Abstract
In this paper, I analyze the ways in which MST-Bolivia (Movimiento Sin Tierra) forged a national-level movement through one counter-hegemonic event: the Fifth Indigenous March for Land and Territory, which originated in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in October 2006. This march enacted a powerful performance of pan-indigenous solidarity and nationalistic sentiment which led to a public declaration by president Evo Morales to approve the New Agrarian Reform Law. I focus in particular on the organizational and spatial structure of the march, and on the significance of seizing public space in protest.
Highlights
In this paper, I analyze the ways in which MST-Bolivia (Movimiento Sin Tierra) forged a national-level movement through one counter-hegemonic event: the Fifth Indigenous March for Land and Territory, which originated in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in October 2006
On a steamy Saturday in early June 2006, on a day when Evo Morales launched his Agrarian Revolution to take back latifundio land [large haciendas] and redistribute it to landless peasants, thousands of indigenous campesinos, peasants, and agricultural laborers congregated around a small stage, close to the Chiriguano monument in Santa Cruz, Bolivia
Individual or sporadic forms of resistance in space can coalesce into coherent social movements with the aim of liberating space and time from their current configurations, constructing an alternative vision of society ―a vision in which values, time, space, and money are understood in new and distinct ways (Harvey 239). This is precisely what MST sought to do through their mass mobilization: “Our movement through national space was critical to the building of social relationships and political alliances; we consolidated our alliances with the pueblos indígenas
Summary
On a steamy Saturday in early June 2006, on a day when Evo Morales launched his Agrarian Revolution to take back latifundio land [large haciendas] and redistribute it to landless peasants, thousands of indigenous campesinos, peasants, and agricultural laborers (many dressed in ripped t-shirts, cotton slacks, and abarcas) congregated around a small stage, close to the Chiriguano monument in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. MST and other campesino organizations decided to take matters into their own hands and march from Santa Cruz to La Paz, in order to defend the position that land “should belong to those who work it” and pressure the government to pass redistributive http://bsj.pitt.edu legislation.”. This is precisely what MST sought to do through their mass mobilization: “Our movement through national space was critical to the building of social relationships and political alliances; we consolidated our alliances with the pueblos indígenas Through such alliances we began to debate, critique, and offer solutions to the problem of land inequality in our country” (Saisari). Pots and pans, and sleeping bags, they refused to leave the plaza until the New Agrarian Law was passed
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