Peasant and indigenous-led coalitions in the fight for a culturally pertinent higher education in Bolivia: 1992-2014. An exploration into indigenous modernity

AN EXPLORATION INTO INDIGENOUS MODERNITY

J. Fernando Galindo PROEIB-Andes, Universidad Mayor de San Simón, Bolivia

([email protected], [email protected])

Presentation made at the International Conference Trans-ethnic Coalition-building within and across States, 7-9 January

2015, Main University Building, Uppsala University, Sweden

Peasant and indigenous-led coalitions in the fight for a culturally pertinent

higher education in Bolivia: 1992-2014

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Aims of this presentation

1. Identify and describe the peasant indigenous-led coalitions involved in the social and political demand for a culturally pertinent higher education (CPHE) and the building of indigenous universities in Bolivia.

2. Reflect on the meaning of the rise of indigenous universities for: a) the university system and b) the process of building a Plurinational State in Bolivia.

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Argument

1. For Bolivian peasant and indigenous social movements and organizations higher education is a new field of political action seeking a culturally pertinent higher education (CPHE) as part of their long struggle with the state and dominant society for the recognition of their community and citizenship rights.

2. On the issue of a CPHE, peasant and indigenous organizations structured coalitions in two stages: First, the framing of a CPHE as a cultural and political demand; and second, the communitarian and participatory designof three indigenous universities collective called UNIBOLES.

3. The struggle for a CPHE is part of the general process of political auto-construction and auto-emancipation in which indigenous and peasant movements are immersed since colonial times.

4. This auto-construction and auto-emancipation is part of the construction of alternative modernities in Bolivia, in this case indigenous modernities.

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Overview

1. Antecedents: a) recognition of Bolivian cultural diversity, and b) the long struggle for a culturally pertinent education.

2. The framing of the demand of a CPHE and a description of the coalitions involved.

3. The building of indigenous universities and the coalitions involved.

4. Reflections on the significance of indigenous universities for the university system and the construction of the Plurinational State in Bolivia.

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RECOGNITION OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY AND THE LONG FIGHT FOR A CULTURALLY

PERTINENT EDUCATION

I. Antecedents

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1. Recognition of cultural diversity

1. Bolivia is a culturally diverse society. During colonial times its diverse indigenous populations were subjected to homogenizing exclusion policies under the category of indios and the spatial segregation of this population in indian towns (dual society). With modernization (since the 1952 nationalisic revolution) they were subject to homogeneizing inclusion policies as peasants. (MAPS)

2. As a result of indigenous and peasant political struggles since 2009, the new Plurinational State set into motion by a new constitution recognizes Bolivia’s cultural diversity: the existence of 36 indigenous nations.

3. Two main policies put into motion by the new Plurinational State are: the redistribution of hydrocarbons rents (IDH), and the construction of new institutions: as in the case of indigenous universities.

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1. Ethnic diversity in Bolivia

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1. A culturally pertinent education

An education that considers the central place of

1.Local cultures and values

2.Indigenous languages

3.Local knowledge

4.Local and regional development views (sumaj kawsay, good living) and needs

In the education of the populations to which it is aimed.

In Bolivia this is called “intracultural education”, education propia (education in our own terms) or indigenous education.

On the base of strengthening education propia open to intercultural education.

But historically and in present-day Bolivian society the opposite has been the dominant trend: the domination of an homogenizing and western education for the needs of a unified nation-state.

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1. Three moments in the fight for a CPE

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COALITIONS FRAMING A CULTURALLY

PERTINENT HIGHER EDUCATION:1994-2009

II.

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2. Historical context of coalitions involving peasant and indigenous movements and organizations

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2. Broader factors contributing in building a CPHE

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2. The targets of the demand

1. Public universities

2. The Bolivian State: both the nation-state and the Plurinational State

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Coalitions framing the demand of a culturally pertinent higher education: 1994-2009

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Coalitions/Features

Indigenous Education Coalition Unity Pact Coalition (2006)

Context of emergence

Early 2000: Weakening of indigenous educational agenda: interculturalism, bilingualism and social participation

Mid 2000: Within the context of the Constitutive Assembly to remake the Bolivian Constitution

Members Seven indigenous and peasant organization from high and lowlands

Five indigenous and peasant organizations from high and lowlands

Discourse Diversity and social participation a) Decolonizing the state, b) national, cultural and linguistic diversity and 3) social participation.

