Wp -indigenous_constitutional_recognition

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Indigenous Peoples’ constitutional recognition in two multiethnic states: a cross-national exploration of Bolivia and Peru

Miguel Morillas

Theoretical framework, methodology and justification

There are two types of paradigms that have been used for understanding liberal democracies

understanding them as visions of social justice: redistribution and recognition. According to

Nancy Fraser, members of the first camp hope to redistribute wealth from the rich to the poor,

from the North to the South and from the owners to the workers. Members of the second, in

contrast, seek recognition of the distinctive perspective of ethnic, racial and sexual minorities,

as well as of gender difference and adds that the first paradigm has led to theorizing about

social justice whereas the paradigm orientation is relatively recent and has lately attracted

political philosophers.1 Among ethnic minorities it can be found endless examples of a possible

application of both paradigms can be found, since they can be at the same time less favoured in

redistributive terms and also misrecognized. One of these ethnic minorities are indigenous

peoples (IPs) whom are defined by Kymlicka and Norman as a national minority in their

typology of minority groups. For them IP meet the criteria of minority nationhood and exist in all

the continents. Typically their traditional land were overrun by settlers and then forcibly, or

through treaties, incorporated into states run by outsiders. IPs usually seek for the ability to

maintain certain traditional ways of life and beliefs while nevertheless participating on their own

terms in the modern world. In addition to the autonomy needed to work out this sort of project,

IP also typically require of the larger society long-overdue expressions of respect and

recognition to begin to make amends for indignities they suffered for decades or centuries as

second-class citizens or even non-citizens or slaves.23 A similar definition is given by the

International Labour Organization but introducing the concept of “Tribal peoples” whom are

members of independent countries whose social, cultural and economic conditions distinguish

them from other sections of the national community, and whose status is regulated wholly or

partially by their own customs or traditions or by special laws or regulations; peoples in

independent countries who are regarded as indigenous on account of their descent from the

populations which inhabited the country, or a geographical region to which the country belongs,

at the time of conquest or colonisation or the establishment of present state boundaries and

who, irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their own social, economic, cultural

and political institutions (ILO Convention, 1989).

1 Fraser, Nancy. 2001: 21. 2 Kymlicka and Norman, 2000: 20. 3 Kymlicka, Will and Norman, Wayne (2000). Citizenship in Culturally Diverse. Societies: Issues, Contexts, Concepts: 20.

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If we take these paradigms and apply them to IPs in a myriad of countries around the world it

could lead us to think that both redistribution and recognition could be present. That is, some

indigenous communities would be willing to be recognized in order to have the rights of their

ancestral territories, cultural practices and traditions as part of the national demos on equal

footing with the other communities but also it can be the case that indigenous peoples as

traditionally being part of the less favoured groups of a given society, regardless of being a

numerical minority or not, claim for social justice in terms of a fairer way redistribution of

resources.

For the case of Latin American IPs, if we try to fit their vindications in what Fraser -trying to

conciliate redistribution and the identity model of recognition- defines as the status model of

recognition, we should take into account that we will be attempting to transcend the mere

cultural recognition of their specificities and the traditional economical disadvantage that they

have gone through the establishment of the republics in the continent.4 They way to attain a

type of recognition that would tend to equate its status is defined as constitutional recognition,

since constitution is the mean to set fundamental principles to rule society in the terms that the

society itself consider the fairest.

Constitutional recognition is, thus, not a mere theoretical statement of compliance but it is

translated in specific binding norms that aim to rule society since. From a structuralist

standpoint, states constitutions could set the patterns of a new more inclusive citizenship

through the moulding of people’s behaviour. Constitutional recognition aims to proceed in this

way towards an ethos characterized by participatory parity. That is –in the case of Latin

American IP- the deontological component of recognition in Fraser’s status model.

This effort is oriented towards tackling what could be call misrecognition which is a matter of

externally manifest and publicly verifiable impediments to some people’s standing as full

members of society (Fraser, 2001: 27). In our case, to find an objective criterion to measure a

subjective concept such as misrecognition we choose the lack of constitutional specification of

the status of IPs and its disappearance as a differentiated cultural entity susceptible to be

subsumed in “peasants” or “poor”. There is ample historical evidence of discrimination against

indigenous populations which led to their objective inferior status in terms of access to

education, health and inclusion in national projects in general. If we are prone to accept this as

an injustice, from a moral point of view positive action has to be implemented to make possible

for the less-favoured to interact with other members of society as peers (See Annex: Table 1).

As José Bengoa pointed out, by proposing a multiethnic and multicultural society not only have

IPs questioned their own poverty and marginalization, but they have questioned the relations of

domination of Latin American society based in racial discrimination, ethnic intolerance and

4 According to Fraser, to view recognition as a matter of status is to examine institutionalized patterns of cultural value for their effects on the relative standing of social actors. If and when such patterns constitute actors as peers, capable of participating on a par with one another in social life, then we can speak of reciprocal recognition and status equality (Fraser, 2001: 24).

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domination of one culture on the other. The IPs have questioned the bases of the Republican

State in Latin America, built on the idea of "one people, one nation, a single state (Bengoa,

2004).5

ILO clearly states that in the article No 169 of legally binding Convention that they seek for the

recognition of the cultural and other specificities of indigenous and tribal peoples making clear

that Indigenous and tribal peoples’ cultures and identities form an integral part of their lives.

Their ways of life, customs and traditions, institutions, customary laws, forms of land use and

forms of social organization are usually different from those of the dominant population. The

Convention recognizes these differences, and aims to ensure that they are protected and taken

into account when any measures are being undertaken that are likely to have an impact on

these peoples (ILO, 1989). If the constitutions of those states that posses indigenous population

have to comply with international law then they have accept these terms in the way it has been

specified in the Convention.

At the international level we could see that the ILO resolution on IPs fits with Fraser’s idea of the

use of recognition in a deontological way oriented to find a parity of participation. In this regards,

the principles of consultation and participation are specified requiring that indigenous and tribal

peoples are consulted on issues that affect them. It also requires that these peoples are able to

engage in free, prior and informed participation in policy and development processes that affect

them related not only to specific development projects, but also to broader questions of

governance, and the participation of indigenous and tribal peoples in public life (ILO, 1989).

Thus, recognition is not only done for the mere sake of cultural diversity but it implies

participation.

As we said, in the case of Latin America we could state that there is a clear correspondence

between the notion of differentiated indigenous population and economic and social

disadvantage. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of

the human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous people until 2008, stated that one of

the biggest changes that have occurred in the last half century in Latin America concerning

indigenous peoples is precisely its emergence as new political recognized actors. They have

become organized, they take part in elections, they have their militant organizations, and they

are placing their demands in the public agenda6.

The first problem when it comes to talk about IPs in Latin America is the problem in political

terms is who is defined as indigenous. This inaccuracy in the demographic measurement,

hence, the difficulty that we find when it come to state an exact –or approximate- figure of how

many indigenous peoples inhabit each country. Five states are considered bearing significant

indigenous population in the continent in the whole: Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Bolivia and

5 In: Aguilar, Gonzalo; Lafosse, Sandra; Rojas, Hugo; Steward, Rébecca: 57. 6 HemiScope special Edition, Interview by Peter H. Smith with Prof. Rodolfo Stavenhagen Series: HemiScope [6/2008] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 14667].

