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

277 Pages·2014·1.327 MB·English

by  Waskar Ari

Earth Politics
Narrating Native Histories
SerieS editorS
K. Tsianina Lomawaima Alcida Rita Ramos
Florencia E. Mallon Joanne Rappaport
editorial adviSory Board
Denise Y. Arnold Noenoe K. Silva
Charles R. Hale David Wilkins
Roberta Hill Juan de Dios Yapita
Narrating Native Histories aims to foster a rethinking of the ethical, methodologi-
cal, and conceptual frameworks within which we locate our work on native histories
and cultures. We seek to create a space for effective and ongoing conversations be-
tween north and south, natives and nonnatives, academics and activists throughout
the Americas and the Pacific region. We are committed to complicating and trans-
gressing the disciplinary and epistemological boundaries of established academic
discourses on native peoples.
This series encourages symmetrical, horizontal, collaborative, and auto-
ethnographies; work that recognizes native intellectuals, cultural interpreters, and
alternative knowledge producers within broader academic and intellectual worlds;
projects that decolonize the relationship between orality and textuality; narratives
that productively work the tensions between the norms of native cultures and the
requirements for evidence in academic circles; and analyses that contribute to an
understanding of native peoples’ relationships with nation-s tates, including histo-
ries of expropriation and exclusion as well as projects for autonomy and sovereignty.
Combining, as he himself explains, ethnography, biography, and history, Waskar
Ari traces the deep roots of Bolivia’s current decolonization agenda and debates
in the multiple forms of indigenous political creativity and conflictual politics of
twentieth- century Bolivia. Earth politics emerges as a creative umbrella concept under
which different Aymara, Quechua, and Uru activist intellectuals developed notions of
Indian law that articulated indigenous beliefs and practices with the colonial notion
of the Indian republic in innovative and unique ways. Ari provides us with fresh per-
spectives on the Bolivian National Revolution of 1952, the Indianista and Katarista
movements, and Evo Morales’s complex and contested project for decolonized and
radical democracy.
Earth Politics
Religion,
Decolonization,
and Bolivia’s
Indigenous
Intellectuals
WaSkar ari
Duke University Press Durham and London 2014
© 2014 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid-f ree paper ♾
Typeset in Quadraat by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Ari Chachaki, Waskar.
Earth politics : religion, decolonization, and Bolivia’s indigenous
intellectuals / Waskar Ari.
pages cm — (Narrating native histories)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
iSBn 978- 0- 8223- 5613- 4 (cloth : alk. paper)
iSBn 978- 0- 8223- 5617- 2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Alcaldes Mayores Particulares (Bolivia)
2. Indians of South America—Bolivia—Politics and government.
3. Nationalism—Bolivia—History—20th century.
4. Bolivia—Race relations—History—20th century.
I. Title. II. Series: Narrating native histories.
f3320.c43 2014
984.05′1—dc23 2013026428
Mamitaxataki, Eduarda Chachaki, jupaw awkitraki
taykatraki nayatak akapachan sayt’awayi
To my mother, Eduarda Chachaki, who has played
the role of both father and mother in my life

Acknowledgments ix
C ontents 1 Building the Indian Law and a
Decolonization Project in Bolivia 1
2 Nation Making and the Genealogy of the
amp Indigenous Activists 31
3 The Beginning of the Decolonization
Project: Toribio Miranda’s Framing and
Dissemination of the Indian Law 55
4 Against Cholification: Gregorio Titiriku’s Urban
Experience and the Development of Earth Politics in
Segregated Times 81
5 Between Internal Colonialism and War:
Melitón Gallardo in the Southern Andean
Estates 115
6 Against Whitening: Andrés Jacha’qullu’s
Movement between Worlds in the Era of the
Bolivian National Revolution of 1952 135
concluSion
The amp’s Innovations and Its Legacy in
Bolivia under Evo Morales 171
Appendix 1 189
Appendix 2 193
Notes 199
Glossary 227
Selected Bibliography 233
Index 251

Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments perform the essential intellectual task of situating the
production of an individual work in a long chain of influence, collabo-
ration, and encouragement. I’ve worked over this section several times,
more than any other part of the book, so I’ll just stop here, apologize to
anyone I may have missed, and start at the beginning.
Originally from Bolivia and having spent most of my life in La Paz, I
had the good fortune to have first been taught the connection between
politics and history by Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Ivonne Farah, Julio Man-
tilla, Hugo Bedregal Romero, and Danilo Paz Ballivian while at the Uni-
versity of San Andrés. Aymara scholars and activists such as Julian Ugarte,
Clemente Pimentel, Anacleta Ventura, Prudencio Peňa, and Ricarda Torri-
cos first introduced me to the complicated history of Andean indigenous
activists. I also benefited from extensive academic discussions on the topic
with Tomas Huanca, Carlos Mamani of the Taller de Historia Oral Andina
(thoa), and Roberto Choque.
In 1998 I began my journey toward earning my PhD at Carnegie Mel-
lon University, where I had the privilege to work with outstanding schol-
ars such as Tera Hunter, who first taught me about the history of race.
Soon thereafter, however, I received an offer to continue my studies at
Georgetown University. Having only recently left Bolivia, I felt unsure
about making the move, but friends like Forrest Hylton convinced me
that Georgetown and Washington, DC, would offer me a rich intellectual