Level-act. National National

Logic of action

Political, ideological, territorial and sociocultural self-determination

Transform the colonial nature of the Bolivian State.

Results 1) A global vision of indigenous education and 2) a political incidence in the drafting of a new education act

1) a global vision of remaking Bolivia as a Plurinational State and 2) an intercultural higher education

COALITIONS BUILDING INDIGENOUS

UNIVERSITIES:2008-TO THE PRESENT

III.

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Process

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Why indigenous universities today?

1. The dissatisfaction of the current government of EvoMorales with conventional universities in Bolivia, both public and private: monocultural, loss of cultural identity of youth

2. The historical questioning of indigenous and peasant organizations to the cultural homogeneizing process operated by the school and higher education systems in Bolivia: “Our children enter universities indians and come out whites”

3. The lack of change at universities. The country has changed the universities are set up in stone.

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Coalitions building indigenous universities: 2008-2009

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Coalitions/Features

“Black Box coalition” (2008) Territorial coalitions (2009)

Context of emergence

Late 2000: A strong confrontation for a new constitution

Late 2000: New Plurinational State

Members Government bureaucrats, indigenous and peasant leaders

9 lowland indigenous organizations, state bureaucracies and institutions

Discourse Decolonization, identity, critique of conventional university

Identity and territory

Level-act. National Chaco region: the Guarani territory

Logic of action

Construction of the PlurinationalState

The ancestral fight for the territory now will be with pencil and paper not with arch and bow”

Results A government decree to create 3 indigenous universities a) Aymara, Quechua and) Guarani-People from Lowlands

1) Participatory design of an ideal of indigenous university and 2) outline the university curriculum

Vision of a Guaraní leader

� Evo Morales hasn’t pushed the creation of (indigenous universities) rather he had to respond to a demand and need of indigenous and peasant people. He didn’t do it out of his own good will (…) it wasn’t a favor, isn’t a gift of Evo Morales, but rather the effort, a sacrifice, the result of mobilization, marches, fights to get the creation of UNIBOL. The five indigenous councils of low lands, the Guarani people, chiquitano, guarayo, the multiethnic, they have been the creators of the curriculum, the drafting of admisions criteria and the programs that are now implemented. It has been build based on a participatory work. (Celso Padilla guarani leader)

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Multi, inter o trans-ethnic coalitions?

Multi ethnic Inter-ethnic Trans-ethnic

Different ethnicities focus simultaneously on the same issue or problem but without integrating themselves

Mutual and cumulative relations of collaboration with common objectives.The ability of integrating actors, elements and values from different ethnicities.

UnityIntegration of purposeEthnic frontiers are erased

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REFLECTIONS: MEANING OF THE RISE

OF INDIGENOUS UNIVERSITIES IN

BOLIVIA

IV.

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Meaning of UNIBOLES for the Bolivian university system

UNIBOLES have or are:

1. Broadened the Bolivian university system: to the public-private categories has now been added “communitarian-state universities”

2. Have put into question the ability of Bolivian universities to respond to emergent demands and their capacity to adapt to changing circumstances: Bolivian society has changed, but the university has remain still

3. Put into question the actual university model: urban and western oriented, monocultural, homogenizing, and ethnocide.

4. Re-signifying the idea of university at least in three counts: social participation in decision making, bridging together the technical and cultural dimensions and opening to epistemic pluralism (community people as faculty)

5. The response of conventional universities ranges between disinterest and lack of knowledge to critiques of they very existence and the favoritism received from the State.

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UNIBOLES and the building of a Plurinational State

1. UNIBOLES: New institutions of reproduction of a colonial archetype? dual society.

2. State Apparatuses or spaces of ideological struggle: Each UNIBOL is a world in its own. Future issue of tension “university autonomy”

3. UNIBOLES are an expression of the ongoing process of appropriating modern institutions and reframing them within their own political projects of self-determination: building indigenous modernities)

4. Because of its sensibility with the environment and local culture, values and knowledge, in the Bolivian context, indigenous modernity has interesting parallels with the calls of reflexive modernity or second European modernity.

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