The Perils of Constituent Power and Multicultural Citizenship in Bolivia

Abstract

This chapter explores some implications of the constitution’s unprecedented plurinational cultural script for empowerment of Bolivia’s majority indigenous population, from the vantage point of a corner of Bolivia, the urban politics of the provincial capital of Quillacollo, where the experience of indigeneity is different from that which the constitution valorizes and confirms. It explains how new constitution renders some forms of indigenous identity more ‘legible’ than others. The difficulties for Bolivia’s constituent power in coming to terms with the emergent variations of indigenous experience in the country point to persistent challenges faced by efforts to enact multicultural or plurinational legal reforms in Latin America as well as elsewhere, in the terms of cultural citizenship. Diverse efforts to ‘bridge’ collective and individual rights for multicultural citizenship have been a central challenge for how states should recognize indigenous peoples in particular. The chapter explores how this remains problematic in Bolivia’s 2009 constitution. Keywords:Bolivia; constituent power; indigenous identity; multicultural citizenship; Quillacollo