Rhythms of the Pachakuti: Indigenous Uprising and State Power in Bolivia

333 Pages·2014·1.192 MB·English

by  Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar

Rhythms of the Pachakuti
New Ecologies for the Twenty- first Century
SerieS editorS:
Arturo Escobar, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Dianne Rocheleau, Clark University
This series addresses two trends: critical conversations in
academic fields about nature, sustainability, globalization, and
culture, including constructive engagements between the natu‑
ral, social, and human sciences; and intellectual and political
conversations among social movements and other nonacademic
knowledge producers about alternative practices and socio‑
natural worlds. Its objective is to establish a synergy between
these theoretical and political developments in both academic
and nonacademic arenas. This synergy is a sine qua non for
new thinking about the real promise of emergent ecologies.
The series includes works that envision more lasting and just
ways of being‑i n‑p lace and being‑ in‑ networks with a diversity
of humans and other living and nonliving beings.
New Ecologies for the Twenty‑ first Century aims to promote a
dialogue between those who are transforming the understand‑
ing of the relationship between nature and culture. The series
revisits existing fields such as environmental history, historical
ecology, environmental anthropology, ecological economics,
and cultural and political ecology. It addresses emerging tenden‑
cies, such as the use of complexity theory to rethink a range of
questions on the nature‑ culture axis. It also deals with epistemo‑
logical and ontological concerns, building bridges between the
various forms of knowing and ways of being embedded in the
multiplicity of practices of social actors worldwide. This series
hopes to foster convergences among differently located actors
and to provide a form for authors and readers to widen the fields
of theoretical inquiry, professional practice, and social struggles
that characterize the current environmental arena.
A book in the series Latin America
in Translation / En Traducción / Em Tradução
Sponsored by the Duke University–University of
North Carolina Program in Latin American Studies
Rhythms
of the
Pachakuti
Indigenous Uprising
and State Power
in Bolivia
Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar
Foreword
by Sinclair Thomson
Translated
by Stacey Alba D. Skar
Duke University Press
Durham and London
2014
© 2014 Duke University Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America on acid‑ free paper ♾
Typeset in Minion with Alegreya display by Tseng Information Systems, Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging‑ in‑ Publication Data
Gutiérrez Aguilar, Raquel.
[Ritmos del Pachakuti. English]
Rhythms of the Pachakuti : indigenous uprising and state power in Bolivia/
Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar.
pages cm—(New ecologies for the twenty‑ first century)
(Latin America in translation/en traducción/em tradução)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
iSbn 978‑ 0‑ 8223‑5 604‑ 2 (pbk : alk. paper)
iSbn 978‑ 0‑ 8223‑5 599‑ 1 (cloth: alk. paper)
1. Indians of South America—Bolivia—Government relations. 2. Indians of South
America—Bolivia—Politics and government. 3. Bolivia—Politics and government—
1982–2006. 4. Government, Resistance to—Bolivia—History. 5. Social movements—
Bolivia—History. I. Title. II. Series: New ecologies for the twenty‑fi rst century.
III. Series: Latin America in translation/en traducción/em tradução.
f3320.1.g6g8813 2014
984.05′3—dc23
Cover: AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa
In memory of Alfonso Gutiérrez Inzunza (1921–2007),
because his absence, as I finish this research, is the most painful.
He taught me how to love, respect, work, and cooperate.
Dedicated to Adolfo Gilly, with respect and affection,
for his tenacious efforts to understand what is happening.

Contents
Foreword: Beyond the Old Order of Things, Sinclair Thomson  ix
Preface  xix
Acknowledgments  xlvii
Part I.
Community Uprisings and Grassroots Democratization  1
Chapter 1. The Coalition for the Defense of Water and Life:
The Massive Public Defiance of State Order  3
Chapter 2. Aymara Roadblocks in La Paz:
Community as a Mobilizing Force  28
Chapter 3. The Disputed Territories of the Chapare:
The Coca Growers’ Struggles from 2000 to 2003  73
Part II.
From Governmental Collapse to Pachakuti’s Suspension, 2003–2005  97
Chapter 4. Insurgent Politics:
The Rebellious Year of 2003  99
Chapter 5. Compromises and “Catastrophic Balance”:
The Confusing Year of 2004  129
Chapter 6. The Growing Tension between Emancipation, Autonomy,
Self‑ Governance, and State Reconstitution in 2005  152
Conclusion: Final Reflections  175
Appendix 1: Methodological Approach  191
Appendix 2: Positions of the Three Most Important Social Voices  195
Notes 223    References 265    Index 275

Foreword
Beyond the Old Order of Things
In Rhythms of the Pachakuti we can sense the reverberations of an extraordi‑
nary historical process that took place in Bolivia at the start of the twenty‑fi rst
century. The book is the product of Raquel Gutiérrez Aguilar’s political en‑
gagement in that historical process and the fruit of her research and deep re‑
flection about what took place and what meaning it holds for radical politics.
It brings together, in rare fashion, firsthand personal experience, an honest
chronicling of events, acute and provocative analysis, and passionate com‑
mitment to the project of collective emancipation.
Rhythms of the Pachakuti is an ambitious book that not only contributes
to the multidisciplinary scholarship on Bolivian politics and the broader lit‑
erature on social movements but also moves boldly into the terrain of criti‑
cal theory, challenging capitalist social relations and state‑c entered political
projects of whatever stripe. It questions the aspirations to power of the tra‑
ditional Left and, by implication, the centralizing and vertical tendencies of
the Movement toward Socialism (mAS) government that emerged out of the
state crisis and popular struggle between 2000 and 2005. Drawing lessons
from the insurgencies in Bolivia in that period, Gutiérrez Aguilar stakes out
an alternative “popular‑ communitarian” position as a polestar for future lib‑
eration struggles.
Though of Mexican nationality, Gutiérrez Aguilar was intimately involved
in Bolivian politics for many years and acquired a quasi‑ legendary status
there as an intense, brilliant activist and radical intellectual. Her own politi‑
cal formation on the Mexican Left had been linked to the Central American
liberation struggles of the 1970s and 1980s. In 1981 she joined the forces of El
Salvador’s Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (fmln) operating in
Mexico. At the time, Gutiérrez Aguilar was a student of mathematics at the
National Autonomous University of Mexico (unAm). In this context she met
Álvaro García Linera, a Bolivian mathematics student also immersed in the
hothouse culture of Mexico’s revolutionary Left. Along with García Linera’s
brother Raúl, they conceived of taking the struggle to Bolivia but adapting it
to the distinctive conditions of internal colonial and capitalist exploitation in