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Peru. Within these states, if we focus on the percentage of IP compared with non-indigenous

population. According to Mesa Gisbert, only two states will have more than the half of the total

population conformed by IPs: Guatemala and Bolivia.7 Thus, in this sense IPs internally

represent a numerical majority.

This paper will focus on three countries from the Andean region of South America: Ecuador,

Bolivia and Peru. The reason for this selection lies on the fact that they are the countries with

the largest indigenous populations in South America and are often deemed to have similar

political reality and ethnic composition, as previously mentioned. In extension, it is not

delusional to see indigenous populations in these countries as political actors, since they would

represent an important part of the total population, can modify the existing political institutions

and integrate more inclusive patterns within the existing democratic context, e.g. in regards to

social policies and participation. Thus, it comes to mind that the implications will certainly have a

greater impact in those countries with a large indigenous population rather than in those that

have not. It can be the case that in some countries the IP are acknowledged as part of a

“historical minority” (e.g. Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Costa Rica) given its more reduced number,

whereas in other countries IP could be considered more vivid and influencing political actors

(e.g. Ecuador, Guatemala, Bolivia, Peru).8

In this regards, IP in the last decades they have become legally recognized in a large number of

Latin American countries, being implemented legal and constitutional reforms wherefore first

time they are recognized as actors in their own society and subjects of the law and bearers of

human rights (Stavenhagen, 2008). Nevertheless, the kind of recognition conferred may vary

not only between those countries that have been considered to have la significant indigenous

population and those that have less but also among countries those with a significant

population.

In order to set clearly the methodological ground of this work there are three important remarks

to take into account:

First, for some political observers and scholars, there are characteristics that could tie up the

political scene: their condition of peripheral countries (Faletto and Cardoso), the evolution of

their political party system (Tanaka), the ethnic composition of their population and the

geographic fact of sharing both the Andean mountains and the Amazon basin with its social and

cultural implications as well as being bordering countries with its political outcomes.9 Even

though these factors play certainly an important role in setting a culture and moulding the

7 Mesa Gisbert, Carlos. Bolivia, la concepción indigenista. Seminary at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, in Barcelona (Spain), on February 21, 2011. 8 Even though Guatemala counts with an important indigenous population it is discarded for understanding that it belongs to a certain point to a difference geographical area and to a certain point experiencing different political influences. 9 Some external observers tend to put these countries together as subject of political and economical analyses.

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political cultures, the aim of this paper is to understand precisely a social fact that seems to be a

schism within this apparent congeniality. That is, the constitutional treatment in terms of

recognition of the indigenous peoples.

To achieve this goal the way to proceed is through cross-national comparison using the

comparative method. The advantage is that many variables are somehow “parametrized”: at a

similar degree of economic development, similar culture and belonging to the same

geographical area, we can consider these characteristics as constant and check for the

influence of other factors (Dogan and Pelassy, 1990: 134) In this approach, as part of the field

of political science, the political factors are highlighted.

Secondly, the way to undertake the investigation of the chosen topic will be the historiographic

method seeking to explore which were the social and historic facts that influenced the current

state of the constitutions.10 As consequence, it is desired to use historical data -as far as the

limited resources permit- to formulate a tentative explanation although trying to be humble with

the scope of our results and the possibility of extrapolations specially taking into account that

the use of a comparative method has the disadvantage that the findings cannot go beyond so-

called middle-range theories –theories that apply only in a restricted area. Moreover, it is

believed from a Weberian approach that there are manifold factors that could intervene in the

conformation of our current institutions, understanding institutions from a sociological way as

what we take for granted in our social lives. Thus, it is preferred that this matter is approached

with a qualitative assessment -since the logic underlying recognition of difference is less

universally binding than the norms of redistribution- as we attempt to study cultural practices,

traits and identities which depend on historically specific horizon of value as Fraser pointed out.

Lastly, it should not be forgotten is the definition of IPs used, we have basically equated them

as ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, in the selected countries to be compared in this essay IP

make up a substantial share of the population and is rather an open question and not the aim of

this paper whether to fit them in the conventional definition of a minority, which normally adds to

the fact of having certain qualitative characteristics, the condition of being also numerically

inferior.11 Here we pick a term coined in sociolinguistics by Tove Skutnabb-Kangas preferring to

define IP in Bolivia and Peru as minorized-majorities12 which embrace a wide range of scattered

communities.

Understanding the current state of recognition in Bolivia and Peru

10 By historiography I refer to the Weberian conception of the study society and social change. For Weber, society is not structure, an existing thing, but interrelated actions. His historical data stretched into areas of religion East and West. Also historical evidence can come from logic, mathematics, empathy, emotion and artistic-receptive leading towards different categories of rationality and social action (Green, Troup, 1999, 113). 11 The case of the South Africa ruled by the apartheid system is perhaps one of the most illustrative. 12 In: Phillipson, Robert (ed.) (2000). Rights to Language: equity, power, and education: 85.

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There is an international consensus reached by the international community on indigenous

peoples` rights. For instance, the Convention No. 169 concerning indigenous and Tribal

Peoples in Independent Countries adopted by the International Labour Organization (1989), the

United Nations Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007), and the Convention on

the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (2005) adopted by the

United Nations Economic, Social, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), as well as other

international instruments that seek to inform and guide domestic legal order. In effect, non-

discrimination, self-determination, cultural integrity, property use, control and access to lands,

territories, and resources, development and social well-being, and participation are the essential

elements of the international standard for IP’ rights.13 It is therefore believed that constitutional

recognition of both states should account on these matters.

Despite the model of Kymlicka and Norman that defines IPs as a “national minority”, the

concept of minority implies the application of a legal statute completely different from the status

of “people” such as the right of self-determination. Therefore, it is important to pay special

attention in how the nomenclature is chosen in the constitutional text since the terms that be

used could also be ethnic group, community, etc. These terms may lack the legal capacity to

generate the application of a special statute, which stand at the heart of indigenous claims

(Aguilar, La Fosse, Rojas, Steward, 2010).

In this regards the Bolivian Constitution make an explicit reference to the rights of the IPs:

“Bolivia is a unitary state Multinational Law Social Community, free, independent, sovereign,

democratic, intercultural, decentralized and autonomous. Bolivia is based on plurality and political,

economic, legal, cultural and linguistic pluralism within the integration process of the country”. (art.1)14

“They recognize, respect and protect on the mark of the Law, the social, economic, and cultural rights of

indigenous peoples that inhabit the national territory, especially those relating to their original communal

lands, guaranteeing the use and improvement of sustainable natural resources, their identity, values,

languages, customs and institutions (art. 171)”.15

Moreover, one of the particularities of the Bolivian Constitution is the recognition of autonomy

and self-governance and to the recognition of their institutions (art. 2) but within the boundaries

of a State which is considered “Unitarian” (art. 1). This is, for instance, made specific in the

Ecuadorian constitution which tries to safeguard the integrity of the state16.

13 Aguilar, Gonzalo; Lafosse, Sandra; Rojas, Hugo; Steward, Rébecca. The Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Peoples in Latin America: 46. 15 Constitución del 2009 [Constitution] Feb. 7, 2009, art. 171 § I (Bol.). 16 Constitución del 2008 [C.P.] [Constitution] Sept. 2008, art. 56 (Ecuador).

