Between the Romance of Collectivism and the Reality of Individualism

Abstract

Landless Peasant Movement organizers in Bolivia recognize the ayllu as a historical memory rather than a lived reality, and it provides momentum for local-level efforts to reclaim land and productive resources from agrarian elites. Yet contradictions between the discourse of collectivism and the practice of power-hungry leaders, vertical forms of decision making, and competition for limited resources often characterize the movement’s political spaces and land-reform settlements. Instead of dismissing such tensions as negating the effectiveness of leftist politics in the twenty-first century, we must move toward understanding such friction as critical to movement building.