Development and culture: Transnational identity making in Bolivia

Political Geography 24 (2005) 678e702 www.elsevier.com/locate/polgeo

Development and culture: Transnational identity making in Bolivia Robert Andolina a,*, Sarah Radcliffe b,1, Nina Laurie c,2 a

Department of Political Science, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, NY 14456, USA b Department of Geography, University of Cambridge, Downing Place, Cambridge, CB2 3EN, England, UK c Department of Geography, University of Newcastle, Daysh Building, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, England, UK

Abstract This article analyses ethnic identity making in contemporary Bolivia by combining insights from constructivist political science, human geography, and other disciplines. It shows how transnational discursive frameworks and spatial imageries shape local ethnic identities through the practices of mixed actor networks that operate at local, national, regional, and international scales. Focusing on indigenous peoples in the Bolivian highlands who mobilise around the Andean ayllu (community), we argue that redefinition of indigenous identities includes the representation and validation of subjects and actors within transnational discourses cohering neoliberalism and multiculturalism. As indigenous movement platforms and concepts are increasingly institutionalised in official agencies and policy frameworks, their demands for culturally appropriate government and development are in practice implemented as governmentally and developmentally appropriate culture. These changes have therefore enabled and constrained the ayllu movement’s ability to define its own identity and its access to political and economic resources. This case is emblematic of increasingly common

* Corresponding author. Tel.: C1 315 781 3176; fax: C1 315 781 3422. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (R. Andolina), [email protected] (S. Radcliffe), nina.laurie@ ncl.ac.uk (N. Laurie). 1 Tel.: C44 1223 333383; fax: C44 1223 333392. 2 Tel.: C44 191 222 6346; fax: C44 191 222 5421. 0962-6298/$ - see front matter Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2005.03.001

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transnational processes where multi-scalar changes in political visions, language, policies, and funding flows converge to reconstruct identities. Ó 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Development; Transnationalism; Identity; Politics; Geography; Bolivia

In highland Bolivia, a social movement based on the ayllu rivals existing indigenous organisations and clamours for acceptance by multiple political actors at various scales. Ayllus are Andean indigenous communities of extended families, cargo-based leadership patterns, and occupation of specific territorial spaces.3 In strengthening and federating ayllus, the ayllu movement has rearranged indigenous identity markers and organisational repertoires, and has negotiated the political boundaries of Bolivia’s recent decentralisation policy. This identity reconstruction responds not only to indigenous beliefs and strategies but also to transnational enactments of multicultural ‘‘ethnodevelopment’’ policy frameworks. As a result, the ayllu has been subject to a globalised game of mirrors in which local indigenous leaders, development non-governmental organisations, state reformers and World Bank professionals all see their reflection in the ayllu’s re-emergence. Leaders and advocates of the ayllu movement have appropriated new policies in order to construct their versions of indigenous culture. However, the ayllu’s increasing visibility envelops it in an ever-more complex transnational network that challenges the representativeness and development potential of contemporary indigenous movements, based on changing narratives of authenticity and success. While increasing the recognition of ayllus and their ethnic authorities as indigenous interlocutors, this network also shapes the parameters of their subjectivity. Such parameters fit neoliberal development paradigms more snugly than did previous highland indigenous identities, but this does not preclude a counter-hegemonic reconstruction of the ayllu movement, as its fit with neoliberalism is partial. Although the connection between transnationalism and ethnicity is a workaday assumption of many scholars of indigenous and other social movements (e.g. Brysk, 2000; Guidry, Kennedy & Zald, 2000; Varese, 1996), this article’s focus on the complex articulation between international development models, state formation, and indigenous movements sheds light on how new combinations of neoliberal and multicultural agendas compel local actors like indigenous organisations to grapple with unanticipated consequences of their movement’s own gains. And while this case exhibits features particular to Bolivia, those features are specific effects of broader changes in the relationship between development and culture occurring throughout 3 In a cargo-based leadership pattern, community leaders are expected to begin in lower offices to gain experience and recognition, and proceed gradually stepwise to positions of greater prestige and responsibility. Frequent turnover of leaders is normal, and there are few repeat officeholders. Often called thakhi in Aymara, this leadership system in the Andes produces mallkus and jilaqatas (ethnic community chiefs) of substantial age and experience. They are generally subject to community vigilance, however, and usually hold their positions for one year only.

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Latin America and beyond. One crucial change considered here is the inversion of indigenous efforts for culturally appropriate development to something closer to developmentally appropriate culture.

A transnational geography of identity politics Our analysis of the Bolivian ayllu’s reconstruction affirms the importance of analysing the transnational constitution of place and identity.4 Yet we argue for a stronger emphasis on subject formation and discursive transformation that assesses how new forms of transnational governmentality reshape prevailing assumptions about ethnic culture, and in turn legitimate some conceptualisations of identity over others.5 In order to apprehend these dynamics, this article forges an interdisciplinary approach that brings together discursive and political process theories of identity in political science, sociology and anthropology, combining them with concepts of space and scale. The political process paradigm in sociology and political science has taken an important cultural turn to explain how political claim making and validation of emergent subjects open space for reconfiguring identities (see Hanagan, Moch, & te Brake, 1998; Tilly, 1999). While this theory outlines the interactive logic behind identity making in national contexts, it underplays the ideational and spatial elements that render new subjectivities intelligible and meaningful. As a corrective, our approach links political process theory with social constructivist currents that stress linguistic, narrative, and ideological foundations of identity making (Alvarez, Dagnino, & Escobar, 1998; Finnemore & Sikkink, 2001; Hall, 1989; Somers & Gibson, 1994). Identities, as Dunn (2001: 56e57) argues, are forged out of stories and discourses that produce group categories and criteria of belonging, albeit situated within power-laden networks of interaction. We deploy geographical lenses to build a constructivist political process approach that integrates globalisation’s implications of de-territorialisation and re-territorialisation, or ‘‘glocalisation’’ (Swyngedouw, 1997). By focussing on boundary crossing, we capture flows and networks that transcend scales and borders. This includes ‘‘mixed actor’’ networks (Kaghram, Riker, & Sikkink, 2002: 9), which operate through multi-directional scale jumping (Perreault, 2003) and include but do not privilege agents of the state. In Bolivia, this network incorporates indigenous organisations, NGOs, and national and international official agencies. Through such a geographical lens, political process approaches can better account for how identities may emerge from transnational agency, while social constructivist theories can highlight the creation of transnational ‘‘semiotic communities’’ (Wedeen, 2003) that socially bridge the spatial distance and sovereign boundaries between otherwise disparate actors. 4

See for example Perreault (2003: 82). Governmentality and developmentality operate by deeming certain spaces, subjects, and modes of governance and development as appropriate and others as inappropriate (see Dean, 1999; Escobar, 1995; Watts, 2003). 5

