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on on Indigenous Rights Organizations
on The Popular Indigenous Council of Oaxaca “Ricardo Flores Magon,” also known as CIPO-RFM, is a grassroots rights organization mostly comprised of 2,000 rural indigenous activists in Oaxaca, Mexico. Their goals include, but are not limited to, promote and defend their human and cultural rights as individuals through non-violent community-based actions for environmental conservation and basic human necessities. One of their major political struggles is self-management and free association of communities. And because the CIPO-RFM respects the EZLN and their goals, they choose to engage in peaceful organization in comparison the EZLN’s more violent approaches in order to avoid state-led violence against CIPO-RFM. This organization has a twitter account with a small base of 152 followers [compared to other grassroots organizations], and no other social media that I am aware of. However, they do have some emails available to contact. CIPO-RFM has some YouTube videos, but a very small amount seems to have been published by the Oaxacan peoples themselves. Given that CIPO-RFM is made up of 26 indigenous Oaxacan communities, with differing languages, they conduct most of their official business in Spanish. Interestingly enough, I encountered most of the CIPO-RFM information in English instead of Spanish; I wonder how much international recognition this organization has?
Chile: "The Indian Problem"
on Although colonialism has historically targeted Latin America, such effects on the Latin American people have not been enough to stop their own imperialist efforts. Issues of land and sovereignty: the uneasy relationship between Chile and Rapa Nui details the case of Chile, where the state’s imperialist efforts were inspired through their conquering of Peruvian and Bolivian land. The resolution of the War of the Pacific granted Chile land from the beaten countries, making Chile somewhat of an imperialist state over those newly gained territories. Here, they gained the Mapuche land, which allowed them to garner exploitive methods that would expand to the newly gained territory of Rapa Nui. Through merchant trade, Chile saw a possibility in Polynesian territory and annexed Rapa Nui.
The relationship between the Rapa Nui and Chile is complicated and has remained ambiguous across Chile’s changing government regimes. When Chile annexed Rapa Nui, it was due to a misunderstanding between the Chilean representative and the island’s chief who gave them the blessing to use the land for agricultural purposes but without ownership. Chile took this ritual as acceptance to their land ownership, which came back full circle when the Chilean Navy practiced gifting land to newly married Rapa Nui couples. In their terms, this gifted land could be used for agricultural purposes, but it was to be understood that the owners were still the state. The Rapa Nui also understood this as holding property ownership, which attests to the confusing nature of these two group’s relationship, as well as its legitimacy.
The Rapa Nui have used this confusing relationship to circumvent Chile’s rule as the laws passed such as the Inscription of 1933, La Ley Indigena of of 1933, and La Ley Pascua, which subjected the Indigenous people of Chile to regulations. These laws have created unforeseen consequences that have been to the advantage of the Rapa Nuis’ autonomy. The Inscription of 1933 made it so no foreigners could invest or own the land on the island, which benefited the Rapa Nui peoples as they didn’t have to worry about the threat of foreign land ownership. Unlike other Latin American Indigenous groups who have and are subject to foreign attractive forces, the Rapa Nui were guaranteed against that. La Ley Indigena of 1933 made it so land redistribution became a norm amongst Indigenous groups of Chile, which was a polarizing issue amongst the island.
Since Rapa Nui culture was founded on the practice of the Kainga, ancestral lands pertaining to each klan, land redistribution would force Rapa Nui to go against the Kainga and take ownership of a specific land not spiritually given to them. The Kainga made it so land could be used communally and without specific ownership because each group claimed their own land spiritually or through historical patterns. Then La Ley de Pascua was passed in which the Rapa Nui peoples were recognized as Chilean citizens and given the right to vote, which created greater pressures on the island to distribute land in a way that would create individual land ownership. Throughout the regime transitions of Chile, the factor that has remained the same is the pressure to instill land privatization that is a characteristic of the neoliberalist policy, but such pressures to enhance this practice undermine the cultural importance of the Kainga to the Rapa Nui, which indicates an instilled sense of the state that the Rapa Nui have not assimilated to Chilean culture and are therefore undeserving of practicing that culture.