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“Given the pre-colonial existence of nations and original indigenous peoples and their ancestral control

over their territories, one guarantees their self-determination in the setting of State unity, that consists of

their right to autonomy, to self-governance, to their culture, to the recognition of their institutions and the

consolidation of their territorial identities, which conform to this Constitution and to the Law (art. 2)”.17

Self-governance of the IPs is feasible in the light of international law, specifically the mentioned

in the article 3 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIPs):

“Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine

their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”18

Another important remark has to be done about the concept of nation in the art.2 in the sense

that any analysis has to be conducted taking into account how the concept of nation is regarded

in the actual political and social context meaning what type of implications this involves.

We have defined at the beginning Bolivia and Peru as multiethnic countries characterized by

cultural diversity, that is, the coexistence of a variety of ethnic communities within the state. The

Bolivian ethnic landscape is compound with 15% European descent people, 30% mestizo19,

30% Quechua and 25% aymara20, there are also other small communities being particularly

remarkable the presence of afro-descendant and Asians. In the last census, in 2001, the

indigenous population amounted to 5.064.992 being composed of these main groups Quechua

1.555.641, Aymara 1.277.881, Guarani 78.359, Chiquitano 112.216, Mojeño 43.303.21 22 (See

Annex: Map 1.1). Peru, in turn, has Amerindian 45%, mestizo 37%, European descent 15%,

Afro descent, Japanese, Chinese, and other 3%. The indigenous population is put at about

3.000.000 Quechua and Aymara in the Andean Region and 200.000-250.000 Amazonians from

40-50 ethnic groups. In the Andes there are 5.000 indigenous communities but few densely

populated settlements (See Annex: Map 2). For both cases, the figures are a tentative estimate.

With regards to cultural diversity, it is clearly stated in the article 1 but it is also extended and

detailed and described its promotion as desirable because it represents a way of pluralism.23

17 Constitución del 2009 [Constitution] Feb. 7, 2009, art. 2 (Bol.). 18 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Art.3. 19 Some may be particularly critical about the purity of the concepts such as “white” or “mestizo” so they rather have to be linked in the complex history of ethnic relations in Latin America which is characterized by the porosity of these “ethnic frontiers”. 20 CIA Fact Book 2011. 21 Instituto Nacional de Estadística: Bolivia: autoidentificación con pueblos originarios o indígenas de la población de 15 años o más de edad según sexo, área geográfica y grupo de edad, Censo 2001. http://www.ine.gob.bo/indice/visualizador.aspx?ah=PC20113.HTM 22 In addition, other indigenous minorities exist: araona, baure, bésiro, canichana, cavineño, cayubaba, chácobo, chimán, ese ejja, guaraní, guarasu’we, guarayu, itonama, leco, machajuyai-kallawaya, machineri, maropa, moré, mosetén, movima, pacawara, puquina, sirionó, tacana, tapiete, toromona, uru-chipaya, weenhayek, yaminawa, yuki, yuracaré y zamuco. Information obtained from: Constitución del 2009 [Constitution] Feb. 7, 2009, art. 5 (Bol.). 23 Constitución del 2009 [Constitution] Feb. 7, 2009, art. 2 (Bol.). The Bolivian State is plural-national and intercultural, id. art. 1; the State should foment the intracultural, intercultural, and plural-lingual

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The Peruvian constitution acknowledges and protects ethnic and cultural pluralism but it does

not make any specific reference to promotion.

“Every individual has the righ to his ethnic and cultural identity. The government recognizes and protects

the ethnic and cultural plurality of the nation”.24

Political participation, which according to Fraser would be the aim of recognition25, is included in

the case of Bolivia expressly guaranteeing the right “to participation in the benefits from the

exploitation of natural resources in their territories and the right to participation in State bodies”.26

Moreover, from the perspective of voters‘ rights, the new Bolivian Constitution incorporates the

right for “the direct election of representatives from nations and indigenous peoples, in accords with their

norms and own procedures”.27 28

Both self-determination and political participation are of crucial importance when it comes to

discuss about natural resources for a two fold reason. First, and fundamentally it resides in the

special relationship that indigenous people shared with the spaces that they have traditionally

possessed, occupied or utilized considering themselves historically and spiritually united to the

land and they envision a holistic view of life, earth and environment.29 Secondly, this

relationship often confronts with other interests being, for example, the extractive industries the

motor of these countries’ economies and often in conflict with indigenous claims for ancestral

territories both in the Andean Region and the Amazon basin which is a shared territory between

these two countries.30

In this regards, the section dedicated to “environment and natural resources” of the Peruvian

Constitution does not make any reference to the right of use of natural resources by IPs :31

“Natural resources, renewable and non-renewable, are patrimony of the Nation. The State is sovereign in

dialogue (art. 9.2, in relation to art. 100.I), id. 9.2; see id. 100.I; and preserve the plural-national diversity, id. art. 9.3; it recognizes the right to cultural identity for nations and indigenous peoples, id. art. 30.II.2; moreover, it mentions that cultural diversity ―constitutes the essential base of the Plural-National Communitarian State, id. art. 100.I; the inter-culturality being ―the instrument for the cohesion and the harmonic and balanced coexistence between all of the peoples and nations, id. 24 Constitución Política del Perú [Constitution] Dec. 29, 1993, art. 2. 19. 25 Fraser says about the status model that it “claims for recognition to establish the subordinated party as a full partner in social life, able to interact with others as peers. They aim, that is, to de-instituionalize patterns of cultural value that impede parity of participation and replace them with patterns that foster it”. (Fraser, 2001: 25). 26 Constitución del 2009 [Constitution] Feb. 7, 2009, arts. 30. II.16, 30.II.18 (Bol.). 27 Constitución del 2009 [Constitution] Feb. 7, 2009, arts. 26II.4 (Bol.). 28 Aguilar, Gonzalo; Lafosse, Sandra; Rojas, Hugo; Steward, Rébecca. The Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Peoples in Latin America: 67. 29 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Art.25. 30 Examples that can be given are the “Gas War” in Bolivia: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3196926.stm and the “Baguazo” in Peru: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8093729.stm 31 The concepto f natural resources involve both renewable and non-renewable resources that are found in the ground (including, for example, waters an forests), in the subsoil and within traditional territories.

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their utilization. The Act determines the conditions of their use and granting to private individuals. Such

concession grants the title-holders a real right subject to those legal regulations”.32

Although the specification of natural resources is absent, the Peruvian constitution does refer to

land and territories: The State supports preferably the agricultural development and guarantees the right

to ownership of the land, whether private, community or any other form of partnership. The law may

define boundaries and land area based on the features of each zone. According to legal provision, the

abandoned lands revert to State ownership, for their putting up for sale.33 And continues: The rural and

native communities have legal existence and are artificial persons. They are autonomous in their

organization, community work, and usage and free disposal of their lands, as well as in the economic and

administrative aspects within the framework as provided by law. The ownership of their lands is

imprescriptible, except in the case of abandonment described in the preceding article. The State respects

the cultural identity of the rural and native communities. 34

It should be noted first that the collective aspect is recognized but the terms used are “agrarian”

and “native” communities instead of “indigenous”. In fact, in the whole Constitution the term

“indigenous” is used only once when referring to “indigenous communities” in their relation to

the Regional Governments within the State structure.35

In terms of indigenous languages, the Peruvian Constitution seems to respect and preserve

their existence. However, besides Quechua and Aymara it does not name any other languages,

leaving this recognition somewhat vague: “Official languages of the State are Spanish and,

wherever they are predominant, Quechua, Aymara and other native tongues in accordance with

the law”.36

The Bolivian constitution specifies that each of each of the thirty-six indigenous languages

should be recognized as official languages of the State together withSpanish. With regards to

national and local governance, the Bolivian Constitution mentions the utilization of at least two

official languages, assuming that one of these languages is indigenous. This step constitutes a

new development in Latin American constitutionalism. Furthermore, the Bolivian State

compromises itself to respect and promote indigenous languages.