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Our second geographical lens focuses on boundary-drawing practices that reify space and configure identities through ‘‘imaginative geographies’’ or ‘‘spatial representations’’ (Howitt, 2003; Said, 1979). Spatial representations are important for political process identity theory because they often anchor claims that validate/ invalidate identities. They are significant for social constructivism by informing definitions of regions and group identities that orient the entry of ‘‘outside’’ actors into those areas and cultures (see e.g. Agnew, 2003). This complex process of transgressing and reifying scales and boundaries creates contradictory possibilities for indigenous peoples. As Brysk (2000) demonstrates in cases of Latin American indigenous movements, local subaltern actors may overcome scalar limits by networking globallydthe classic boomerang model of Keck and Sikkink (1998)dwhere international pressure is brought to bear on domestic elites. Yet we argue that boomerangs thrown into the international arena may be ‘‘reloaded’’ as global ‘‘agents infuse social representations, conflicts, and agendas from other societies into ‘local’ or ‘domestic’ contexts’’ (Mato, 2000: 199). This networking and infusion may go through states as well as around them, and it can constrain local agency as well as enable it as the boomerang returns ‘‘home.’’ Boomerangs reloaded: indigenous movement success bounces back The convergence of ethnodevelopment discourses, culture’s institutionalisation and indigenous movements’ consolidation has created a new conjuncture of indigenous politics in Latin America. In contrast to the 1970s and 1980s when indigenous identities and agendas were ‘‘new,’’ today they are embedded in the policy frameworks, role identities, and strategic reasoning of mixed actor networks. However, the specific kind of indigenous identities constructed in the Andes is now different, because of earlier indigenous movement gains that compelled national governments and international development agencies to incorporate indigenous movement demands and concepts. In much of South America, indigenous identities had been marked primarily by pre-colonial spatiality and language use. In the Amazonian lowlands, local territorial scales and indigenous language use often converged. However, Quechua and Aymara speakers of the Andean highlands of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru transcended local scales, and language predominated over local territory as the political identity marker for those indigenous subjects. In effect, Andean highland ethnic identities were scaled as proto-national rather than local. This identification changed after ethnicity became a legitimate organising principle for national and global political institutions and policy frameworks, which effectively placed local territoriality, custom and history on a par with pre-colonial language as an indigenous political identity marker. Initially, indigenous leaders and movements mobilised around an Americas-wide ‘‘500 years of resistance’’ campaign (1988e1993). While transnationally engaging human rights, environmental, and grassroots development networks, indigenous organisations launched ‘‘post-liberal challenges’’ based on anti-colonial platforms for ‘‘plurinational states’’ (Andolina, 1999; Brysk, 2000; Yashar, 1999). These platforms demand ethnic autonomy and

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direct participation, promotion of indigenous language and culture, reduction of racial discrimination, greater socio-economic equity and grassroots, self-managed development. In response to this campaign, states and official development organisations selectively appropriated indigenous rights concepts in re-crafting agendas of neoliberal development and governance. Building on the International Labour Organisation’s 1989 launch of Convention 169 on indigenous rights, governments adopted a multiculturalist discourse formalised through models of pluralist decentralisation, while development agencies adopted notions of social capital in devising policies and projects targeting the indigenous grassroots (Assies et al., 2000; Sieder, 2002). Both moves contributed to a ‘‘social neoliberal’’ paradigm, which is increasingly prominent in development policy. Partially addressing criticisms by social movements and NGOs that market logic is insufficient to generate development, promoters of this heterodox form of neoliberalism believe that criteria like gender equity, cultural difference, environmental protection, fair resource access, and active participation can be compatible with the market (Andolina, Laurie, & Radcliffe, in press: Introduction, Ch. 2, Ch. 4). Through practices of appropriation, emulation, persuasion, and validation, members of mixed actor networks, including indigenous activists, have forged common yet contested discourses that reconstruct indigenous subject identities around a ‘‘commonsense’’ set of otherwise debatable ideas about ethnic culture. Specifically, intersecting narratives about authenticity (what counts as ‘‘really indigenous’’ in a given context) and success or potential success (in political governance and community development) have promoted certain indigenous identities over others. Such language has informed indigenous movement reorganisation as well as intervention by non-indigenous actors into indigenous communities and organisations. While most indigenous organisations expected ‘‘glocalisation’’ to generate culturally appropriate government and development, the result has resembled governmentally and developmentally appropriate culture.

Development, state and movement in highland Bolivia Indigenous peoples, whose ancestry is traced to pre-colonial societies, make up thirty-six linguistic groups and fifty nine percent of the Bolivian population. Aymara and Quechua speaking people from the highlands, where ayllus are located, compose fifty-five percent of the total Bolivian population. Although representing centuriesold structures and practices in some form, the current ayllu movement arrived recently on the heels of an ‘‘ethnicised peasant movement’’ (Brysk, 2000: 71). After the 1952 revolution, the Bolivian government universalised the franchise, carried out agrarian reform to create a class of small producers and organised indigenous peoples into corporatist union structures as ‘‘peasants.’’ On former haciendas, the indigenous peasantry actively engaged the post-revolutionary government, whose assistance was perceived as crucial to formalise land titles and local union organisations. In contrast, free holding communities (many of them ayllus) retained their land and community

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structures through the revolution, and their post-revolutionary participation was more limited and defensive in character (Albo´, 1987: 384e385). In most cases, individual land titles and local union structures merged to varying degrees with ethnic communal forms of economic and political administration. Bolivia’s indigenous activists thus faced an uneven scenario when they appropriated government-controlled unions in the 1970s and transformed them into the Confederation of Bolivian Peasant Workers (CSUTCB) in 1979. The Kataristas and CSUTCB forged an anti-colonial ideology around the colonial-era indigenous rebel Tupaj Katari,6 and tied Indianist ethnic-cultural concerns to a classbased peasant identity. At the time, CSUTCB defined highland indigenous ethnicity according to ‘‘[generic] cultural.heritage’’ (Hahn, 1996: 96) as speakers of Aymara and Quechua languages composing a national scale population. As a result, CSUTCB did not profoundly incorporate local actors like ayllus into its platforms or structure, nor did it ‘‘question how trade union structures might block or contradict ethno-cultural recovery’’ (Strobele-Gregor, 1996: 84). In that discursive context, however, CSUTCB was largely viewed as authentically indigenous and politically potent. The latter was illustrated strikingly by CSUTCB’s key role in sending the military government to the barracks for good in 1982, an achievement guided by the leadership of Jenaro Flores.7 Due to these perceptions of authenticity and potency, CSUTCB was recognised as the representative organisation of Bolivia’s highland Indians (Rivera, 1987). Yet many highland Indians are now organised into ayllu federations and councils, mainly affiliated with CONAMAQ, the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Qollasuyu (Bolivia). Marka is a local but multi-ayllu space, sometimes incorporated into the broader cultural space of a suyu. Qollasuyu refers to the highland region of Bolivia, once a key region of the Inca State. The ayllu movement is therefore remaking ethnic identities at various scales, rendering visible the names of community level ayllus and recovering meso-scale identity categories such as ‘‘Qhurqui’’ (marka) and ‘‘Karankas’’ (suyu) people. Such people speak Aymara or Quechua, but are no longer identified strictly according to language use or national scale (see Figs. 1 and 2).8 Located primarily in the Bolivian departments of La Paz, Oruro, and Potosı´ , ayllus can be defined as limited direct democracies. They are direct in that, ‘‘the communal assembly is the maximum authority,’’ which must approve all major decisions, including the selection of leaders (Ticona, 2003: 125). Normatively, such ethnic leadersdjilaqatas or mallkusdrise to their positions through lower offices in the cargo system, rotate power at regular intervals, try to reach decisions by consensus, and treat their post as community service. They are also expected to