The issue of Chile to recognize the cultural importance of land to the Rapa Nui and instead pressure them into privatizing their land is indicative of their lack of understanding of indigeneity that is described in the chapter “The Problem of the Indian” in Seven Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality. In this essay Jose Carlos Mariategui discusses how others attribute the “Indian problem,” in terms of it being an educational, religious, or administrative issue. The problem is not purely socio-economic, but it is also not purely a problem of the administrative policies or the education of some. It is also not just a land tenure problem, although that area is highly focused on as it is the most visible discrepancy of Indigenous peoples from state civilians. The complexity of what the “Indian problem” entails is similar and a relation to explaining why Chile has lacked in being able to police the Rapa Nui in the way that they have over the Mapuche. Instead of policing their land, their cultural habits, and the way they present themselves to outsiders as they have with the Mapuche, Chile has forgoed much intervention with the Rapa Nui, although they do, technically, own their land. By testifying that the problem of Indigenous assimilation or prosperity under the state is not merely due to a department of the state, but all combined, which makes the “issue” one almost impossible to define or fix.
https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.carleton.edu/chapter/515052
https://www.marxists.org/archive/mariateg/works/7-interpretive-essays/index.htm
Invasive species and indigenous activism in Chile
on Background
Concepción, a city in the south of Chile, is covered in Pine trees. These trees are not native to Chile and their presence in the country has been harmful on many levels. The story starts in the 1930s when chileans, seeking new exports and hoping to control erosion, begin cultivating a species of North American pine tree. These early plots were similar in structure to the “haciendas” or plantation style estates that covered much of the country, and were equally damaging to rural populations.
Pine Trees lining the highway outside of Concepción in Southern Chile. (1)
Haciendas were instituted in central Chile in the 1870s and moved into southern Chile in the decades that followed. These estates allowed rich foreign investors to purchase large swaths or chilean land and convert indigenous and creole people already living on the land into tenant laborers. This created a oppressive system where “hacienda workers were not capable of breaking through paternalistic domination to organise themselves and challenge landowners,” (2). In the early years of colonization, the hacienda system grew unchecked in Chile, because land was abundant and “unclaimed.” In this way, large amounts of chilean land was put into production for the export economy, though very little of this land was modernized in any significant way. This pattern is in keeping with the idea of “extractive colonialism,” wherein the goal of colonialism is not to develop a new world, but to support the wealth of the old world. Colonialism of this type generally goes hand in hand with settler colonialism (the formation of a new state in the settled lands), as can be seen in the hacienda system.
Political Unrest
The hacienda system continued into the mid 1900s, though as the country modernized, so too did the haciendas. Tenet laborers (often called campesinos) began to take notice of the unjust system in place. The stirrings of revolution began in the countryside in the 60s and 70s, culminating in the election of Salvador Allende in 1970. His socialist government attempted to fix the situation in a way that would benefit tenet laborers (often termed campesinos), and the growing forestry industry. Campesinos were largely opposed to these changes, as they rightly predicted that pine plantations would come with steep ecological costs and make subsistence agriculture more difficult. However, Allende’s government was on the verge of reaching an accord when it was toppled in 1973.
Pinochet took power by force in 1973, and immediately began instituting neoliberal reforms to capitalize off of the forests planted by Allende and predecessors. Pinochet, however, was less empathetic to the plight of the rural campesinos than Allende had been, and began doubling down on forestry. Pinochet’s government seized potentially forestable lands, expelled campesinos, and auctioned the land off to corporations. This created a cheap labor force of ex-campesinos who no longer had access to land (for subsistence agriculture) or a steady income. At the same time, Pinochet began criminalizing all types of political organizing. During his regime, union leaders were detained, tortured, and often killed.
A view of Magdalena Island, where detainees were housed and tortured under Pinochet’s regime. Native Kaweskar people were also housed on this island during an era of forced assimilation.
Pinochet also instituted “counter terrorism” laws which persist in the country to this day and have had lasting effects on political movements. Meanwhile, forestry zones quickly became the poorest areas in the country, while the industry made Chile’s wealthy elite more and more money. The land and its people were being outrageously mistreated. The introduction of pine as a monoculture forced native fauna to flee, leaving rural people without a major food source. Pine needles dropping onto forest floors have acidified the soils. Plantations were also fenced off, so that people could not harvest firewood. This disconnection to the land was especially troubling for Mapuche people, who are native to the central region of Chile.
During the growth of the forestry industry, native forests of Pehuen trees (also known as Monkey Puzzle trees or Araucaria araucana) were replaced with invasive pine trees.
