 Amerindians 22–23, 39, 44, 166 ancestors 6, 37, 42, 77, 79 “ancestrality” 83 Andean cosmovision 71–72, 84 annihilating the colonized 30 assimilation 22, 44, 175 autonomies 55, 112, 132, 170–171; departmental 128–129, 141 ayllu 71–76, 81–87, 101, 122, 169; Qamaña 79 Aymara: concept 6; cosmology 2, 79, 87, 102, 177; expression 72–73, 80, 83–84, 178; hegemony 166; identity 11, 77–78, 91; intellectuals 11, 37, 67, 79, 85–87; intelligentsia 85, 101, 177; migrants 86; people 10, 72–78, 81–83, 101, 166–167; president 146; proponents 91; proposition 72, 81, 96, 102; scholars 87; sociologist 79, 82, 86; thinker 8 Aymaras 37, 96, 164; and Quéchuas 9, 116–117, 122, 129 ayni 75, 84, 122 Ayoreos 118 awichas 42

backward 43, 118; backwardness 24, 136 Bartelson, Jens 177 Bartolinas 126, 128, 130, 168 “being White” 34, 53 Beni 112, 119, 125, 134–139, 141 binarism 35 Blaser, Mario 25, 71–75, 148 BNDES 112, 134, 145; see also National Bank for Economic and Social Development borders 46–48, 51, 96, 126, 172–173; identitarian 124; the notion of 9 border thinking 25–26 boundaries 50–51, 132 cacicazgo 39, 46–47 Caciques Apoderados 47 cambas 125, 172 campesinos 112, 116–118, 168 CAOI 144, 177–178; see also Andean Coordinator of Indigenous Organization Casanova, Pablo González 45, 51, 152, 175 CEDIB 129, 137 chacha-warmi 81 Chapare 5, 74, 117–122, 148; Coca Federations 125 Chaparina 11–15; Massacre 135–136, 141 Chávez, Adolfo 140, 144, 151, 180 Chiquitanos 118, 163 Choque, Roberto 21, 47, 85, 160 Choquehuanca, David 90, 94–96, 115, 166 Christianity 22, 43–44 CIDOB 88, 112, 118, 125–130, 135–139; faction 144; former president of 151; former vice president of 163; leaders of 130; members 141, 145, 166; “parallel CIDOB” 136; see also

188 Index Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian East Civic Committee 128–129, 154 civilization 24, 48–51, 84; crises of human 5; modern-Western 82; notion of 123; synonymous of 148 civilized 22, 73 civilized-backward 118 classification 13, 84, 91–92, 124, 136–139 classifying line 80 co-government 7, 94, 170 COICA 144–145, 151, 163, 177–179; see also Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations from the Amazon Basin colonial horizon 52–54, 74–75; the permanence of a 166 colonial logic 96, 101–103, 146–147, 172–176, 181; to counterpose 153; the discipline’s Modern 73; the enduring feature of 178; the exercise of 48, 135, 152, 177; the introjection of racism and 80; oppose 1; permeated by 123; racist 118, 143; the refunctionalization of 53; representations of 13; reproducing 2, 11, 114; servile 4; updates the 129 coloniality 3, 10, 18, 23–27, 68; of power 21, 25, 70 colonization 25–28, 38–40, 44–48, 118, 126, 172; of the area 146; area at the TIPNIS 123; evangelist policies of 99; finds in 153; 500 years of 6; of the global space 3; Iberian 22; ideological vision of 168; of the mind 31; modernity and 82; Portuguese 4; process 21, 33, 144; process of constant 122; State-directed 117; State policies of occupation 9, 119, 175; traces back to 103 Columbus 44 commodities 90, 93, 126, 173 Commodities Consensus 113 communarians 76, 123–129, 135, 171, 180; indigenous 89, 119, 140–143, 166, 170; in detriment of 169; TIPNIS 177 Communitarian Socialism 97–99 conferences 94, 102, 153, 166 CONAMAQ 80, 88, 118, 130, 140–143; members 112; ones 166; see also National Council of Allyus and Markas of Qulasuyu consciousness 29, 40; awareness of 79; indigenous 76; raising 84

