Now We Are Citizens Indigenous Politics in Postmulticultural Bolivia [Hardcover]

Upon winning the 2005 presidential election, Evo Morales became the first indigenous person to lead Bolivia since the arrival of the Spanish more than five hundred years before. Moraless election is the culmination of a striking new kind of activism in Bolivia. Born out of a history of resistance to colonial racism and developed in collective struggles against the post-revolutionary state, this movement crystallized over the last decade as poor and Indian Bolivian citizens engaged with the democratic promises and exclusions of neoliberal multiculturalism.This ethnography of the Guaran? Indians of Santa Cruz traces how recent political reforms, most notably the Law of Popular Participation, recast the racist exclusions of the past, and offers a fresh look at neoliberalism. Armed with the language of citizenship and an expectation of the rights citizenship implies, this group is demanding radical changes to the structured inequalities that mark Bolivian society. As the 2005 election proved, even Bolivias most marginalized people can reform fundamental ideas about the nation, multiculturalism, neoliberalism, and democracy. Postero's study offers a refreshing change from the national-level analyses that characterize much of the literature on indigenous politics by focusing on how state reforms are experienced at the local level... [Her] account of indigenous struggles in Bolivia is fascinating and a must-read for those with an interest in the field. Nancy Grey Postero is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, San Diego. She is coeditor ofThe Struggle for Indian Rights in Latin America(2004). Postero has written a timely and intriguing ethnography of Bolivia during what she terms the new 'post-multicultural' moment. In this book, Postero offers an insightful historical discussion of Bolivian politics at local and national levels, and provides us with nuanced ethnographies of struggles over neoliberal and multicultural policies.l“&