The strange and beautiful Pehuen Tree, native to central and southern Chile (3).
Because of their hardiness, Pehuen trees are considered sacred by Mapuche peoples and the destruction of Pehuen forests, along with seizure of native lands and consistent human rights abuses, have driven Mapuche people into action. In the 80s, in the midst of Pinochet’s violent regime, Mapuche organizers united with the catholic church, allowing a resurgence of the labor movement. Progress was made throughout the 80s and 90s, despite the dictatorship, and some land has been returned to Mapuche peoples.
Activism in the wake of dictatorship
The dictatorship has left lasting effects on the community and its ability to organize. As previously mentioned, pine acidifies soil, meaning that native forests cannot regain a foothold. For this reason, land returned to Mapuche peoples requires constant maintenance and ecological restoration.
Meanwhile, Mapuche activists are still attempting to reclaim land and remove pine plantations. Protesters have blockaded roads and purportedly set fire to plantations to halt production. However, the vestiges of dictatorial government still haunt the justice system in Chile. The counter terrorism laws, passed during the Pinochet, are still on the books. Many protesters, especially those of Mapuche origin, have been prosecuted under these laws. Extrajudicial killings have also been reported throughout the country side, sparking further protests.
Questions to consider from this case study:
How can cultural contexts inform activism?
The Ayllu and Indigeneity in Bolivia
on Background
Bolivia has been ravaged by the early effects of climate change, as have many countries in the global south. In the Amazonian region, record flooding has threatened lives, while in the lowlands severe drought has taken hold. Meanwhile, the glaciers of the highland region are shrinking, drastically reducing the countries sources of clean water.
The retreat of Chacaltaya Glacier, in the mountains outside of La Paz, as documented by Researchers from NASA GISS (1) shows the alarming effects of climate change in the country. In response to these catastrophes, Bolivian people have begun organizing. In the 1990s, a group of indigenous activists and environmental activist banded together to fight against ecological destruction. They argued that resource rights were directly tied to the public good. Rights and use of resources is directly tied to a wide variety of issues, from indigenous rights to national sovereignty.
Indigenous culture and cultural Shifts in response to climate change:
Counter Climate Change Organization
Though the original movement in the 1990s has changed forms over the past decades, in response to our changing knowledge of ecological destruction and climate change, organization around these issues has persisted in the country. One of the interesting forms of this activism is CONAMAQ (National Council for Ayllus and Markas of Qullasuyu). CONAMAQ is mobilizing as an alternative to capitalism and hinging its argument on an idealized vision of indigeneity. This group argues that the best way to fight climate change is to return to a collective, idealistic style that they term the Ayllu (2). The argument is not baseless. CONAMAQ argues that returning to a “commons” ideal surrounding resource management will help the country make more responsible decisions regarding resources. Given that the country is still dealing with a neoliberal and largely privatized resource economy, it is likely that shifting to a more collective, public understanding of resource management will mitigate some ecological problems. In the 1990s and 2000s, this was exactly the goal of the movement, to “reclaim ‘the commons’ from private hands,” (2). However, many activists are now arguing for the return to the Ayllu.
The Ayllu
The imagined Ayllu, as illustrated in a political poster in Bolivia (3)
The Ayllu structure defined the ancient Incan civilization, and persists to some extent in Quechua and Aymara communities in rural Bolivia. Ayllus are self sustaining family units with a single leader and often associated minor god. They have also been widely hailed as the way to solve climate struggles in Bolivia. CONAMAQ “conceptualizes the ayllu as an egalitarian and Pre-columbian kin-based and collectively owned territorial space: the key to their political work is claiming autonomy and self-sufficiency,” (2) and advocate for the development of communities of this type in Bolivia.
However, many indigenous people within Bolivia do not agree with this solution. Every year, Bolivia grows more urban as indigenous people leave the country side, where they can no longer survive on subsistence agriculture methods. Most do not want to return, and feel tied to the city. Furthermore, the return to ayllu argument does not provide a solution for the climate change issue that affect urban centers. The city of El Alto in Bolivia is experiencing a water crisis from a combination of climate issues and poor infrastructure, but abandoning the city to return to the countryside will not solve this problem.
Within indigenous communities, climatic changes have forced a reconging about culture and the future survival of community and eco-movements within Bolivia continue to exacerbate these struggles. Rather than take into account a modern version of indigeneity, CONAMAQ romanticizes collective living and Ayllu life style.