6

Katari laid siege to La Paz in 1781 during a massive indigenous rebellion that constituted the greatest threat to Spanish colonial rule in the Central Andes prior to non-indigenous independence movements. 7 An Aymara Indian, Flores served as CSUTCB’s Executive Secretary from 1979 to 1988, orchestrating underground resistance to the military regime from a wheelchair. 8 Bolivia is administratively divided into departments, provinces, municipalities, and parishes. The scales of suyu, marka, and ayllu identities do not always correspond to these divisions.

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Fig. 1. Ayllus and Markas belonging to Karankas Identity, Oruro Department.

organise collective works, ensure an equitable distribution of resources and responsibilities, and sponsor/organise community festivals. In some cases, ethnic leaders were also local union leaders, but their education level and conception of authority usually differed from those of provincial, departmental and national union leaders (Strobele-Gregor, 1996: 77e78). The ayllu system is a limited democracy in class, generational, and gender terms. Only married owners of land ostensibly inherited from pre-Hispanic times are full ayllu citizens and can be selected to top political offices, and elder males represent the household in the ayllu community assembly. However, social class mobility is possible, youths can take on minor political roles, and women are increasing their political voice as their educational opportunities improve (Ticona, 2003). Historically, ayllus have been valuable to indigenous people for their provision of collective identity and spirituality, political autonomy, and economic security through land rights, (non-capitalist) reciprocal exchange and collaborative labour.9 Although the peasant confederation (CSUTCB) garnered considerable grassroots support in the 1980s for its ability to combat the Bolivian state, access agricultural benefits, and 9

For in-depth treatment of internal ayllu dynamics, see Platt (1982) and Abercrombie (1998).

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Fig. 2. Ayllus and Municipal Boundaries in Marka Qhurqhi.

promote bilingual-intercultural education, its limited articulation with ayllus and traditional community structures contributed to certain weaknesses. CSUTCB’s failure to avoid political party intervention, advocate for territorial autonomy, or deal effectively with indigenous rural out-migration, for example, led some ayllu communities to withdraw from active political participation or to consider organising new federations (Hahn, 1996; McNeish, 2002; Strobele-Gregor, 1996). While the internal complexities of Bolivian indigenous organisations generated grassroots clamour for changes, the transformation of the ayllu from local cultural paradigm to national political subject was by no means an inevitable result. Rather, the intervention and involvement of transnational actors and the Bolivian state, informed by changing discourses and policy frameworks, made this transformation viable and influenced its configuration. Chronologically, globalelocal partnerships in the late 1980s contributeddtogether with international campaigns around indigenous rightsdto broader Bolivian debates and legal reforms in the earlyemid 1990s. These in turn generated new possibilities and resources for the ayllu movement nationally and transnationally in the late 1990s. We trace these changes through three distinct but inter-related processes in which networking around new notions of authenticity and success consolidates a particular construction of indigenous subjects.10

10

The scope of our analysis requires a certain level of abstraction that proscribes detailed ethnographies of specific locales. The dynamics we explicate, however, echo many of those in McNeish’s (2002) close examination of Santuario de Quillacas in Oruro Department of Bolivia.

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Culturally appropriate development and ayllu protection In the 1980s and early 1990s, indigenous leaders and environmentalists exposed the devastating effects of internationally funded development projects such as dams in Brazil and India. Viewing tropical indigenous people and forests as especially distinct and vulnerable, indigenous leaders and NGOs promoted models of culturally appropriate development to protect fragile ethnicities and ecologies from destructive external forces. In the highland region of Bolivia, however, cultural survivalist agendas were less prominent. Built around a narrative of anti-colonial rebellion, the regionally predominant CSUTCB generally downplayed notions of indigenous vulnerability (see Hurtado, 1986), while environmentalists paid less attention to non-tropical areas. But after 1985, some international organisations connected with Bolivian ‘‘Indianists’’ who viewed class and union politics as colonial and external, and believed that local ayllu cultures formed a crucial basis for indigenous nationalism (see Pacheco, 1992). While not displacing CSUTCB, these localeglobal partnerships seeking a more strictly ethnic approach to development made inroads into highland Bolivia. Unlike lowland pro-indigenous advocacy directed against large-scale development, they countered grassroots development projects rooted in Marxism, liberation theology, and/or Western modernisation. The joint activity of the Andean Oral History Workshop (formed in 1983 with headquarters in La Paz) and Oxfam America’s Lima Office (headquarters in Boston affiliated to Oxfam International) provides one example. Many of the Workshop’s members were indigenous intellectuals who grew up in Bolivian ayllus but earned graduate degrees in other countries. Their work documented and transmitted Bolivian oral history and played a crucial role in cultural regeneration (Interview, 11 November 1999; Stephenson, 2002). Oxfam America, a global grassroots development NGO, concentrates its South American work on indigenous peoples. Its interest in supporting culturally based grassroots development in Bolivia chimed with the Oral History Workshop’s viewpoint. What happened with Oxfam America.was a clear identification [that] indigenous peoples are not going to solve their problems [through handouts, but through] support in the exercise of their collective political rights. (Interview, 3 September 1999) The Workshop and Oxfam America collaborated on a 1986 study of development projects in Northern Potosı´ , reflecting commonsense cartographies of that area as containing the most intact and authentic ayllus. This study provided a discursive basis for ayllu legitimacy and criticised development practices and union organisation as neocolonial. Oxfam honed its position in response to CSUTCBled development in the region: [At first.] I said, ‘‘Hey, this is interesting’’.and gave some support. And then went to visit, and.I found your absolutely typical development project [where] the views of the ayllu were straight out of sixteenth century Spanish colonial domination. (Interview, 31 March 2000)