Among the countries it has been mentioned that the ones that posses substantial indigenous

population in Latin America, Mexico, Ecuador and Bolivia have the broadest constitutional

32 Constitución Política del Perú [Constitution] Dec. 29, 1993, art. 66. 33 Constitución Política del Perú [Constitution] Dec. 29, 1993, art. 88. 34 Constitución Política del Perú [Constitution] Dec. 29, 1993, art. 89. 35 Constitución Política del Perú [Constitution] Dec. 29, 1993, art. 191. (Amended in 2005). “The President is elected, together with a Vice-President, by means of direct elections for a four-year term, and may be reelected. The members of the Regional Council are elected likewise, and for the same term. The mandate of such authorities is revocable but non-renounceable,, according to law. The law determines the minimum percentage to facilitate representation of women, rural and indigenous communities, and aboriginal peoples, in regional councils. The same applies for municipal councils.” 36 Constitución Política del Perú [Constitution] Dec. 29, 1993, art. 48.

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recognition in terms of intercultural bilingual education. The Bolivian constitution establishes that

“Education is unitary, public, universal, democratic, participatory, community, aims to

decolonization37 and of quality”38 and is “intercultural, intracultural, and multi-lingual education in

all of the educational system”39. Moreover, in the field of public universities, the new Bolivians

Constitution establishes the creation of intercultural training centers for human resources and

programs designed to “recuperate, preserve the development, apprenticeship, and the

dissemination of different cultural languages”.40 The Bolivian Constitution seems to be by far the

most progressive in Latin America concerning the intercultural education.

On the other hand, the Peruvian Constitution only mentions intercultural bilingual education in

the article 17: “The State guarantees the eradication of illiteracy. It also promotes bilingual and

intercultural education, according to the characteristics of each area. Preserves the diverse cultural and

linguistic manifestations of the country. It promotes national integration.”41

It has to be added that in Peru in April 2005, the Peruvian Congress enacted a law that founded

the Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo de Pueblos Andinos, Amazónicos y Afroperuano (INDEPA),

as part of the Ministry of Women and Social Development42, which mission is to promote,

advocate, research and affirm the rights and identity development of indigenous peoples43 in

the main following areas: cultural heritage of the nation, whether tangible or intangible;

contemporary culture and living art; cultural management and cultural industries; ethnic and

cultural diversity of the nation.

Some of the most important characteristics of the current state of recognition between these

countries has been reviewed. Nevertheless, to have a broader picture and to sharpen our

comparison it would be a non-sense not to locate it into the Latin American context regarding

IPs recognition taking into account that cross-national comparison are permeated by the fact

that the composition of each country varies given their ethnic and cultural heterogeneity, this

may –or may not- affect the current state of recognition (See Annex: Table 2).

Up to the present, there are clear differences in the state of recognition between these

countries. But is yet to be defined which factors have been determinant or influenced on these

constitutional outputs. We may come to think that in the Latin American context we could say

that whereas Bolivia could claim the most progressive constitution in regards to indigenous

37 The term chosen in the Bolivian Constitution in Spanish is descolonizadora. 38 Constitución del 2009 [Constitution] Feb. 7, 2009, arts. 78.1 (Bol.). 39 Constitución del 2009 [Constitution] Feb. 7, 2009, arts. 78.2 (Bol.). 40 Constitución del 2009 [Constitution] Feb. 7, 2009, arts. 96.1 (Bol.). 41 Constitución Política del Perú [Constitution] Dec. 29, 1993, art. 17. 42 In September 2010 was incorporated into the newly established Ministry of Culture by the Supreme Decree 001-2010-MC. http://culturaperu.org/sites/default/files/usuarios/7/DECRETO%20SUPREMO%20N°%20001-2010-MC%20-%2025SEP.pdf 43 Ley nº 28495 del Congreso de la República del Perú, April 15th 2005. http://docs.peru.justia.com/federales/leyes/28495-apr-6-2005.pdf

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rights (See: Table 2) Peru lacks of some important aspects in regards of recognition such as the

acceptance of Indigenous as peoples, rights over natural resources, capacity of self-

determination and political participation.

In conclusion, it could be argued that the legislation concerning indigenous rights is a

consequence of indigenous peoples’ level of political participation, which can be promoted -as it

is the case of Bolivia- or restrained -as Peruvian experience shows- by the political and social

structure. At his point, it is important to make a historical analysis in order to explain the current

different situations that Bolivia and Peru are experiencing, which means going further back to

the new Bolivian Constitution created by indigenous President Evo Morales in 2009 and the

1993 Peruvian Constitution.

A historical approach of indigenous empowerment

Precisely after the fall of the Berlin wall with the subsequent establishment of new differentiated

Republics in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, a process of rethinking the understanding of the

big social and political processes in terms of identity takes place in Europe affecting other

realities. In addition it has been outlined that among the series of factors that had moved

minority rights and ethnicity to the forefront of political theory we can also find the resurgence

and political mobilization of IPs resulting in the Draft declaration of the Rights of Indigenous

Peoples at the United Nations (Kymlicka and Norman, 2000: 3) in this period. Due to the uneasy

transitions to democracy that took place in many Latin American countries during the 1980s, as

well as the influence of world wide economic and cultural global trends, states throughout Latin

America have been increasingly concerned with the reformulation of nations as multiethnic or

multicultural spaces. Because of their appeals for ethnic, cultural and political autonomy and

recognition, indigenous groups throughout the region are now prominent actors in discussions

about national identity and citizenship in Latin America. In the1990s particularly, the region saw

a surge of indigenous political and cultural activity. However, this phenomenon has been

experienced differently in each country and some historical references have to be highlighted in

each country in order to better grasp the latest events.

Bolivia

When addressed in an interview in 2008,44 to give his opinion about the recent election of an

indigenous president as Evo Morales in Bolivia as an explicit example of empowerment in the

public scene and the reasons why was this was happening there and not in Peru, Rodolfo

Stanvehagen affirmed that the histories of both countries during the post-colonial, Republican

44 Bolivia and Peru used to be part of the same colony.

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periods and specially the XX century have been quite different specially regarding two events in

the history of Bolivia: the Chaco War (1932-35) and the Revolution of 1952.45

According to Carlos Mesa, Since the times of Tupac Katari46, indigenous uprisings have been

recurrent in the history of Bolivia until 1952. These revolutions have been based on claims over

the control of land fundamentally. The 1952 revolution led by the MNR political party,

transformed Bolivia from a semi-feudal oligarchy to a multiparty democracy by

introducing universal suffrage, nationalizing the mines of the three Tin Barons, and carrying out

a sweeping agrarian reform. Constitutionally speaking, it was a democratic watershed,

advancing the recognition of indigenous peoples as fellow citizens (though not as “indigenous”

but as campesinos, or small-scale agriculturalists) and asserting right to vote, to education, and

to land, as well as other individual civil and political rights.47 The use of the land was

recognized, nevertheless, in an individual way and not collective. Thus, indigenous would

access it in that way and not as they used to in pre-Hispanic times.