Questions to consider from this case study:
What strategies can international organizations use to engage indigenous activists without over romanticizing a past version of indigeneity?
Is CONAMAQ correct that there is no version of capitalism which solve climate change and create climate justice?
What place do non-indigenous people have in preserving indigeneity?
The Legacy of White Supremacy on Indigeneity
on Colorism is an issue prevalent within Latin American society that affects many darker-skinned folk living in the region. Specifically, colorism is a prevalent issue within Indigenous communities. In efforts to deconstruct and solidify the definition or requirements of indigeneity, we must first define the impact of colonialism on anti-blackness in Indigenous communities. Societal systems in the Americas have been forced with anti-blackness mindsets since the implementation of extractive and settler colonialism types. As a group that had to give up their autonomy in order to exist, Indigenous peoples were also subject to such mindsets. To subject indigeneity as an exclusive group is to erase that identity to non-standard groups such as Black people. However, this raises the question about how indigeneity should be measured in order to remain authentic and legitimate.
In the chapter titled “Dangerous Decolonizing: Indians and Blacks and the Legacy of Jim Crow,” Brian Klopotek discusses the main points of reshaping the Indian methodologies that present indigeneity as a heterogenous group rather than an entity whose boundaries are blurred. Also, they argue that race must be included more broadly in Indian studies, as one legacy of white supremacy within the Indigenous premise is anti blackness and need to seperate themselves from other minorities, but especially any blackness.
The focus groups of this chapter was based on the Tunica-Biloxi group, the Choctaw Indians, and especially the Clifton-Choctaw who are the only group among the three that are not federally-recognized. In terms of the Clifton-Choctaw, the anti blackness is especially prevalent when discussing their modes of strategy for trying to get federal approval of their group legitimacy. This case is especially concerning when taking into account their geographical location, Louisiana, which is known to have a large Black population. Given that Indigenous groups had to constantly advocate for themselves to garner rights and some autonomy apart from being a minority, in context, it is not surprising that they tried to distance themselves as having any relationship to Black people.
As the Jim Crow Era made it so people had to abide by the clear and set distinction of Black and white people, it left other minorities, like the Indigenous communities, to adopt both silent and loud anti-blackness in order to be seperated from Black people and survive within white superiority. In order to send their children to better schools, be eligible for better jobs, and be taken seriously among their decolonization efforts, Indigenous people denied any blackness within their communities. Although a survival tactic, Indigenous people were complicit in the oppression of Black people, as they maintained the belief that being Black was being at the bottom.
In bringing forth the issue to the public, the writer hopes to decolonize the indian methodologies that try to seperate themselves from blackness. It is an attribute of indigeneity to be able to encompass multiple ethnicities, meaning Indigenous people may be light or dark and still identify through that native label. Therefore, indigeneity, although broad, is one step closer to defining itself once measuring their inclusion of Black people, or Black ancestry.
Written by the Government of Bolivia in 1900, “The Slow and Gradual Disappearance of the Indigenous Race” classifies four races and their attributes. The Bolivian government distinguishes the races as white, mestizo, black, and Indian. The white race is seen as the superior race, which the government includes Bolivians as part of this group. Therefore, true Bolivians are apparently white, while mestizos include those like cholos. The government states that cholos are still superior to Indigenous people, but below Bolivians due to their respectability. The Black race is then formed by former ancestral slaves or people from countries like Brazil who make up a very “insignificant” amount of the population and are in competition with mulattos. The system places mulattos above Black people, although both groups are on the bottom of the privilege scale. These chapter excerpts detail the labeling of race that Indigenous peoples were subject to and therefore had to navigate in order to obtain rights and better means of life. As the white race, or the civilians of that nation, compared Black people with Indigenous people, it was dangerous to them to accept such relationship because it would mean a permanent bottom order in society, which is what Black people have historically suffered. Although white supremacy and racism made it hard for Indigenous groups to navigate their way through a better societal order, one cannot deny their role in practicing and helping cement the belief that Black people are the bottom of society and therefore one must distinguish themselves from them and any blackness among them.