cosmoledge 174, 182 cosmological difference 11, 38–41, 147, 153, 169; claims of 150; the mobilization of 179 cosmologies 22, 40, 71, 85, 172; different 4, 42; distinct 84; Other 3 cosmopolitics 85, 147, 169, 180 criminalization 2, 139, 141, 146; mechanisms of 179; of indigenous leaders 93; the grammar of 143 CSCB 117, 126, 130; see also Syndicalist Confederation of Bolivian Colonizers CSUTCB 74, 88, 126, 143, 168; afiliated to 80, 128; Executive Secretary of 115, 142; see also Peasant Workers` Union Confederation of Bolivia Cultural Revolution 7, 92, 145 Decolonialists 20, 69, 164 De la Cadena, Marisol 35, 71, 85, 117, 147–149; related by 42 “demographic emptiness” 117 denial of coevalness 31, 43, 48, 123 denunciation 67, 78, 145, 149–153; against State’s colonialism 179; discourse 67; strategies 169 depoliticization 11, 102, 169 development 4, 72–75, 89–93, 97, 112, 168; alternative to 11, 64–68, 81, 101; criticism to 69; of the country 50; ecological 82; human 118; integral 115; Market/civilization/ anthropocentrism/pathology 84; of the modern capitalist system 24; new regime of 71; new type of 94; policies 80; the quest for 113; synonym for 142; the very notion of 49; see also BNDES; National Development Plan; USAID developmentalism 151 discursive strategies 28, 86, 114, 136, 153; and disputes 101 domination 12–13, 20–25, 32–37, 87–93, 140; asymmetry and 9; colonial 11, 29, 42–46, 53, 81, 143; elite’s 5; the exercise of 147; French 19; global project of 26; governmental 141; mechanisms of 28; of the Other 26; practices of 13; relationships of 21, 31, 48–51; renewal of forms of 51; and resistance 2, 32–33, 56–57, 102, 173; sexual 172; system of the 45; two-fold 39

Index  189 Doty, Roxanne 12–13, 123 discrediting 136, 141–143, 149, 152, 180; of native leaders 146 Dussel, Enrique 7, 20–24, 26–29, 32, 69–71; typification of Bolivian decolonization 92 Ejército Guerrillero Tupak Katari 75 equivocation 42 Electoral Law 131–132, 165 “enemy” 48, 56, 113, 136; “common enemy” 165; the destruction of the 47 Escobar, Arturo 27, 69, 71, 98 essence 38, 53, 78, 83–85, 147–149; the mobilization of the 90 essentialization 102 essentially different 30, 78, 102 exclusionary inclusion 54, 127, 152, 175– 177; mechanisms 165, 170; pattern 94, 99, 103, 164–169, 181 extermination 26, 30 extractivist 119, 131–132; activites 113, 116; agenda 11, 180; policies 88, 98; project 1, 99; regional agenda 93 Fabian, Johannes 31, 43, 52, 172 Fanon, Frantz 5, 28–30, 36–39, 54–56, 77–80, 91, 152; as advocated by 163; the contributions of 10, 19; as highlighted by 170; as theorized by 146 Fishermann, Bernd 113 foreigners 48, 66, 77, 124 Framework Law of Autonomies 116, 131–132 gazolinazo 8 geopolitics of knowledge 19, 24 global liberation process 174 gracias al sacar 33–34 Good Living 27, 66–69, 71–73, 101; as a research theme 70 Good Living Socialism 70, 97 governmental rhetoric 92, 101, 164, 174 Grovogui, Siba 3, 22, 71, 175 Guarani 46, 50, 100, 163, 172 Guarayos 118 Gudynas, Eduardo 68–69, 93, 113, 151 Historia Patria 48–49, 118, 143, 166 homogenization 26, 44–49, 55, 102, 167–171; of theoretical positions 19 Huanacuni, Fernando 78, 83–84, 86

