Author: Emma Ferrer

For Bolivia, the 1990s neoliberal reforms brought privatization of resources such as water, electricity and transportation.  As neoliberalism caused growing inequality and exploitation of those resources and the people who used them, tensions surrounding privatization grew.  This culminated in two large movements: the Water Wars of 2000, and the Gas Wars of 2003. The motivation behind the movements was the indigenous people who were losing their land and cultural practices due to the extraction of resources.  In the article “Good living for whom? Bolivia’s climate justice movement and the limitations of indigenous cosmovisions,” Fabricant explains that this brought up the important question of how indigenous ways of life were supposed to be protected.
As a result of the surge in indigenous activism, Evo Morales rose to popular eye and was elected president on the platforms of revitalising Bolivia through social movements.  The election of Morales made the Bolivian left very hopeful that his indigenous perspective was going to be the ideology that saved Bolivia from a climate crisis and be an example for the world.  In practice, Morales ended up ignoring the consulta previa Fabricant argues that independent of the fact that Morales lost sight of the indigenous activism he promised, it is not possible to apply indigenous cosmovisions or societal structures to national or global platforms.  Speaking specifically of the Aymara organization of labor, the ayllu, Fabricant points out that these systems were developed in the Andes, for the Andes. The ayllu system works to keep stability within communities, ensures that no one group suffers more in a drought year or in a bad livestock year, and upholds respect for nature.  While this is a great model, it is not up to indigenous groups to educate about, and implement solutions for problems that colonialism, neoliberalism, and globalization caused.
Fabricant describes the economic and social structure of the ayllu in relationship to the exploitative extraction policies of the Bolivian government that indigenous communities throughout Bolivia were opposing in order to preserve their relationship with the land.  This structure brings up the larger theme of the indigenous cosmovisions, or worldviews, that define indigenous cultures separate from western ideology. Cosmovision is extremely important concept for the indigenous activists as they take on the burden of educating the elite and general public to further their cultural needs.  This concept is the justification for all political demands because their worldview impacts the way they move through spaces and interact with structures of power. Indigenous language, values, upbringing, and beliefs all shape a person differently than western culture.
Different communities, experiencing different cultural and political contexts, advocate for different demands based on their specific needs. During Bolivia’s climate wars, multiple groups had conflicting demands based on the differences in their communities position within the economic and social structures.  The systems of power, when negotiating with indigenous groups, are quick to try and generalize the demands of indigenous people but their cosmovisions are not the same. Decolonization can not begin without the acknowledgement that each indigenous group has a unique cosmovision that must be respected and taken into account when dismantling hegemonic institutions.