Similar because it shows a perspective of the elitist group trying to change the requirements to be labeled as Indigenous in order to erase their legitimacy, This threat has possibly made it so indians are more likely to hold their methodology of race consolidation more firmly to legitimize their group
https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-bolivia-reader
https://muse-jhu-edu.ezproxy.carleton.edu/book/16159/
Chile's relationship to Rapa Nui
on In the article “Issues on Land and Sovereignty: The Uneasy Relationship Between Chile and Rapa Nui”, anthropologist Riet Delsing focuses on the Rapa Nui, also named Easter Island (or Isla de Pascua), and the way it has been administrated by Chile for the past 150 years. Delsing gives a general historical overview of the history common to the island and the mainland, and examines the successive laws that had an impact on the population and the landownership of Rapa Nui.
Chile gained independence from Spain in 1818, but was still consolidating its territory in the 1880s: the integration of the Mapuche territory in the south and the annexation of former Bolivian and Peruvian territories in the north were the context in which Chile annexed Easter Island in 1888. Policarpo Toro Hurtado signed the Agreement of Wills with the Rapanui leaders. From this date, Rapanui ancestral customs, specifically regarding landownership, were disrupted. After the annexation of the island, and especially because of the civil war of 1891, the Chilean nation-state lost interest in Rapa Nui. Everything changed in 1917, when the Chilean Republic started to consolidate its hold on the island by sending the navy as a colonial agent applying strict military rules on Rapa Nui.
The history of Rapa Nui is intrinsically linked to landownership. Before Chilean colonization, the kainga as a form of collective landownership was exclusively applied. With the arrival of Chilean settlers and moreover with the passage of the Ley Pascua of 1966, private landownership was introduced. It was reinforced by the Ley Pinochet in 1979. In opposition to those laws, the Ley Indígena of 1993 established norms of protection, promotion, and development of Chile’s indigenous people, and recognized land as the lifeblood of indigenous cultures. Nevertheless, Rapanui people were not spectators in this process of assimilation. They often fought the Chilean government, organizing themselves into a Council of Elders in 1980 and creating a Rapanui Parliament with demands of autonomy. Eventually, in 2007, the island was granted a Special Status, thanks to a constitutional reform.
Delsing’s article highlights the evolution of the relationship between Chile and its Pacific colony through a detailed examination of landownership on Rapa Nui. It identifies the specificities of Rapa Nui, both its peculiar indigenous social organization and the policy of the Chilean government towards it, as opposed to mainland indigenous territories.
Delsing, Riet. “Issues of land and sovereignty: the uneasy relationship between Chile and Rapa Nui (Easter Island)” in Decolonizing Native Histories: Collaboration, Knowledge, and Language in the Americas. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012.
https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/515052
Native anthropology and Native historiography
on Alongside with political under-representation, denied social rights, and sometimes deprivation from their lands, indigenous in Latin America have often been excluded from the academic sphere. To overcome this lack, some scholars have recently advocated for a Native anthropology and historiography.
Native anthropology
Native anthropology would develop “a set of theories based on non-Western precepts and assumptions in the same sense that modern anthropology is based on has supported Western beliefs and values” [1]. Indeed, most ethnographic works are written by academics who use a particular frame and a Western conceptualization of indigeneity. Indigenous theorizing then results from a combination of the appropriation of academic anthropology and indigenous patterns of narration.
On this matter, one issue is translation. Translating the Colombian Constitution of 1991 from Spanish into Nasa Yuwe, the language spoken by the Nasa people in Colombia, is a way to liberate the Spanish version from its original limitations. Nevertheless, it is no more the translation than the process itself that is important here: translating the Constitution needed the collaboration of a team gathering authorities of Mosoco indigenous community, bilingual teachers, indigenous and national linguists, and professionals from the national society. This collaborative work leads to autoethnography, which Rappaport and Ramos define as “[the appropriation of] external concepts within an indigenous political matrix with the aim of introducing new strategies for cultural survival.”[2] The dialogue between indigenous activists and academics takes the form of interculturalism, as opposed to multiculturalism, which promotes a simple tolerance of ethnic minorities, instead of integrating them in the national discourse.