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This alliance also provided funds (Oxfam) and advisers (Workshop) for discussion on ayllu strengthening and for creating ayllu federations in Northern Potosı´ and Southern Oruro departments (Rivera, 1997: 13; Interview, 4 April 2000).11 A second example of such transnational ethnodevelopment was the European Union-sponsored Campesino Self-Development Project, initiated in 1987 in Northern Oruro department.12 Communicating with the local NGO Ayllu Sartan˜ani, project workers came to view ayllu structures as bases for grassroots development, held debates on cultural identity and community representation, and recognised ethnic authorities (mallkus) over peasant union leaders as community interlocutors. By 1989, this project’s support enabled ayllu members to situate economic concerns within ayllu structures, aggregate ayllus in Northern Oruro under a new/old Karankas ethnic identity, and redefine concepts of territory to pre-colonial boundaries by accessing and analysing colonial land titles (Izko, 1992: 103e106). Like its counterparts in Northern Potosı´ and Southern Oruro, the Jach’a (Big) Karankas federation of ayllus is now a member of the national ayllu council, and its current leaders remember this EUsupported development project (Interview, 29 November 1999). As of 1989, a small but growing network of NGOs, advocates and subdepartmental ayllu federations supported ayllu-based development in tension with CSUTCB. This network largely bypassed the Bolivian state, whereby international actors played a key part in validating new indigenous identities and leadership both in word and through funding and knowledge flows. This affirmed not only ethnicity over class, but also disaggregated Aymara and Quechua language-based indigenous identities to include smaller-scale ones based on local custom, history, and land rights. Decentralised multiculturalism: subject categories and nation-state reform In spite of these developments, ‘‘the widely held notion.that [CSUTCB] was a genuine expression of the.indigenous peasantry remained uncontested for many years’’ (Strobele-Gregor, 1996: 83), and the Bolivian state recognised only CSUTCB as representing Bolivia’s indigenous highlanders. This recognition eventually changed in the midelate 1990s, due in part to unintended consequences of Bolivian legislation and constitutional reform, which incorporated increasingly legitimate international discourses on indigenous rights and indigenous demands hard-won through mass movements. The state thereby redefined Bolivia’s national identity and institutional framework around a multiculturalist discourse, but within Yashar’s (1999) aptly described shift from corporatist to neoliberal citizenship regime. After 1984 Bolivia enacted neoliberal ‘‘shock’’ policies to combat hyperinflation, debt and recession. These included monetary reform, industrial privatisation and bureaucracy reduction. But a 1990 national march by lowland Indians put indigenous territory on the political radar, initiating an intense period of protest 11 These ayllu federations were created in 1988e1989, with additional local and international support. The study was published as Silvia Rivera y Equipo THOA (1992). 12 This project offered US $21 million for ‘‘micro-projects’’ to improve small-scale agricultural production and herding (Van Niekerk, 1992: 55).

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and discussion around ethnicity and nationalism. A CSUTCB-led campaign to contest the 1992 quincentenial of the ‘‘discovery’’ of the Americas reinforced this debate. President Paz Zamora cancelled the official quincentenary celebration, and in 1993, former CSUTCB indigenous leader Victor Hugo Ca´rdenas was elected national Vice-President running with Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. More significantly for the ayllu movement, the government responded by means of policies that unintentionally engaged more with ayllus than with the indigenous peasant movement. While extending the neoliberal model, these ‘second generation’ reforms entailed social and administrative components. Bolivia’s 1991 ratification of International Labour Organisation Convention 169 on indigenous rights identified peoples according to maintenance of tradition and attachment to local territories (as ‘‘habitat’’), and included rights to administer indigenous forms of justice.13 Constitutional reforms in 1994 defined Bolivia as a multicultural and pluriethnic state and recognised indigenous communal land and justice systems (Van Cott, 2000: 145). These features potentially increased the importance of ayllus (as local spatial entities) and ethnic authorities (as community judges practicing customary legal norms). Three further reforms shifted conditions around political identity and space. The 1995 decentralisation and popular participation laws, which drew on other Latin American experiences and advice from bilateral and multilateral donors, had contradictory effects. The first of these extended the municipality throughout the countryside, sometimes cutting across ayllu boundaries. The Law of Popular Participation, on the other hand, allowed for legal recognition of ayllus as ‘‘territorial grassroots organisations’’ that can access municipal funds and participate in municipal vigilance committees (cf. Albo´ & CIPCA, 1999: 115). Notably, the official Popular Participation administration registers communities as either peasant or indigenous. This dichotomy unravelled the prevailing identity construction of the peasant movement, which had combined peasant and indigenous categories, while ayllus could unproblematically identify with the latter. Finally, the 1996 agrarian reform created a freer land market, threatening individual small producers (many of whom are indigenous) through increased competition and pressure to sell their land. Yet it also permitted the legalisation of ‘‘original community lands’’ more accessible for those registered as ‘‘indigenous’’ through Popular Participation, as indicated in the law’s reglamento (Choque, 2000: 24). Culminating in a redefinition of the state’s political geography, economic scope, and national identity, these reforms legitimised Bolivia internationally for being mutually democratic, multicultural and neoliberal. Although the indigenous peasant confederation had previously adopted linguistic-nationalist indigenous identities linked to class concerns, the shifting context facilitated the legitimacy of local ethnic identities and demands distinct from linguistic and classist norms. These reforms also enabled the Bolivian state to regulate and validate the ayllu movement, something that previously took place through localeglobal interactions almost entirely outside state purview.

13 The convention does, however, allow latitude for self-identification. Go to www.ilolex.ch:1567/public/ english/docs/convdisp.htm, and enter 169.