Moreover, the nation-building process of the period, like other countries in Latin America,

brought together the different class, ethnic and regional distinctions into the umbrella

integrationist term of mestizo which vindicated the allegedly essence of the nation. The ideology

of mestizaje was paired then with the extension of individual citizenship rights to newly

designated campesinos who would set their collective cultural investments in keeping the

expectations of modernity Paralallely, the 1952 state deprived people of their originario identity

(Albro, 2010: 74, 75) taking a clear assimilationist stand. According to the authors reviewed,

while there was an extension of citizenship, it has been seen as a partial revolution as a

dictatorship would take over and also because it was not capable of transcend what has been

called “Internal colonialism” defined as the ongoing struggle between two views: a liberal one

45 In particular Stavenhagen referred to one of the has played a role in the awareness of indigenous identity has been the Chaco war (1932-1935) between Bolivia and Paraguay which began creating a nationalist conscious among a lot of member of the population, specially when indigenous peoples were conscripted in the military service, taken out of their communities, forced to fight the petroleum company war that they did not know anything about. Consequently, this created certain kind of awareness and enabled some of them to become active militants in social organizations later on. The second major issue was the revolution of 1952, by the Movimiento Nacional Revolucionario (MNR) which opened up Bolivia for more democratic participation. He added, that carried out some policies like the land reform which enabled indigenous populations who had been tied to the large state as serfs and peons particularly in the Highlands to become owners of their own pieces of Land that of course did not give them political power but it gave them greater space for democratic participation. Secondly, there was an educational effort carried out by the Government and there was an organization of the indigenous that worked in the mines. All of that helped to create a social, cultural and political movement of indigenous peoples which, finally, after many ups and downs resulted in the election of Morales an Aymara Indian. HemiScope special Edition, Interview by Peter H. Smith with Prof. Rodolfo Stavenhagen (Season 2004: Episode 607). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTYrgJI5OTg 46 Aymara leader in the rebellion of indigenous peoples of Bolivia against the Spanish Empire in the early 1781. 47 After the revolution, the Agrarian Reform was carried out in 1953 which had as its main objectives, the elimination of latifundios (extensive rural property belonging to one person) and their reversion to the State, the abolition of peasant servitude, the delivery of land to peasants that did not have it (through colonization policies), the increase of production through the development of an agricultural industry, the enlargement of the domestic market and the viabilization of industrialization in the country (Urquidi 1976).

13

and an cultural indigenous with its correspondent political arrangements. Overall, the equalizing

character of these measures did not imply the appearance of social mobility for IPs.

During the 60s and 70s in Bolivia the struggles of the highland populations were thought in

terms of social class and organized in union-like organizational structures within a corporative

state. In this context is when CSUTCB (Sole Confederation of Rural Workers of Bolivia)

emerges in the Highlands. It is by the moment when a great debate among highland

organizations was over how to harmonize class and ethnic identities, how to “see with both

eyes”, as the Aymara leader and later Bolivian Vice-president Victor Hugo Cárdenas put it. Over

time both external political events (like the mentioned fall of the Berlin Wall and the crisis of the

International left) and internal ones (like the intellectual influence of radical Indianista national

writers like Fausto Reinaga) indianized class identities and struggles (Lucero, 2006: 4).

According to Lucero and García, the incorporation of the indigenous movement in Bolivia, as

opposed to Ecuador48, has been done “from above” as ruling elites have set the terms of

political participation to a greater extent49 and it has been rather fragmented, as lowland

groups50 had less room to manoeuvre largely due to the central place of the lowland Santa Cruz

in the distribution of the power in the country.51 So while in the Highland, which concentrates

98% of the total indigenous population,52 indigenous organization emerged in the 1970s after

the land reform, their counterparts from the lowland would not be able to do it after arrived the

1980s, according to Kevin Healy due to the fact that these groups were surrounded by powerful

white and mestizo cattle ranchers, large commercial farmers, agrobusiness and timber

enterprises whose holdings had been bolstered by government and international aid.53 In

consequence, a lowland indigenous elite did not emerge until the 1980s with the appearance

into scene of CIDOB (Confederation of Indigenous Peoples of Eastern Bolivia).

Since 1985, the application of neoliberal democracy has been described as a negotiation

between technocrats, managers and government officials” on the one hand and “distinct social

48 As for the participation of indigenous people in the political scenee, they affirm that in Ecuador the ywas rather forced in mobilization “from below”. Other factors that Lucero and García identify as different in Ecuador are the relative unity of the movement and its higher level of radicalism. 49 For example, the ascendancy of Aymara leader Victor Hugo Cárdenas to the vice presidency was made possible by the selection of a dominant party (MNR) candidate and former planning minister, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada. This administration (1993-1997), however, led to further multicultural openings most notably in the Law of Popular Participation (LPP) and Agrarian Reform Law (Ley INRA). President Sánchez de Lozada made many enemies when the LPP transferred state funds from regional development “corporations” to local municipalities. Additionally, the legislation recognized the legal right of indigenous people (as indigenous people) to participate in local governance. Local electoral contests became meaningful in unprecedented ways as municipalities, for the first time in republican history, actually had significant resources to administer. (Lucero and García, 2006: 9). 50 The indigenous population in the lowlands in composed mainly by Guarani, Quechua and Aymara and 35 other groups making the 2% of the total indigenous population. 51 See Annex: Map 1.2 52 Being the main groups Quechua and Aymara. 53 Healy, Kevin. 2001. Llamas, Weaving, and Organic Chocolate. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.

14

sectors trying to find a niche on the other (Gamarra, 1994: 10-11) precisely in this last one an

active indigenous movement started to evolve but we could state that even though political

pushes can be identified in regards of incorporation of IPs into the economical and social life it

is not until 1993 when Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada again ran for president, this time in alliance

with the MBL, a leftist party, and the Tupac Katari Revolutionary Liberation Movement (MRTKL),

an indigenous party formed in 1985 whose leader Víctor Hugo Cárdenas was the candidate for

vice-president. The state, inspired by the ILO Convention 169, the 1994 constitution described

the state as “multicultural and pluriethnic” amending the old assimilationist undertone of past

constitutions.54 For the first time, the social, economic and cultural rights of the IPS were

recognized including the legal recognition of the traditional authorities of indigenous and

peasant communities.

Under the mandate period of MNR and MRTKL several constitutional reforms were decided

upon that had implications for the participation of formerly excluded groups. These were

primarily the Law of Popular Participation (municipalisation, popular vigilance and a legal

recognition of territorially based organisations) and the Educational Reform, which introduced

bilingual and intercultural education. The LPP formally recognized the wide variety of traditional

local and grassroots associations, including neighbourhoods and committees, agrarian unions

and indigenous ayllus,55 while identifying and equating them all as “territorial base

organizations”. Indigenous and popular representatives of these organizations could, further,

serve as members of a committee overseeing the work of the municipal government or local

office themselves (Albro, 2010: 75). The municipalisation process consisted in the drawing of

new boundaries and destination of 20% of the state budget exclusively the municipalities.

Approximately out of these 340 municipalities, 120 were composed almost purely by IPs.

These constitutional and legislative reforms also set the scene for identity politics to emerge in

diverse social and institutional contexts.

As we can see the indigenous movements have come to play such an important role in the

Bolivian politics and is inserted in it within the “from above” approach of Lucero. The indigenous

recognition that the government of Morales has implemented is based in the elements of the

revolution of 1952 and the constitutional reform of 1993.

