Rhythms of the Pachakuti: indigenous uprising and state power in Bolivia

Abstract

Raquel Gutierrez Aguilar, Rhythms of the Pachakuti: Indigenous Uprising and State Power in Bolivia. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014. 284 pages. ISBN 978-0-8223-5604-2. $25.95 USD paperback.This is an excellent but demanding read on contemporary Indigenous politics in Bolivia. The book explores the interplay of ideas, processes, and strategies that shaped Bolivian Indigenous social uprisings in the early 2000s. These Indigenous uprisings played a critical role in effectively contesting the neoliberal policies carried out during the 1990s and early 2000s by the White and Mestizo political class. This class historically dominated Bolivian politics, but the election of Evo Morales, the first Bolivian Indigenous president, in 2006 put an end to its dominance. Since coming to power, Morales has fundamentally transformed Bolivia's socioeconomic structure by promoting political and inclusion. Morales' Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement Toward Socialism, MAS) has become a powerful grassroots political tool to advance new visions and practices of political and democracy. Indigenous movements have been at the forefront of this transformation. Gutierrez's book examines the origins and dynamics of these movements by employing critical neo-Marxist historical analysis supported by participatory observation. The author herself was deeply involved in the formation of MAS and the subsequent struggle for socioeconomic and political emancipation.The book is carefully divided into two main parts: Community Uprisings and Democratization and From Governmental Collapse to Pachakuti's Suspension. This division allows the author to analytically and chronologically examine the ideas, processes, and strategies pursued by Bolivian Indigenous movements since the early 2000s. It also allows the author to critically reflect on the tensions, shortcomings, and outcomes of broad-based Indigenous social movements. Gutierrez recognizes that tensions and conflicts are inevitable within broad-based social movements due to the ideological heterogeneity and strategic orientation of their participants. Also, Bolivia's diverse regional socio-economic and cultural landscape tends to shape tensions, which, if not managed or resolved, produce conflicts within social movements. Despite these challenges, Gutierrez recognizes that Bolivian Indigenous movements have made great efforts to overcome differences in order to strengthen their commitment to reclaim and exercise their fundamental social, cultural, economic, and political rights. In fact, these objectives are what have linked different regional Indigenous movements to a national common cause. Without doubt, MAS best represent, this type of broad-based and concerted popular movement.In my view, Part 1 has the most important content of the book. This part contains three important chapters. Chapter one deals with the first broad-based popular struggle to contest the privatization of water service in Bolivia. La Coordinadora de Defensa del Agua y de la Vida (Coalition in Defense of Water and Life) played a key role in this process. Led by the charismatic Oscar Olivera, La Coordinadora reversed the misguided privatization of the water system in Cochabamba, Bolivia in 2000. Gutierrez describes how the diverse popular movements came together to forge a strong political front against the neoliberal government of Hugo Banzer. The neoliberal fever that reached Bolivia in the early 1990s led to the rapid privatization of state-owned corporations and public services under the rationale of economic efficiency. The privatization of the mining, energy, and banking sectors did not encounter significant popular resistance, due mainly to the fragmentary nature of labour politics. However, the privatization of public services, water systems in particular, encountered strong resistance, due to broad-based and well-organized grassroots opposition.From the 1970s on, Cochabamba's population increased rapidly, primarily due to rural migration from poor areas. …