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Developmentally appropriate culture: mixed actor networks and social capital Like the multiculturalist frameworks of Latin American states, ethnodevelopment policy discourse took significant turns as indigenous rights and demands became visible and legitimate. Ethnodevelopment has gone from being ‘‘culturally appropriate development’’ to ‘‘developmentally appropriate culture’’ as official development organisations designed and implemented their own ethno-policies inline with an emergent social neoliberalism (see p. 5 above). The World Bank, InterAmerican Development Bank, and European Union initially revised their policy criteria to mitigate development damage to indigenous groups. In the mid-1990s, however, multilateral development banks established indigenous affairs teams, which have negotiated with indigenous representatives and government officials (Deruyterre, 1997; Trio, 1995; Interview, 12 January 2000). The Bolivian government responded to these international changes by reorienting its indigenous ministry around ‘‘development with identity’’ and by implementing recent legislation with international financing (Interview, 13 December 1999). Key to the evolution and transmission of this policy discourse is the growth of what we term an ethnodevelopment network of actors, often highly committed to indigenous rights, who transmit common criteria through NGOs, bilateral agencies and multilateral organisations. Many official agency functionaries specialising in indigenous affairs have NGO work histories, and network members often know one another, maintain informal contacts and attend the same meetings where they exchange ideas and experiences (Interviews, Field notes). Extending the ethnodevelopment paradigm into official development agencies has also transformed it by combining neoliberal, multicultural and grassroots concepts in a double move on modernisation theory. Ethnodevelopment recasts modernisation theory by rejecting the idea that ‘‘traditional’’ cultural values are obstacles to progress. Indigenous ‘‘ancestral and traditional knowledge,’’ cultural ties to land, and community practices such as mingas (collective labour) are now viewed as important sources of social capital like strong associational networks and trust. Tradition can therefore be an engine of development, where indigenous culture is an asset for wealth-generation (Van Nieuwkoop & Uquillas, 2000: 3). On the other hand, new ethnodevelopment discourse reinscribes core modernisation tenets. Relying on Putnam’s (1993) conception of culture, it portrays social and economic capital as convertible, and assumes that results found in Putnam’s research site of Northern Italy can be replicated elsewhere. It also stresses local factor endowments over how global factors affect social capital conditions or accumulation possibilities.14 In addition, revised ethnodevelopment reifies links of contemporary indigenous peoples to traditional culture, instead of seeing indigenous cultures as particular manifestations of modernity. Finally, while social capital is portrayed 14 Kirp (1993) remains sceptical of replicating social capital, while Fine (2000) is generally critical of the social capital concept. Transcending Putnam’s localised/insulated notion, Bebbington and Perreault (1999) devise multi-scalar concepts of social capital, although they are not effectively deployed by most development organisations.

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as a native basis for development, outside intervention in the form of financing, education, and technology transfer is deemed necessary to turn social capital into productivity and wealth.15 The strategic implications of this discursive change are threefold. First, representing indigenous social capital as reproduced on the local scale endorses the construction and projection of localised ethnic identities. Second, by shifting notions of progress to define indigenous culture as untapped capital stock, development agents now aid indigenous people not by insulating them from Western-style development, but by investing further in indigenous cultural assets to incorporate them into it (e.g. Davis, 2002). Third, although responding to indigenous demands, ethnodevelopment now includes language that ties indigenous movement platforms to those of international development economists committed to neoliberalism. In Andean countries, development’s cultural turn is narrated as a virtuous circle: greater authenticity means greater social capital which means greater development possibilities, but always dependent on external aid.

Bolivian indigenous identities in a transnational matrix Responding to these changes, local and international NGOs initiated or increased their support to ayllu federations in Bolivia. Official international development agencies deployed their ethno-cultural agendas through the Bolivian Indigenous Ministry, Popular Participation Ministry and Land Reform Institute, which are charged with implementing many of the state reforms. This engagement of Bolivia and transnational agendas offered new possibilities for ayllus along specific paths of social neoliberal governmentality. On a local scale, development agencies envision ayllus as concentrated spaces of social capital and communal participation that can benefit from transnational investment and support. On a national scale, ethnodevelopment networks believe that they can help reproduce ‘‘successful’’ organisational and political models like those in Ecuador’s indigenous movement. While not simply conforming to these representations and actors, the ayllu movement has tried to render its own identities and agendas intelligible to them. It has done so in part by emulating model indigenous confederations, whose exemplary status is based on a partial reading of their identities and strategies. Within this framework, CSUTCB appears as the ‘‘bad example’’ for the ayllu movement to avoid. Although rooted in more recent ideologies and organisational forms than precolonial ayllu imagery, notions of progress have shifted so that CSUTCB is now positioned as backwardsdinauthentic, uncompromising with neoliberalism, and disruptive to governability. In contrast, the Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of the Bolivian Lowlands (CIDOB) is portrayed as a positive example for the ayllu 15

Wade (1997) shows how academic studies of indigenous peoples formerly assumed the ‘‘traditional’’ character of indigenous cultures, an assumption shared by modernisation theory and thinking (e.g. Lipset (1986) and Vargas Llosa (1990)).

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movement to follow. Consolidated as a representative organisation in 1988, CIDOB has identified over thirty indigenous groups according to language use, local territories, and traditional authority systems of capitanı´as. The latter two identity markers resonate with ayllus, while CIDOB is broadly viewed as a good negotiator with constructive proposals and a strategic tendency toward dialogue. The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, created in 1986, is also framed as exemplary for the ayllu movement (and for Bolivian indigenous movements as a whole) because it has united indigenous people from highland and lowland regions of Ecuador, replaced peasant identities with ethno-cultural ones, and enhanced the legitimacy and institutional participation of Ecuadorian indigenous peoples. This confederation has also co-governed the Indigenous and AfroEcuadorian People’s Development Projectdoften posed as a successful model of ethnodevelopment that includes indigenous participation and identity (Interview, 12 January 2000). Sponsored by the World Bank at $U.S. 50 million, the project’s governing board was comprised of Bank personnel, Ecuadorian officials, and indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorian representatives. Social capital assumptions influenced this ethnodevelopment project, which Ecuadorian indigenous leaders have appropriated to promote identities of indigenous pueblos rather than organisations seen to have roots in ‘‘inauthentic’’ union structures. Keeping in mind these networks and exemplars, we identify three specific though overlapping multi-scalar negotiations of indigenous subjectivities.

Authentic-successful indigenous organisations In March 1997, not long after the 1991e1996 government reforms, the National Council of Ayllus and Markas of Bolivia (CONAMAQ) was created, culminating a multi-year process in which ayllu movement activists sought to persuade highland indigenous communities to reconstruct and aggregate ayllus. Although debates during the CSUTCB-led ‘‘500 years’’ campaign (1989e1992) evoked the ayllu as an indigenous symbol, most of their proposals marginalised ayllus and original authorities by emphasising class-based demands and macro-scale linguistic ethnic identities (CSUTCB, 1992; Hahn, 1996). Rene´ Choque, a local ethnic authority in La Paz department, responded to this campaign and the 1995 popular participation law as moments for reconstitution around concepts of authenticity. Well, I addressed this situation by grabbing some books and documents, where I discovered that [not] unionism.but the ayllu had been our true form of organisation [.] Yet I was always very authentic [.]. I was initiated as a leader and I reached these conclusions myself, no one told them to me. (cit. Rivera, 1997: 51) This local re-ordering of indigenous identities is echoed among representatives across the highlands as a whole, especially as ayllu federations drew sharper lines differentiating them from the indigenous peasant confederation, as illustrated by national apu mallkus (heads of CONAMAQ):

