Earth Politics: Religion, Decolonization, and Bolivia’s Indigenous Intellectuals

Description

Earth Politics focuses on the lives of four indigenous activist-intellectuals in Bolivia, key leaders in the Alcaldes Mayores Particulares (AMP), a movement established to claim rights for indigenous education and reclaim indigenous lands from hacienda owners. The AMP leaders invented a discourse of decolonization, rooted in part in native religion, and used it to counter structures of internal colonialism, including the existing racial systems. Waskar Ari calls their social movement, practices, and discourse earth politics, both because the AMP emphasized the idea of the earth and the place of Indians on it, and because of the political meaning that the AMP gave to the worship of the Aymara gods. Depicting the social worlds and life work of the activists, Ari traverses Bolivia's political and social landscape from the 1920s into the early 1970s. He reveals the AMP 's extensive geographic reach, genuine grassroots quality, and vibrant regional diversity. Ari had access to the private archives of indigenous families, and he collected oral histories, speaking with men and women who knew the AMP leaders. The resulting examination of Bolivian indigenous activism is one of unparalleled nuance and depth. Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 10 1. Building the Indian Law and a Decolonization Project in Bolivia......Page 16 2. Nation Making and the Genealogy of the AMP Indigenous Activists......Page 46 3. The Beginning of the Decolonization Project: Toribio Miranda’s Framing and Dissemination of the Indian Law......Page 70 4, Against Cholification: Gregorio Titiriku’s Urban Experience and the Development of Earth Politics in Segregated Times......Page 96 5. Between Internal Colonialism and War: Melitón Gallardo in the Southern Andean Estates......Page 130 6. Against Whitening: Andrés Jacha’qullu’s Movement between Worlds in the Era of the Bolivian National Revolution of 1952......Page 150 Conclusion - The Amp’s Innovations and Its Legacy in Bolivia under Evo Morales......Page 186 Appendix 1......Page 204 Appendix 2......Page 208 Notes......Page 214 Glossary......Page 242 Selected Bibliography......Page 248 Index......Page 266