humanity 43, 69–70, 95–97, 147–148, 177–179; alternative for 83, 96, 102; bound all 23; common humanity 175; paradigm for 78–81, 83–85, 101; prospects for 173; turnaround for 6 hydrocarbons 55, 92–93, 113, 151, 171; the defense of 127; the exploitation of 152; the nationalization of 165 hyperpresidentialism 55 identity formation 68, 78, 146 IIRSA 113, 136, 144–145, 151 Inayatullah, Naeem 22, 44, 99, 148; and David Blaney 3, 41, 71, 94, 175–176; and Dauphinee 12 Inca Empire 39, 143 Indianismo 83 Indigenous Forum of Abya Yala 144; see also FIAY indigenous intellectuals 4, 11, 38, 66, 71–72, 99 “indigenous government” 67, 94, 101, 166 indigenous marches 138 inferiorization 24, 37, 44, 53–54 insurgency 75 interculturality 92 intersubjectivity 20, 32, 53 Inter-American Commission on Human Rights 145, 149, 153, 178 international fora 2, 12, 86, 94, 150, 175–178; politics 22–24, 72, 171, 173 International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change 144 International Labor Organization 115 international organizations 148–150, 174, 176–180 International Tribunal of Climate and Environmental Justice 149 International Rights of Nature Tribunal 145, 148, 150–153, 177, 179–180 interconnectedness 181 inversion of the self 37 jilakatas 79 juridical status 150 Katari, Tupak 5, 29, 32–35, 47–49, 76–78 Keck, Margareth and Kathryn Sikkink 144, 178 kollas 83, 125, 172 Kolla hegemony 80, 174 Kollasuyu 75, 78 kurakas 39, 45–46, 166

190 Index land 47, 75–77, 118–122, 145, 167–168; access to 123–126, 132–133, 143, 163; acquisitions 134; communities’ 95; concentration of 74, 115, 116; invasions 129; of the 36; reform 165; territory 54, 114–117; territory and 12, 114, 127, 130; territory versus 153; see also Teco, Marqueza las Casas, Bartolomé 22, 29 legitimation 68 Ley Marco de la Madre Tierra y Desarrollo Integral para Vivir Bien 115 liberation 1, 28–30, 37, 164, 172–174; attempts at 35; of the colonized 20, 25, 101; decolonization 123; formal 46; indigenous 169; lead to 6, 35; of other peoples 153; of other peoples 98; of the oppressed 5; path to 27; search for 75; synonymous with 18; Theology of 26; towards 57, 75, 81, 163 limpieza de sangre 33 Linera, Álvaro G 8, 74, 133, 136–141, 152 local elites 129, 138 local intelligentsia 45 Mamani, Pablo 75–79, 86–88 Manichaeism 28, 37 March of the Century 126, 130 marginalization 19–24, 47, 68–70, 126, 141, 170; of collective actors 165; of CONISUR 125; of difference 171; of governmental indigenous opponents 174; of indigenous 114, 129, 134; of non-Modern 4 MAS 74, 125–127, 129–132, 133, 164 Media Luna 113, 125–129, 133, 136–140, 152 mediators 71, 85 Memmi, Albert 19, 30–32, 45, 53, 91, 143; and 10, 170; defined by 78; mentioned by 37 Mestizo 28, 33–35, 48–53, 76–81, 128 Mignolo, Walter 3, 19–22, 25–27 Ministry of Foreign Affairs 94 mobilization 73–75, 99, 118, 126–130, 135, 144; of the allied base 142; constant 2; of collective actors 12; of cosmological difference 179; of essence 90; indigenous 7, 178; in the literature 71; in the lowlands 7, 114; of Living Well 102; of the organized civil society 8, 55, 90; social 88; of