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 The unions have come on the scene only since the 1953 Agrarian Reform; the ayllus and original authorities have been around forever.  In the peasant unions.political parties are making all of the decisions from above; our brothers [the indigenous peasant leaders] are like their pawns [while] CONAMAQ is working from the bottom up. (Interview, 9 September 1999). These statements rewrite indigenous movement anti-colonialism in a way that positions ayllus and their leaders (ethnic authorities) as more authentic and representative than their peasant movement counterparts. Being unlike the peasant movement in this discursive context, moreover, meant being like the Ecuadorian and lowland Bolivian federations, and CONAMAQ has emulated them to some degree. For example, CONAMAQ shared office space with the Bolivian lowland Indian confederation from 1997 to 1999, and the two organisations have asserted a longterm aim of mirroring the Ecuadorian indigenous movement by uniting into one national Bolivian confederation, but to the exclusion of CSUTCB (Interview, 10 September 1999). As put by a former mallku of CONAMAQ, ‘‘The lowland and [ayllu federations] are like brothers, one as the older and the other as younger, because they are both recuperating cultural identity’’ (Interview, 9 September 1999). Likewise, Oxfam America and IBIS have promoted the Ecuadorian indigenous confederation as a model for Bolivia by sponsoring exchanges between ayllu movement leaders and Ecuadorian indigenous leaders.16 This effectively opened new participatory spaces by launching ayllu council leaders as international indigenous representatives of Bolivia, yet presumed that they would learn from the Ecuadorians (Interview, 4 April 2000). As a former director of IBIS notes: The Ecuadorian experience.may happen in Bolivia [.]. There had been efforts to include an ethnic project in CSUTCB, but it is totally identified with unions and has stayed with a discourse from the 1970s.now defunct. [.] The ayllu movement could be a Bolivian ECUARUNARI [the Ecuadorian highland indigenous federation affiliated to the national confederation, CONAIE]. (Interview, 16 November 1999) Taking place since 1998, these exchanges have allowed participating indigenous leaders to build solidarity, and to share experiences regarding community justice, land conflicts, environmental protection and indigenous rights legislation. They have also joined forces to oppose expansion of the Free Trade Association of the Americas (El Comercio January 19, 1999; Stephenson, 2002: 104; Field notes). Reflecting on these interactions, ayllu council leaders have echoed their donor’s expectations, by ‘‘admiring the [Ecuadorian movement] as more advanced’’ (CONAIE, 2001), and saying, ‘‘the exchanges with the Ecuadorian indigenous movement have given us strength to grow as an original peoples’ movement, outside of peasant unionism’’ (Interview, 25 November 1999). For their part, Ecuadorian

16 IBIS is a Danish NGO that began funding ayllu associations in 1998, having supported Bolivian lowland and Ecuadorian indigenous organisations since the early 1990s.

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indigenous leaders have affirmed the ayllu’s cultural authenticity, with some of them considering reconstructing ayllus in Ecuador (Interview, 4 April 2000). CONAMAQ is also following Ecuador’s example by attempting to press additional indigenous cultural and territorial rights into the Bolivian constitution, which the Ecuadorians accomplished in 1998. IBIS contracted a former Ecuadorian indigenous leader to advise ayllu movement leaders for the upcoming Bolivian constitutional assembly (Interview, 14 January 2004). Finally, no one promotes exchanges between CONAIE Ecuadorian indigenous organisations and CSUTCB, something not uncommon ten to fifteen years ago. Institutionalised state multiculturalism Mallkus, ayllu community members and their advisors forge their agenda by apprehending and debating Bolivian multicultural reforms in workshops and assemblies. They often invite local CSUTCB affiliates to attend, hoping to persuade them to ‘‘defect’’ to the ayllu movement. Participants define Bolivian legal reforms as pathways to decolonisation with attendant dangers and limitations. [Our demands] adhere to rights and recognition granted by the state and by laws in effect. This framework consists of Articles 1 and 171 of the Constitution, Article 3 of the Ley INRA, Law 1257 (ILO Convention 169), Education Reform Law and others. However.the ayllus have benefited little; moreover, the state is doing nothing to make these rights known to indigenous peoples. (CONAMAQ, 2000a: 5) Indeed, NGOs have supported most of these seminars. Alongside indigenous functionaries, they translate ‘‘identity,’’ ‘‘multiculturalism,’’ and ‘‘constitution’’ into indigenous languages, and draw figures to differentiate ‘‘land’’ (owned individually, continuous, surface only) from ‘‘territory’’ (owned collectively, sometimes discontinuous, includes subsoil). While discussing concrete identity and livelihood concerns, these training sessions and linguistic translation have articulated ayllu agendas to state multiculturalism, in turn extending indigenous movement and state discourses to local scales. The Bolivian state has validated ayllu identities and organisations corresponding to its decentralisation and ‘‘dialogue’’ paradigm, within a narrative that associates peasant unions with ‘‘backward’’ concepts and tactics, and that represents the lowland indigenous confederation as more modern for its propensity to dialogue within current discourses of neoliberalism and good governance. The lowland indigenous confederation has the capacity to launch proposals, not the highland union federation [CSUTCB]. [The latter] still retains a discourse from the 1970s, saying that the state and international development are agents of US imperialism. They have a vision from before the fall of the Berlin Wall. (Interview, 1 September 1999) Ayllu council leaders have embraced dialogic tactics, enhancing their likeness to the lowlanders and accentuating their difference from CSUTCB. As put by one ayllu

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council leader from La Paz, ‘‘We don’t [put] tyres in the road and cause havoc. That’s what the syndicalists do; that’s not what we’re about.’’ (Interview, 25 July 2004). In addition, the Bolivian state has officially recognised CONAMAQ as a legitimate representative of highland indigenous people, granting it consultative space in the Indigenous Ministry (along with CSUTCB). The National Agrarian Reform Institute, responsible for granting community land titles, has validated micro-level land claims in the highlands as ayllus rather than peasant communities, but has invalidated meso-level land proposals (e.g. markas or suyus) from ayllu federations as ‘‘excessive.’’17 A former Land Minister seconded this interpretation by stating that territorial claims made by ayllu federations are ‘‘slipping out of control’’ (cf. Interview, 13 January 2004). Meso-scale territorial claims go beyond municipalities, the scale of Bolivia’s state decentralisation, and could zone off larger spaces of the country from full market competition. In sum, while ayllu federation leaders attempt to make government restructuring via multiculturalism appropriate to ayllu cultures, the state appears to make ayllu culture appropriate to governmental neoliberal multiculturalist restructuring. Official ethnodevelopment Since 1998 social neoliberalism and exemplary cases have framed ethnodevelopment implementation and ayllu movement development agendas. Although no Bolivian versions of the Ecuadorian Indigenous Development Project are forthcoming, efforts to replicate its principles and results are not rare. Furthermore, the notion that indigenous culture is a form of social capital has become widely shared in ethnodevelopment networks. In stating, ‘‘The ayllu is social capital,’’ Denmark’s official development agency asserted that social capital stock explains ayllu durability in the face of centuries of domination and poverty (Interview, 14 January 2004). Hoping to invest in that capital to enhance indigenous development, the Danes have funded original community land titling (as provided in the 1996 Agrarian Reform Law) and local municipality strengthening (as laid out in the 1995 Popular Participation Law) to further ayllu participation in local governance and budget access. Building on its apparent success in Ecuador, the World Bank sponsored an ‘‘Innovation and Learning’’ indigenous development programme implemented by the Bolivian Indigenous Ministry.18 This programme follows social capitalism in building on indigenous people’s ‘‘cultural knowledge’’ to generate marketable projects in ethno-tourism, ethno-biology and agriculture. It has shared the Bank’s Ecuadorian practice of funding projects designed by indigenous organisations, and 17