Peru

Left-leaning politician and former Congressman Javier Diez-Canseco considered the reason for

the lack of an indigenous movement in the Highlands was due to the historical fact of Peru

being the center of the Viceroyalty, and with a clear policy directed to destroyed and thwarted

54 The article 171 can be read in the footnote 13. The article was modified by the Law Nº 1585 in August 12th, 1994) and herewith replacing the article 171 of the Constitution of 1967: “the State recognizes and guarantees the existence of peasant unions”. 55 Ayllu refers to a pre-Columbian communal form of characteristically Andean social and political organization that continues to be present in different parts of Bolivia and Peru.

15

the indigenous identity in a very systematic way.56 Especially strong after the Rebellion of Tupac

Amaru as well giving the more advanced process of miscegenation and cultural domination.57

Peru –where indigenous people constitute approximately 40 percent of the national population,

but which claims no representative national indigenous confederation- has been considered an

exception at best, a failure at worst in what concerns to indigenous empowerment. Scholars and

activist have pondered the “absence” of indigenous organizing the country, and they have

lamented the lack of ethnic identification among Quechua and Aymara peasants. Compared to

indigenous organizing in other Latin American countries, where indigenous federations are

actively promoting the revival off indigenous language and culture, demanding collective rights,

and forcing issues of sovereignty and self-determination into discussion about citizenship and

nationalism, Peru remains a question mark in the literature (Lucero and Garcia, 2003: 158).

From this assertion it could be extracted that an anthropological explanation such as a deeper

penetration of mestizaje, not only referred to blood mixing but mainly in culturally speaking

setting a different cosmovision. In fact, the percentage of IPs in Peru is lower than Ecuador and

Bolivia and the number of mestizos higher. So to the evidence that indigenous groups have

been classified in a subordinate social and moral level it can be add the assumption that they

have assumed such a position without contesting it. In this respect, De la Cadena argues that

such a line of thought reduces contestation to the sphere of politics proper, leaving out the

important cultural politics of everyday life, through which – as she has demonstrated for the

case of Cuzco – hybrid indigenous-mestizo identities are constituted.58 Thus, In Peru, ethnic

collective action has been played out less in the sphere of politics proper, and more in the

sphere of culture, where individuals and collectivities have been involved in a cultural politics of

everyday life.59 60

56 A historical explanation that could make a difference with Bolivia is also that in Peru the colonial reorganisation destroyed a large part of the cooperative world of the Andean peasants while colonial Peru remained firmly ethnically divided, -and this division has become one of the country’s main characteristics. 57 Agencia Chaski. Interview to Javier Diez-Canseco. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRN5GrHvgEE 58 The configuration of such identities is highly performative and implies a double move: a strategy of resistance, where cultural features (language, dress, religiosity, music and dance) were kept in the domestic sphere and lived as intimate experiences; and a strategy of accommodation, where particular cultural features were publicly expressed in a way that challenges hegemonic ethnic classification and hierarchies, and disputes the meanings attributed to indigenous and mestizo cultural features such as backwardness, illiteracy, rural life, etc. In this sense, the tactics of everyday life (education, migration, music, the celebration of fiestas, etc…) imply not simply a process of acculturation and “whitening”, but rather the understanding of ethnicity in fluid terms, where contestation is not oppositional. (Canepa 2008: 14). 59 This assertion can be complemented by the following statement of Ivan Degregori when he justifies the relevance of the “ethnic factor” in both countries: “Observing Peru and Bolivia we have found that movements that define themselves in ethnic terms have not arisen everywhere, and where they do not arise in the same way or have the same characteristics nor the same evolution. So while there are such movements in Bolivia, in Peru there are none. However, including the Peruvian case will help us to see how the ethnic factor influences politics even without the existence of ethnic movements, and also allows us to see sharper other forms of action by indigenous peoples”. (Degregori, 1993: 5). 60 Arguably mestizaje itself cannot be a determinant factor to define a countries identity: “While in Mexico, the paradigm of national integration and assimilation through mestizaje was consolidated in most

16

A crucial moment in the evolution of the indigenous identity in Peru are the policies of the

Spanish crown right after the death of Tupac Amaru in 1870 in which the indigenous groups lost

many of their privileges, such as the right to learn to read and write (Montoya 1998). Illiteracy as

a feature of indigenous identity and culture was the result of state politics that actually shaped

the illiterate Indian subject, as an inferior “other”. Also, the use of Quechua was prohibited, as

well as the performance of any other practice or the use of any symbol that made explicit any

identification with the Inca past. These cultural policies were crucial to the elimination of an

indigenous elite, while the criollo constituted themselves into the only legitimate agents to

represent the Inca past. In words of Alberto Flores Galindo, the colonial administration attacked

everything that could be considered part of the Andean culture prohibited Indigenous theater

and painting, reading the Comentarios Reales61, the use of Quechua, traditional dress.

Ethnocide? The truth is that the Indians began to be so despised and feared by those who were

not indians. Andean culture left public spaces and became illegal (Flores-Galindo, 1986: 6).

Unprovided with an indigenous elite, the curacas, the capacity of self-representation was

seriously undermined. The power in the Andean rural hinterland would be replaced by the

power of the Gamonalismo62, a semi-feudal system that will create a progressive nexus

between the elite groups in the capital and Gamonal, with the consequence of the shift of power

relations and the evanescence and blurring of indigeinity.

During the XIX century and until the beginnings of the XX, the concept of indio has been

associated with cultural backwardness, ruralness and moral inferiority and equated to the terms

poor peasant or serf (Canepa, 2008: 16). At the same time the dominant associations of the

indigenous and the provincial with were being contested. During this process indigeneity came

to be ramed in the language of class, which was central to the way in which social movements

and their political agendas would be arranged, namely as the struggle for the land that was lost

during the expansion of the hacienda, and the right to education. Following this logic, the formal

recognition that has been done under the rule of Velasco Alvarado (1967-1974) whom -in order

to avoid the negative connotation of the concept- changed the concept of indio into campesino.

Nevertheless, the change was in terms of class contributing on the process of de-ethnification.63

parts of the territory to the extent that indigenous movements were motivated to organise their claims as ethnic minorities, in Peru the process of mestizaje, associated with the same integrationist project, failed not only because of the weakness of state efforts, but because of the diverse forms of indigenous resistance”. (Paredes, 2008: 19). Nevertheless, this cannot explain why Peruvians still defining themselves primarily in class terms than ethnic terms. 61 The Comentarios Reales de los Incas is a book written by Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, the first mestizo writer of colonial Andean South America, is considered by most to be the unquestionable masterpiece of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and arguably the best prose of the colonial period in Peru. 62 Gamonalismo: a term meaning “bossism,” used in Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia. It is derived from gamonal, a word meaning a “large landowner,” and it refers to the exploitation of the Indian population, mainly by landowners of European descent (Britannica Online Enyclopedia). 63 This vindication of indigeneity was soon followed by other laws legally strengthening the position of the Quechua language. The National Policy of Bilingual Education of 1972 called for bilingual education

17

The effects of Velasco’s regime policies ended up with the fragmentation imposing a class-

based organisation in the countryside, but also intensified intra- and extracommunal divisions.

Cooperatives with different design and policies were to be implemented for peasants in the

modern plantations of the coast and peasants in the traditional and poor estates of the Sierra

divided indigenous peasants’ interests and motives across these regions (Paredes, 2008: 14).