sophisticated mechanisms 166; of Suma Qamaña 176 modernity 3, 19, 24–28, 43, 69–72, 81–84; the logics of 148 modes of life 22, 66–68, 73–78, 84–88, 95, 123–125; distinct 149–153; indigenous communities’ 118; modern-Western 69; of Non-Western peoples 71 Mojeños-Trinitários 119 Movement towards Socialism 5; administration 8; the arrival of 137; Congress of 97; the election of 128; the expansion of 171; groups that oppose 128; members of 165; oppositional forces against 170; party 113, 126–127, 139; see also MAS Moyoviri, Cecilia 146 Mother Earth 12, 81, 95–98, 145, 176; the defense of 115; discourse 2; the Rights of 97, 147–150, 179 multidimensional 43, 52, 57, 70, 173; facet 13, 21 multisocietal 51 Nación Camba 129 Ñandereko 100–101 Nandy, Ashis 31, 33, 53, 143 narratives 2, 12, 37–40, 67–69; on Historia Patria 118; on Living Well 68; on Suma Qamaña 66, 78–81, 83–85, 146–147, 173 National Development Plan 6, 90 National Institute of Colonization 117 nationalism 50, 138, 170 nationalities 170 nations 21–23, 95–96, 168–169 natural resources 67, 89–94, 132, 142, 165–171; Bolivia’s 5; the exploitation of 116, 139, 152; the vale of 113 neoextractivism 113 neoliberalism 2, 30, 54–56, 74, 138; Critics of 113 Nero Complex 30 New World 23 noble savages 141 NGOs 81, 137–139, 144, 149 noncapitalist alternative 72 non-Western: civilizations 4; colonial “worldviews” 72, 102; peoples 71 official propaganda 101, 142 ontological difference 72

Index  191 oppositional forces 170 originarian peoples 83, 95–96 Pachamama 81, 102, 148, 151, 172; offerings to 122 Pachakama 81 Pachakuti 6, 43, 98 Pact of Unity 100, 114, 165; members of the 131–132, 143, 152; the creation of the 12, 130; the formation of the 126; the fragmentation of 134 Padilla, Celso 21, 100–101 “parallel” organizations 114 Para Vivir Bien 87–89 Plurinational 89, 148; Assembly 131; State 7–12, 95–98, 112–118, 135, 168; Constitution 89, 116–118, 138, 145, 179; the founding of the 54, 112; the norms of the 125, 165; the obligation of 115 plurinationality 8, 95–96, 149, 170–172 pluriversal international 150, 180 pluriverse 4, 43, 71–73 political ontology 41, 73, 85, 148 Polygon 7, 119, 125, 146, 152 postcolonialism 4, 19, 25 post-development 27 prior consultation 115–116, 131 Qué se esconde detrás del TIPNIS 139–140 Quéchuas 96, 163; and 9, 75, 116–117, 122, 129 Quijano, Aníbal 20–24, 26–27, 33, 40, 70, 93; the contribution of 25 Quispe, Felipe 74–77, 124 race 24, 52–53, 135; the concept of 31; the idea of 22, 57; the notion of 33–35; persecutor of his 164; “war” 47 racism 10–11, 24, 29–33, 130, 148; definition of 34, 45; geographic racism 117, 166; introjection of 80; marked by 51; new kind of racism 88; resistance to 129; the signs of 128; see also “antiracist racism” racist grammar 136 redistribution of wealth 2, 89, 92, 98, 136 reducciones 118 Reinaga, Fauto 50, 75–76, 164 Rivera, Silvia 9–11, 52–53, 80, 143, 163 road 11–12, 115, 134–135, 138–143, 151; blockings 5, 115; the building of