Only three Original Community Lands are titled in highland Bolivia, but the government has received over one hundred claims, ninety percent of them from ayllu organisations not peasant organisations (Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria 2002; Interview, 14 January 2004). 18 The Rural and Indigenous Development Officer of the World Bank in Bolivia is also the Task Manager for the Bank’s indigenous development project in Ecuador.

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has insured the representation of all indigenous confederations on the ministerial board that implemented the programme. When CSUTCB leaders sought to eliminate programme representation of the ayllu councils, the World Bank insisted that they stay on the grounds that ‘‘they are the only truly ethnic representatives from highland Bolivia’’ (Interview, 17 February 2001). Incidentally, the Latin American Indigenous Development Fund, managed by indigenous leaders but multilaterally funded, provided resources for documenting indigenous ethnodevelopment experiences in Bolivia. The book containing the results of the research (see Carrasco, Iturralde, & Uquillas, 2000) included nothing on the peasant-indigenous confederation CSUTCB. Explaining its continued support, Oxfam America describes ayllu practices in a way that links the progress narrative of social capital with the ayllu councils’ authenticity discourse. The ayllu is a form of Andean organisation [that maintains] principles.opposed to the peasant unions, which are organisational forms imposed on the ayllus [.]. These principles are reciprocity.cooperation in exchange work.and a complementary relationship between the individual and the group. (Oxfam America, 1999) Increasingly competent within new ethnodevelopment frameworks, ayllu councils tie them to their own narrative and to guidance from other indigenous associations. Only through [CONAMAQ, a true representative] can the highland region of Bolivia gain equal treatment and respect with development institutions and raise the quality of life of indigenous peoples, as CIDOB [has done] in the lowlands. (Choqueticlla, Maraza, & Vasquez, 2000: 98) CONAMAQ’s development platform also overlaps with a social, heterodox neoliberal agenda. It includes, ‘‘the reactivation of Andean structures of production, based on socio-political structures of production in the ayllu,’’ and indigenous cultural norms of ‘‘ayni, mink’a y choqo’’ [reciprocity and collective labour] (CONAMAQ, 2000a: 7; CONAMAQ, 2000b: 3). It also insists on territorial rights as an economic development basis; the export of ayllu-value-added products; ecologically sound agriculture; and culturally appropriate education at all levels. Ayllu movement proposals do not systematically criticise neoliberalism, but they do list colonialism, neglect, and oligarchic domination as causes of their development problems. They also call for a halt on imports that ayllus could otherwise produce (CONAMAQ, 2000b: 3e5), a localised version of import-substitution policy seemingly at odds with neoliberal orthodoxy. While largely supporting ayllu movement initiatives, some pro-ethnodevelopment organisations have invalidated ayllu movement land claims at the meso-scale of markas or suyus. They have gone beyond similar state objections, labelling ayllu activists who make meso-scale claims as ‘‘Aymara fundamentalists,’’ contrasting them with ayllu ‘‘multiculturalists’’ whose territorial proposals are smaller-scale. The World Bank also responded to such claims by temporarily suspending funding of original community land. Developmentally appropriate culture, therefore, may

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evoke assumptions about scale and space in tandem with concepts of authenticity, social capital stock, and representative potential (Interviews, 12 and 14 January 2004).

Consequences and implications Asked if shifting from peasant to ayllu indigenous identity was cosmetic, mallku Julian Jala responded that the transformation is serious, but must involve ‘‘members of the community up to the councils of ayllus’’ (cit. Rivera, 1997: 47). Authorities and activists like Jala hooked into government and development reforms to redefine local indigeneity and transpose it onto broader scales. They thereby expanded from ayllus to trans-local ethnic groups (‘‘Machaqa,’’ ‘‘Pacaje,’’ ‘‘Charca,’’ or ‘‘Quillacas’’ peoples), to national and international identities as seemingly authentic ‘‘indigenous’’ or ‘‘original’’ peoples. Indigenous leaders of Ingavi, for example, have redefined the province as a suyu made up of markas and ayllus. At each scale, an original authority council has replaced union federations, and is elected according to the ayllu’s annual rotation system (Plata, Colque, & Calle, 2003). In Bolivia as a whole (Qollasuyu), ‘‘CONAMAQ encompasses approximately 543 ayllus and 2,200 original authorities’’ (Oxfam America, 2004).19 This reconfiguration of indigeneity has also disentangled two key aspects of the indigenous peasant movement’s discourse: (1) The congruence of peasant and ethnic identity categories; (2) Marking indigenous identity categories primarily by preColombian language use. By reinterpreting anti-colonial principles of indigenous movement ideology, ayllu activists have portrayed the ayllu and original authorities as more authentic and progressive with sufficient success to create a formidable rival movement in the Bolivian highlands. Ayllu leaders enact distinct identities in part through distinct leadership. Leadership practices are transforming to promote authorities through the cargo system (see Footnote 3), maintain ayllu/marka spatial boundaries and landmarks, and direct community works and ceremonies (Cusi, Calle, & Mamani, 2000; Stephenson, 2002: 113e114). In addition, ayllu movement assemblies tend to be lowkey as leaders take turns, while peasant union meetings often involve macho posturing and shouting. Ayllu council leaders must obey term limits as their local authorities do, while CSUTCB leaders can be re-elected multiple times. Federations and councils of ayllus also distinguish themselves from the peasant confederation by avoiding direct confrontation with the government and its neoliberal agenda (CONAMAQ, 2000a). Historically, local original authorities created discussion and built consensus. They now scale out these role identities as they promote a dominant strategy of dialogue as national and international representatives. 19 While impossible to determine the percentage of indigenous communities associated with ayllu federations, experts in Bolivia suggest that ayllus are the dominant organisation in Oruro and Potosı´ departments, and influential in over ten provinces in La Paz department (Interview, 12 January 2004; Ticona, 2003).