Native historiography and the example of the Nasa
Joanne Rappaport gives a formidable overview of Nasa history — a community in the Colombian Andes — from the point of view of Nasa historians. Native history has been ignored for many years because it was not considered academic by Western or Western-oriented scholars; Rappaport highlights its legitimacy and offers to read it as a tool to understand political events in a different way. Rather than truth, she emphasizes the presence of a particular point of view when historians write history. In other words, history is a subjective construct.[3]
Conveying the work of three Nasa historians — Don Juan Tama y Calambás, Manuel Quintín Lame, and Julio Niquinás — Rappaport highltights the incorporative character of native histories.[4] Nasa historians’ goals were not to deconstruct the history they were taught, but to incorporate their own stories to it. In other words, creating a new native history meant to create a mix of interpretations, that did not exclude each other.
Considering the telling of history as a series of choices allows Rappaport to consider history in terms of power. When the Spaniards conquered what is now Colombia, one of the way to take control over the Nasa was to deprive them from their own history.[5] This situation lasted for centuries, before indigenous activists like Juan Tama started to access the academic sphere and began to write indigenous history in their own terms. Nevertheless, rather than a complete rejection of Western historical methods, Tama’s, Lame’s, and Niquiná’s works are a syncretism between Western historiography and Nasa storytelling. This methodology falls into what Rappaport and Ramos call “autoethnography” and allows indigenous historians to talk about the past without separating it from the present. In The Politics of Memory, Rappaport successfully highlights the work of indigenous historians/storytellers, and guarantees them posterity. Citing the work of Juan Tama, Quintín Lame, and Julio Niquinás, she contextualizes the voices of indigenous people that continuously rose up since the Spanish colonization. Rappaport’s work falls into a recent consideration of indigenous perspectives on history, and especially the way indigenous communities conceptualize history.
Native Americans have been excluded from academic dialogue for years, but their discourse is now brought into it. Native historians, scholars, anthropologists, are now blurring the Western line between past and present, the line between the actual and the mythical.Their work not only acknowledges the interest of Native history and methods, it empowers our own understanding of history by adding — but not replacing — another perspective to it.
[1] Ramos Pacho, Abelardo and Rappaport, Joanne. “Collaboration and Historical Writing: Challenges for the Indigenous-Academic Dialogue”, in Mallon, Florencia, ed. Decolonizing Native Histories: Collaboration, Knowledge, and Language in the Americas. Durham: Duke University Press, 2012, 122.
[2] Ramos Pacho and Rappaport, 126.
[3] Rappaport, Joanne. The Politics of Memory: Native Historical Interpretation in the Colombian Andes. Durham: Duke University Press, 1998, 13.
[4] Rappaport, 168.
[5] Rappaport, 1.
https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/515055
Decolonize Democracy in Bolivia and Canada
on The article “How to Decolonize Democracy: Indigenous Governance Innovation in Bolivia and Nunavut, Canada”, by Roberta Rice, is explicitly about the experiments of decolonization that are taking place in Bolivia and Canada. Decolonization is defined as “the revalorization, recognition and re-establishment of indigenous cultures, traditions and values within the institutions, rules and arrangements that govern society”. The overall goal of decolonization in Bolivia and Canada is to create a “national indigenous culture with new political subjects and forms of citizenship”.
Bolivia and Canada are the first “large-scale tests of indigenous governance in the Americas”. The Indigenous peoples came into power through a conventional democratic path. However, there seems to be “social, economic and institutional problems” that impede the Indigenous groups in the area to have the full power granted to them by the democratic system to incorporate their values into the government.
In Bolivia, the presidency of Evo Morales have given the Indigenous population hope and a way to change the government and improve the position of Indigenous peoples. The presidency of Evo Morales and the 2009 Constitution are considered to be two important factors that will help the installation of Indigenous values into the government. According to the Morales administration, the government bureaucracy is the greatest obstacle to creating a more inclusive government.
In Nunavut, instead of seeking power through an Inuit-specific government system, the Indigenous peoples seek a more public government system. Although similar, there are some differences between the two process of decolonization. Rice claims that the case of Bolivia is considered to be that of “participatory governance” while Nunavut is considered to be that of “resource governance”. The large amount of land gained prompted the creation of a new unique government.
Canada and Bolivia are examples of Indigenous communities creating change that will benefit their communities and hopefully spark other countries to do the same.
Article source:
Rice, Roberta. “How to Decolonize Democracy: Indigenous Governance Innovation in Bolivia and Nunavut, Canada.” Bolivian Studies Journal/Revista de Estudios Bolivianos 22, no. 0 (2016): 220–42.
https://doi.org/10.5195/bsj.2016.169.
Cosmovision and Justice
on 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.