Between the 1960s and 1970s, several organisations and unions were created in the

countryside at regional and national level. Peasant federations in the Sierra and in the Coast

joined the Confederación Campesina del Peru (CCP) and other unions such as mining unions

with indigenous membership also acquired great importance. With the support of all this

organisations, the combined left won almost a third of the national vote in the Constitutional

Assembly in 1978. It seemed that when groups that could “imagine communities” among the

elites from the Quechua and Aymara peoples emerged; they preferred to make it on a class

basis (Degregori, 1995: 8).64

Another landmark that has played an important role is the political violence that shaked the

country between 1980 and 1995 from two terrorist groups Partido Comunista del Perú Sendero

Luminoso (PCP-SL) or Shining Path and Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA).

The first was specially pointed for terrorizing the peasants and indigenous communities both of

the Andes and the Amazon. As part of their maoist-leninist ideology, PCP-SL saw ethnic identity

as “false consciousness” and, thus, susceptible to be combated and literally eliminated.

Moreover, the disastrous impact of PCP-SL was determinant to subvert indigenous

opportunities to build organisations outside their local boundaries. The war hit the incipient

transcommunal organisations and unions that had been established and closed off political

associational spaces at all levels in the country (Paredes, 2008: 15).65

During the internal war Indigenous groups without leadership found impossible to be integrated

in a political block as the case of Bolivia and Ecuador. By the second half of the 1980s, political

parties were meeting serious difficulties in continuing to work through social organisations or

through ideological support. This was particularly a problem for those parties that depended

strongly on the organised support of the mass of the population, such as the Izquierda Unida

(IU – United Left) and APRA.66 All this was even more patent giving the disconnection between

the countryside were the war was particularly bloody and the urban spaces. Furthermore, in the

in all areas of the country where languages other than Spanish were spoken, and in 1975 a law was passed making the Quechua language officially co-equal with Spanish on a national level (Brisson, 2009: 13).63 64 Degregori adds: “market expansion, media, multiplication of peasant organizations, long-scale migrations made the Andeans societies to become more complex and differentiate again” (Degregori, 1995: 8). 65 The Comisión de la Verdad y la Reconciliación (CVR) estimates that 2,267 officials were assassinated during the conflict and 1,680 were direct victims of Sendero. The elimination of such a number of local leaders – the majority of them members of the political parties that sustained the democracy inaugurated in 1980 – constituted a severe breakdown in the mechanisms of intermediation in the system. (CVR, 2004). 66 The Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana (APRA) is traditionally a center-left party.

18

90s with the rise of Alberto Fujimori, the collapse of the party system and the new electoral

model together with the deeply fractionalised political division of the country (195 provincial and

1,833 district municipalities) made politics in Peru extremely fragmented, particularly in those

areas where IPs live.

Final remarks

It has been said that social justice today requires both redistribution and recognition, neither

alone is sufficient (Fraser, 2001). For the case of IPs in the countries reviewed the struggle for

redistribution has the particularity that may cause absorption of the singularity of IPs as the case

of Peru in which they were embedded into class terms such as “poor” or “peasant”, not being

able to escape these conditions, hence their recognition would aim to solve their problems as

the less benefited from the economic sphere but not as different falling in the wide category of

“Peruvians” originated in the Unitarian character of the Republic. In Bolivia the latest recognition

is done primarily on ethnic terms but also includes specific policies aiming to supply of political

powers to the indigenous communities as such, that is, participation is thought to bring with it a

translation into a fairer redistributive system. Making one’s voice heard might make us reflect on

the possibility of real attainment of economic justice. Still, this kind of assumptions have to be

contrasted with the real conditions in which they take place, i.e., dependency on foreign

investment, especially on extractive industries, “disjunctive democracy”67, social and ethnic

fragmentation, etc.

The lack of recognition will cause difference-blind rules and institutions. Thus, we may think that

Constitutional specification is the necessary condition for avoiding this. According to Kymlicka

and Norman they see that minority rights defender have been successful in their purposes as in

Western liberal democracies few people continue to think that social justice can simply be

defined on a difference-blind basis. Instead, it is now widely recognized that difference blind

rules and institutions can cause disadvantages for particular groups (Kymlicka and Norman,

2000: 4). In the case of countries with large indigenous populations such as Peru and Bolivia it

has been underscored the necessity of institutionalizing a more differentiated set of citizenship

regimes that can accommodate the claims of the individual alongside the claims of the collective

(Yashar, 2005: 285). In the reviewed cases, the protests and the current reasons that triggered

the indigenous movements in Bolivia were many times the fight over natural resources. In Peru

does not exist specific legislation about the right of the indigenous people over the resources

found in their ancestral territories, instead the Peruvian constitution states that the resources

67 Term coined by Holston and Caldeira (1998) in (Albro, 2006: 389). These authors undertook an ethnography, in Brazil, of a growing disjunction between political democracy, which is intact, and a declining civil component of democratic citizenship. The result is the delegitimation of institutions of law and the growth of extra-legal violence— police violence, and the privatization of justice. In a disjunctive democracy the actual content of citizenship is uneven, fragile, and arrhythmic in its relation to an otherwise healthy political democracy.

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“belong to all Peruvians”.68 Recent Latin American history suggests that to legislate over this

particular issue is key in order to avoid possible future conflicts attempting to tackle them in a

reasonable way. As opposed to Peru, we can state that Bolivia has made huge steps toward the

acquiescence of cultural citizenship” which is defines as the invention or creation of new rights

from the struggles and identity politics of social movements and ethnic minorities as these are

expressly connected to the recognition of cultural difference and a call for cultural rights (Albro,

2010: 73).

In Peru therehas never existed a social movement that expressed a discourse based on ethnic,

cultural, class such as the coalition with overlapping political interests that ended up with the

victory of MAS. In words of José María Arguedas, a political movement with ethnic base that

encompassed todas las sangres and not only mere different political programs. From a different

perspective, the recognition of IPs in Bolivia is a step forward to face historical ethnic

classification and discrimination while in Peru the lack of ethnic movements leaves this matters

rather unproblematised.

In Bolivia, according to Mesa Gisbert the indigenous have always been subjects and not objects

of history. Other individuals, non-indigenous, have been their political voice and, even though

the constitutional reforms implemented by the government of Morales considered de-colonizer

were based in other past reforms, it is with him that the IPs became agents of history.69 That is

they traditional were under what the Ecuadorian sociologist Andres Guerrero has called

ventrilocuismo indígena.70 It seems like overall the historical processes that took place in both

countries throughout their Republican history have worked inversely in the creation of a political

oriented indigenous consciousness.

Certain comments have to be stressed in regard to an all-embracing attempt at fairness of the

constitutions. That is, although its progressive character and singularity, the current Bolivian

constitution has received not little criticism of being aymara-centric, exhibiting a “paradox of new

exclusions” in which it left some people out of the mix, unrecognized and thus unrepresented.71 72 This to be born in mind as the pre-eminence of mestizo population in many areas in the

country is undeniable, especially on urban municipalities. In Peru, this population is bigger than

68 The President of Peru, Alan García, wrote three articles called “El syndrome del perro del hortelano” exposing that indigenous peoples claims for ancestral territories were retardant for the development of the country. http://elcomercio.pe/edicionimpresa/html/2007-10-28/el_sindrome_del_perro_del_hort.html 69 Mesa Gisbert, Carlos. Bolivia, la concepción indigenista. Seminary at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, in Barcelona (Spain), on February 21, 2011. 70 Ventriloquist is a social intermediary who knows the semantics to be put into the mouth of the natives, who know the content, range and tone of what the liberal state is willing and able to grasp. The ventriloquist knows the circuits of power in the bureaucracy and drive 'the meaning of the game ' (Bourdieu) in the political field transescene both the regional and the central power "(Guerrero, 1994) 71 Albro, Robert (2010). Confounding Cultural Citizenship and Constitutional Reform in Bolivia: 72. 72 “The Bolivian constitution of 2009 establishes a different category of citizenship following a certain origin or language. If the indigenous have certain benefits such as the use of renewable natural resources as they are the only beneficiaries whereas the rest of the country has right to benefit from the non-renewable natural resources” (Mesa Gisbert, 2011).