2, 112, 138, 146, 174; conflicts over the 123, 167; construction 8, 113, 125–126, 136–137, 172, 177, 180; oppose the 146–148, 152–153 Rojas, Cristina 3–4, 23, 41, 71–72 ruling elite 6, 84, 102, 135, 152; members 67; new 127, 142, 165 San Ignacio de Moxos 112, 139, 142 Sánchez de Lozada, Gonzalo 55 Santísima Trinidad 139 Santos, Boaventura de Souza 70, 97–98, 112 savages 22, 117–118, 123, 142 sedentary-nomadic 118 self-affirmation 34, 85–86, 101, 164; as a defense mechanism 31; mechanism of 147; the process of 78, 90; the use of 179 self-determination 88–89, 116–118, 153, 171, 178; the right of 129 self-identification 50 Sepúlveda, Gines 22 settlers 9, 12, 117, 124–126, 146; communarians’ perception of 180 Shapiro, Michael 3, 49, 141 Sisa, Bartolina 5 Six Federations of Coca Growers 117 Smith, Linda Tuhiwai 41 solidarity economy 66, 68, 71 sovereignty 38, 94–96, 100, 175–176, 180; Bolivian 90; the exercise of 89, 92; the notion of 23; Popular 127 Spedding, Allison 82, 122 spirituality 84, 100 Stavenhagen, Rodolfo 45, 52 Subaltern Studies 4, 19 Subcentral TIPNIS 119, 125, 134–136, 139; leaders 144 Sum Sarnaqaña 82 Suma Jakaña 82 Sumak Kawsay 11, 27, 66–71, 85, 101; as an alternative for humanity 83 state of mind 33, 170 symbiotic: relation 11, 68; relationship 22, 83, 150, 179 Tacóo, Lázaro 130–132 Take kunas jakaskiwa 41 Tapia, Luis 7, 51, 87, 94, 113 Tawantinsuyu 75–76, 78, 103 Teco, Marqueza 145 Teko Kavi 100–101

192 Index tensioning of difference 84, 162 tetralectic model 81–82 TCOs 119, 122, 131–132, 168; see also Native Community Lands Taller de Historia Oral Andina 37 TIOCs 132–134, 139–141 TIPNIS 11–12, 93–96, 112–114, 118; case 122–124, 137–140, 147–153, 167–171, 177; conflict 101, 116, 135; in defense of the 100, 136; disputes around the 146; grammar 122, 135, 144; inhabitants 119, 143; leaders 144, 179–180; March 139; protesters 98; protests 29, 141; video 146 Tiquipaya 115, 147, 149, 179 Todorov, Tsvetan 26, 29, 44 transmodernity 27, 70 T’simanes 119 Tupakatarismo 76 Two Republics 38, 44, 47 uncivilized 39, 166 uniqueness 2–3, 78, 99, 149–150, 174 United Nations 3, 115 Unión Juvenil Cruceñista 129 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 3, 115 Universal Declaration of the Rights of Mother Earth 115, 147–148, 150, 179 United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues 97 USAID 137, 139; see also United States Agency for International Development Vadillo, Alcides 169, 171–172 Valladolid Debate 22, 39, 175 Vargas, Fernando 134–135, 138, 140, 170 Viale, Enrique 180 victimization 28 Villa Tunari 112, 119, 122–125, 142 violation 47, 144–145, 176, 178–179

violence 10–111, 30, 67, 114, 124; discursive 9, 29, 172; economy of 141; the exercise of 23, 32; forms of 36, 47, 53; open 172–173; physical 29, 144; psychological 26, 57; systematic 128; wave of 129 Vitoria, Francisco de 22–23, 39, 144, 175 Viveiros de Castro, Eduardo 42, 71 Walker, Rob 3, 23, 175–176 War over Gas 55 War over Water 55, 74 Warriors of the Rainbow prophecy 6, 95 Washington Consensus 113 West 43, 81–84, 97, 125, 164; “the West” 41, 95 Western 21, 69–72, 78–82, 98, 178; civility 84; colonial values 2; concepts 90; cosmology 52, 83; cosmovision 85; logic 41, 102, 125, 150; “modern” 19; notion of “rights” 151; rationality 11; systems of knowledge 41; tradition of thought 25; uniqueness 3; world 78, 92, 99, 146–149 White-mestizo 35, 76–78, 124–127, 163, 172; Bolivian 20; elite 55, 165; group 5; landowners 146; “mentality” 80; oligarchy 47 whitening 34–35, 54, 79–80 worlds 23, 40, 92, 150, 179; different 71–73, 78, 85 “worldviews” 40–41, 72, 102, 122–123 World Social Forum 70 Yampara, Simón 78–81, 84–85, 147 Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos 55 yatiris 79 Yuracarés 119 Zárate, Pablo 46, 58, 127 Zavaleta M, Renée 50, 59