The Race toward Caraqueño Citizenship

Abstract

This article examines the relationships between race, class, and citizenship in Venezuela’s burgeoning grassroots democracy as the nation’s 2012 presidential election approaches. Although the Venezuelan political arena is frequently overshadowed by policies and the personality of President Hugo Chávez, recently developing techniques of governance permit increased local autonomy. This and an associated push to integrate marginalized populations into social and political life have played a significant role in the production of community, public space, and localized conceptions of citizenship. While emergent Caraqueño democratic forms commonly idealize equality and collaborative governance, disjunctures among the city’s communities are social, geographic, and political. This article highlights the varying modes of political belonging greatly engendered by race and class in Caracas. These experiences of citizenship, in turn, have resulted in increased participation and access to power for some as they deny inclusion to others. This study of modes of citizenship focuses on the citizen and the public sphere, emerging modes of governance and the developing Venezuelan state, and dissidence within the democratic process.