Struggles of Voice

Pueblos indígenas y política en América Latina: El reconocimiento de sus derechos y el impacto de sus demandas a inicios del siglo XXI (2007).

Latin American Perspectives, 2010

The past two decades have seen the emergence of various political actors in Latin America for whom indigenousness is their basic social identity. The appearance of indig- enous movements at this time can be attributed to a change in the structure of political opportunities in response to globalization, which has created a situation in which policy making is no longer controlled by governments but increasingly the result of the interac- tion of a wide variety of actors. Indigenous peoples have been empowered by alliances with actors that have provided them greater capacity for applying pressure through rela- tionships, including churches, anthropologists, and international advocacy networks. The emergence of indigenous movements has created an international regime on the rights of indigenous peoples, the adoption of a new jurisprudence with regard to indig- enous peoples, and the creation of autonomous territories, though there is still no agree- ment on the best way to articulate these territories. Some of these movements have been more successful than others; the indigenous peoples of the lowlands have benefited from the greater participation of their movements in the international environment, but their triumphs tend to be local. While progress is tangible, the events of the past two decades indicate the limits of the permeability of Latin American polyarchies.

Journal of Latin American Studies, 2007

In recent years, socio-political crises have challenged democracy across South America. Social movements that succeeded in mobilising marginalised sectors are at the forefront of this turbulence, Ecuador’s indigenous movement and the organisations of unemployed workers in Argentina being paradigmatic cases. Recent developments point to an intrinsic weakness of both indigenous and unemployed movements, in that democratic regimes have proved highly successful at ‘taming’ them. By comparing the two movements, in terms of their internal dynamics and interactions with the political system, this article argues that common characteristics that were crucial for successful mobilisation in the first place, at the same time, help explain their vulnerability to division and clientelist integration.

AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 2023

The restructuring of the Bolivian state as plurinational raised high hopes for Indigenous self-determination. In practice, however, attempts by the governing political party to co-opt Indigenous representation have compromised the autonomy and diversity of Indigenous peoples. This article investigates the emergence, forms, and rationale of nascent Indigenous activism in times of disillusionment in the plurinational state of Bolivia, where the politics of the governing left regime are becoming more centralized and the threats related to the rise of the ultra-right wing have become pronounced. The methodology is based on interviews conducted in the city of La Paz among Indigenous activists, scholars, and state officials. By scrutinizing nascent activism and the challenges to it posed by state co-optation and right-wing racism, as well as histories of contested Indigenous identities, the article sheds light on the complex and nuanced relationships between progressive politics and indigeneity, emphasizing the importance of Indigenous self-determination.

Globalizations, 2008

Since the 1990s, the indigenous rights movement has catapulted from resourcepoor, local activists to global activists. The rise of transnational indigenous rights movements has paralleled and interfaced with significant structural developments at the international and state-systemic level, raising questions about the interplay between global and local politics as arenas of social change. To trace these transnational networks to the articulation of norms supportive of indigenous claims, we examine two cases of transnational indigenous activism and domestic responses in the Andean region of South America. We find that the additional dimension of domestic and transnational mobilization that first contests existing international norms, such as neoliberalism and individual rights, and then seeks to diffuse normative changes at both the domestic and international levels provides new insight about norm formation, transformation, and diffusion in international politics in favor of antiglobalization and community equality norms on local, national, and global levels.

Revolutions in Bolivia, 2019

The famous ‘process of change’ that we have so closely witnessed in Bolivia emerged on the shoulders of indigenous, peasant and other popular social movements, to coalesce around several goals—including natural resource nationalisation, land redistribution, and recognition of indigenous identities and autonomies—and the overarching demand to fundamentally re-structure the political system. Bolivia is a perfect case to examine how movements came from the ‘street’— Bolivian social movements have achieved notoriety given the strength and impact of social mobilisation—to put forward alternatives for a different world, and how successful they have been in achieving this. In this context, I investigate how successful different elements within the indigenous peasant movement in Bolivia have been at getting their voices heard and demands met. Have they been co-opted, institutionalised, marginalised? Should we study key transformative moments, or trace the ongoing resistance of different indigenous and peasant actors under a self-proclaimed indigenous government? This paper is based on a chapter of a doctoral thesis completed at the University of Oxford, which examines indigenous movements in Latin America from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. It challenges the protest cycle conceptualisation of social movement outcomes, and questions the usefulness of the concept of co-optation for understanding the impact of social movements, especially once “their” government comes into power.

Development, 2009

Laura Fano Morrissey traces the rise of indigenous movements in four Andean countries: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. By analysing how these movements have formed, she discusses issues of identity and belonging and the role these concepts have played in making indigenous groups a growing force in the continent. She also provides an account of the new constitutions adopted in Bolivia and Ecuador and the innovative traits they have introduced in the political discourse on ethnicity and identity.