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Bolivia both in an objective way, being of mixed heritage and in a subjective one, as identifying

themselves as mestizo, before the indigenous autonomy was proclaimed by the 2009

constitution.73 This can also be the case of urban indigenous population, the so called cholos,

which may be an example of adaptation of the individualistic costumes and uses of urban areas

in many cases in which collective moral loosened.

To conclude, the enigma that represents the lack of importance within the political scenery in

Peru, which will is a strong indicator of the lack of constitutional recognition, remains an enigma

that is susceptible to be approached by further research. Tentative responses lie in

undercovering how indigenous movements had the capacity to organize themselves and work

together and preserve a common “organizational identity” not only in Bolivia but also in Ecuador

whereas in Peru they remained rather fragmented. In this respect, Albro points out in his case

study about a cholo population in the urban town of Quillacollo that it represented the reality of

the cultural diversification of mestizaje en Bolivia. But, at the same time, this does not precluded

Quechua and Aymara ethnicity and can include indigenista discourse (Albro, 2010: 82). Thus,

every attempt to accommodate indigenous population within the constitutional frame in

multiethnic realities such as the Latin American countries should bear in mind the social and

cultural dynamics of countries in which mestizaje is and has been the cornerstone of its nation

building.

References: Green, A. and Troup, K. (eds) (1999). The Houses of History: A Critical Reader in Twentieth-Century History and Theory. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 110-120. Della Porta, Donatella and Michael Keating, (eds.) (2008). Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences. A Pluralist Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lucero, Jose Antonio and Garcia, María Elena (2003). Un País Sin Indígenas: Repensando la Política Indígena en el Perú. Presented at the Seminario Internacional: Movimientos Indígenas y Estado en América Latina, Cochabamba, Bolivia, May 2003. Healy, Kevin (2001). Llamas, Weaving, and Organic Chocolate: Multicultural Grassroots Development in the Andes and Amazon of Bolivia. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Phillipson, Robert (ed.) (2000). Rights to Language: equity, power, and education: Celebrating the 60th Birthday of Tove Skutnabb-Kangas. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. Kymlicka, Will and Wayne Norman (2000). Citizenship in culturally diverse societies: Issues, contexts, concepts. In Citizenship in diverse societies, ed. Will Kymlicka and Wayne Norman.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1-41. Adelaar, Willem F. H.; & Muysken, Pieter C. (2004). The languages of the Andes. Cambridge language surveys. Cambridge University Press.

73 In the same way, indigenous political expression is not simply identifiable in varieties of postcolonial impositions but inseparable from the local forms of political association and post popular participation base organizations in which both indigenous and non-indigenous people are active. Thus, indigenous “purity” is not a condition for indigenous political consciousness.

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Yashar, Deborah (2005). Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gamarra, Eduardo (1994). Market-Oriented Reforms and Democratization in Latin America: Challenges of the 1990s, in W.C. Smith, C.H. Acuña and E.A. Gamarra (eds) Latin American Political Economy in the Age of Neoliberal Reform, pp. 1–15. Miami, FL: North-South Center. Guerrero, Andrés (1994). Una imagen ventrílocua: el discurso liberal de la "desgraciada raza indígena afines del siglo XIX. Quito: Facultad latinoamericana de ciencias sociales. FLACSO-Sede Ecuador. Urquidi, A. (1976). Temas de Reforma Agraria. La Paz: Ed. Juventud. Flores-Galindo, Alberto (1986). República sin Ciudadanos en Buscando un Inca: identidad y utopía en los Andes. Lima: Sur. Degregori, Carlos Iván (1995). Movimientos étnicos, democracia y nación en Perú y Bolivia.. Democracia, etnicidad y violencia política en los países andinos. Lima: Instituto de estudios peruanos (IEP). Fraser, Nancy (2001). Recognition without ethics. Theory, Culture and Society. Vol. 18 2-3, 21-41. Aguilar, Gonzalo; Lafosse, Sandra; Rojas, Hugo; Steward, Rébecca. The Constitutional Recognition of Indigenous Peoples in Latin America. Pace Int`L. Rev. Online Companion, Sept. 2010, at 44. Albro, Robert (2010). Confounding Cultural Citizenship and Constitutional Reform in Bolivia. Latin American Perspectives, Issue 172, Vol. 37 No. 3, 71-90 Albro, Robert (2006). The Culture of Democracy and Bolivia's Indigenous Movements. Critique of Anthropology 2006 26: 387 Constitución de la República Plurinacional de Bolivia 2009 Constitución de la República del Perú 1993 Constitución Política del Ecuador 2008 Audiovisual material: HemiScope special Edition, Interview by Peter H. Smith with Prof. Rodolfo Stavenhagen. Series: HemiScope [6/2008] [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 14667]. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTYrgJI5OTg Agencia Chaski. Interview to Javier Diez-Canseco. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRN5GrHvgEE Mesa Gisbert, Carlos. Bolivia, la concepción indigenista. Seminary at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, in Barcelona (Spain), on February 21, 2011. Databases: CIA World Factbook Instituto Nacional de Estadística de Bolivia: http://www.ine.gob.bo/ Political Database of the Americas: http://pdba.georgetown.edu/ Others

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Stavenhagen, Rodolfo (2004). Indigenous Peoples and Cultural Diversity: outlines and proposals. http://www.ibcperu.org/doc/isis/8763.pdf C169 Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo de Pueblos Andinos, Amazónicos y Afroperuano (INDEPA) Newspaper El Comercio (Perú)

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Annex: Map 1.1: Ethnolinguistic map of the Indigenous Peoples of Bolivia

Source: Adelaar, 2000.

Map 1.2: Geographic map of Bolivia (Highlands and lowlands)

Source: Travel Bolivia, 2010.

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Map 2: Ethnolinguistic map of the Indigenous Peoples of Peru

Source: Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo de Pueblos Amazónicos, Andinos y Afroperuano (INDEPA). 2010

25

Source: Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo de Pueblos Amazónicos, Andinos y Afroperuano (INDEPA). 2010

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Table 1: Being indigenous increases the probability of being poor, even controlling for the common predictors of poverty

Source: Hall and Patrinos (2004).

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Table 2: Matrix of the current state of recognition of IPs in Latin America74

Source: Aguilar, Gonzalo; Lafosse, Sandra; Rojas, Hugo; Steward, Rébecca., 2010.

74 * New Bolivian Political Constitution, ratified by referendum in January, 2009. ** New Ecuadorian Political Constitution, ratified by referendum in September, 2008. X(A) Constitutions that specifically mention indigenous peoples‘ right to autonomy. X(B) The Constitution of Panama utilized the term bilingual literacy.