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Financial and technical assistance reinforce these enactments of indigenous identity. Development agencies and indigenous rights NGOs have affirmed CONAMAQ and multicultural/participatory government reforms by channelling funds directly to ayllu councils or to programmes that they can access via the state. Since 1998, international NGOs have provided roughly $U.S. 2.5 million to ayllu councils and support organisations. Official development aid for popular participation and communal land implementation via Bolivian state institutions has topped $U.S. 30 million. Access to that funding is not generally restricted to ayllus, but the Danish official development agency has earmarked some of this funding for ayllus and their federations since 2003.20 A Bolivian ayllu support network has expanded to include Dialogue Foundation and Centre for the Integral Development of Aymara Women. It also integrates ongoing ayllu advocates like the Andean Oral History Workshop (now reinvented as the Centre for Aymara Studies), Ayllu Sartan˜ani, Centre for Alternative Agrarian Development and Institute for Popular Legal Counsel. Once on the margins of the indigenous movement led by the peasant union, ‘Indianist’ indigenous intellectuals who work for these organisations now play active advisory roles for ayllu organising and leader/community training (see also Stephenson, 2002). The ayllu movement has not completely replaced the peasant movement, however, nor is it universally more representative or competent. Such a view would ignore indigenous appropriation of ‘‘outside’’ labels and institutions and overlook ayllu leaders’ deviations from ‘‘good governance.’’ The grassroots legitimacy of these indigenous movement confederations is variable, and local indigenous communities hold distinct views about them. Indigenous communities in parts of Northern Potosı´ and Southern Oruro made clear their preference for ayllu federations over peasant unions, even as they criticised specific ayllu federation leaders for being inadequate. These communities’ development priorities, moreover, are reflected in regional and national ayllu council platforms (CONAMAQ, 2000b; McNeish, 2002; Molina & Portugal, 1995). In contrast, indigenous communities in Collana (La Paz department) remained a peasant union after flirting with ayllu reconstitution, in part due to successful union defence of their landholdings in the face of large landowner manipulation (Guarachi, 2003). On the national level, CONAMAQ’s dialogic approach is sometimes criticisedd even by local ayllusdas being too accommodating. When CSUTCB and other social movements staged massive protests in 2000 and 2003, CONAMAQ remained on the sidelines. In 2000, it openly negotiated with then President Banzer, and in 2003 some of its leaders accepted money in exchange for not mobilising their communities (Personal communication, 26 July 2004). The first incident led to early elections for new CONAMAQ leaders, and the latter led to the creation of a rival CONAMAQ faction of ‘non-corrupted’ leaders. In both incidents, some local communities returned to the CSUTCB fold, such as the Pacajes province ayllu federation. It

20 IBIS (1998), Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto (1998), Oxfam America (1999), Interviews, 17 February 2001 and 13e14 January 2004, www.iaf.gov/grants.

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re-affiliated with CSUTCB, however, on the condition that it recognise and respect the ayllu structure and leadership, which CSUTCB accepted (Personal communication, 13 August 2004). In sum, the constitution of Bolivian indigenous political subjects is still in tension, yet the ayllu movement is a recognised, established player in that dispute.

Conclusion This variegation and tension show that ayllu identities and interlocutors are widely recognised and established because they have arisen out of local, national and global processes. Understanding these processes requires attention to symbolic and strategic interaction among network actors, ideologies and discourses shaping criteria for legitimation, and identity consolidation through resource flows and institutional reform. The appeal of an ‘authentic’ indigenous ethnicity centred on the ayllu and traditional authorities elicited legitimacy and funding; but it also attracted visions and expectations about the movement’s politics and tactics that have shaped, sometimes constrained, its subjectivity and representativeness. Although locally grounded, ayllus represent a significant change in the global formation of political subjects and development goals. Worldwide experiments in ethnodevelopment illustrate that transnational intersections of social neoliberalism and local ethnicities also pose new challenges and possibilities outside of Latin America. In Tanzania, ethnic groups like Masaai Pastoralists make claims of indigeneity due in part to the influence of international development and indigenous rights agencies (Cameron, 2001). Globally, The World Bank has recently completed consultations with government officials and ethnic group representatives in Asia, Africa and Latin America on a new development framework for indigenous and tribal peoples worldwide. In Bolivia, this intersection has encouraged indigenous identity parameters inline with some neoliberal goals. Being at the nexus of support and dependence, ethnodevelopment is ‘‘presented as a quantitative increase in capacity, [but] acts as a qualitative transformation of forms of subjectivity’’ (Dean, 1999: 70). The discursive remaking of neoliberalism with concepts like social capital, grassroots empowerment and good governance has been especially significant, as it overlaps with ayllu movement emphases on cultural difference and density, local identities and institutions, and traditional leadership practices. CONAMAQ’s selective emulation of Bolivian lowland and Ecuadorian Indian identities and agendas has reinforced this ayllu-neoliberal fit.21 The overlap between indigeneity and neoliberalism is limited, however. On the one hand, ayllu movement activists were genuinely frustrated by the unwillingness of the peasant confederation to fully address the ayllu, and their appropriation of state 21 Breto´n (2001) and Hale (2002) critique ‘multicultural neoliberalism’ in Ecuador and Guatemala, respectively.

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reforms and development discourses enhanced the recognition of ayllus and original authorities well beyond what CSUTCB would initially offer. Yet, if part of what has made ayllus distinct is being rooted in non-capitalist modes of production (see Hahn, 1996), the insertion of ayllus into a social neoliberal paradigm may undermine their cultural difference. This non-capitalist tradition also suggests that ayllu identities and agendas could be constructed to explicitly oppose neoliberalism and state-driven decentralisation. Ayllu federations have made community land claims well beyond the scale of the municipality, for example, and they are becoming increasingly active in Bolivian and Latin American networks opposing the Free Trade Association of the Americas. The Bolivian ayllu movement is of course partly a product of state and international development appropriations of indigenous movement discourses of the early 1990s. And CONAMAQ must deal with separate indigenous confederations at least its equal in political strength. These factors may give it less room to manoeuvre. While a more oppositional CONAMAQ stance is possible, it would appear to demand closer work with Bolivian indigenous lowlanders (its indigenous friend) and CSUTCB (its ‘‘less authentic’’ indigenous rival). CONAMAQ’s January 2004 convocation of all Bolivian indigenous leaders to discuss a possible common platform for the upcoming constituent assembly may therefore represent a move toward counter-hegemonic ayllu identities.

Acknowledgements This article is product of the ‘‘Transnational Indigenous Communities in Ecuador and Bolivia’’ research project, sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK). Fieldwork was conducted in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Britain and the United States between July 1999 and June 2000, and in yearly follow-up visits until 2004.

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