Divergent identities: competing indigenous political currents in 21st-century Bolivia

Abstract

ABSTRACTWhile Bolivia grabbed global attention at the turn of the new millennium for militant indigenous mobilizations, the second decade of the 21st century witnessed the deepening of conflicts between different indigenous sectors. In addition to provoking heated debates on what it means to be indigenous, this has raised questions on the utility of the concept of indigeneity as it has been understood thus far to analyze the new political dynamics. In response to these processes and the analytical challenges they present, this article maps out the existing currents in Bolivian indigenous politics, their mutual disagreements, the meanings they give to indigeneity, and their impact on the politics of the Morales government and its critics. It argues that there are two distinct indigenous visions with different political agendas and priorities: a ‘revivalist’current that focuses on the restoration of ancestral cosmovisions and represents the dominant canon, and an ‘expansionist’ current that prioritizes the struggle against structural racism and gives expression to a new tendency in Latin American indigenous politics. The article is based on nearly two years of ethnographic research in the city of El Alto.