Suchergebnisse

Constructing movements and comparisons -- Toward a political and conceptual genealogy of representation -- Comparing communities, contention, and representation, 1860s-1960s -- Articulating indianness regionally and nationally, 1960s-1990s -- Neoliberal and multicultural encounters, 1990-2005 -- Strategic constructivism and essentialism -- Articulating utopias, histories, and politics

Over the last two decades, indigenous populations in Latin America have achieved a remarkable level of visibility and political effectiveness, particularly in Ecuador and Bolivia. In Struggles of Voice, José Antonio Lucero examines these two examples in order to understand their different patterns of indigenous mobilization and to reformulate the theoretical model by which we link political representation to social change. Lucero considers Ecuador's united indigenous movement and compares it to the more fragmented situation in Bolivia. He analyzes the mechanisms at work in political and social structures to explain the different outcomes in each case. Lucero assesses the intricacies of the many indigenous organizations and the influence of various NGOs to uncover how the conflicts within social movements, the shifting nature of indigenous identities, and the politics of transnationalism all contribute to the success or failure of political mobilization.

In the rise of contemporary indigenous movements in Latin America, indigenous leaders have acknowledged their debt to the Bolivian indigenous intellectual Fausto Reinaga (1906-1994), a major theorist of the anti-colonial and anti-Occidental ideology known as indianisimo. His work, especially his 1969 classic La revolución india had a profound impact on the development of indigenous movements, intellectuals, and leaders including Bolivian President Evo Morales. Yet, curiously, his work remains sorely understudied. This essay examines the continuing relevance of Reinaga by exploring his 'Atlantic' encounter with the thought of the Martinican-Algerian theorist Frantz Fanon. Reinaga's encounter with Fanon, however, is not an unproblematic one and there are instructive commonalities and tensions in their work. This article addresses Fanon's influence on Reinaga's views on colonialism, compares Fanon's and Reinaga's deployments of the concept of race, and contrasts their views on postcolonial nation-building. Though in some ways Fanon is more attentive to the complexities and tensions of anticolonial struggles than Reinaga, I argue that the work of Reinaga can be read in a Fanonian spirit, as a dialectical analysis in which the focus on the particular is necessary for universal projects of emancipation.