Contesting Citizenship in Latin America
The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge

This book studies the indigenous political movements of Latin America in the twentieth century.

Deborah J. Yashar (Author)

9780521534802, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 14 March 2005

388 pages, 21 tables
22.9 x 15.4 x 2.6 cm, 0.522 kg

'Deborah Yashar has processed and put together in a coherent framework an enormous amount of data provided by documents, interviews and secondary literature. … the book has made an outstanding contribution in clarifying not only the conditions of possibility and development, but also the deep meaning of indigenous struggles …' Nations and Nationalism

Indigenous people in Latin America have mobilized in unprecedented ways - demanding recognition, equal protection, and subnational autonomy. These are remarkable developments in a region where ethnic cleavages were once universally described as weak. Recently, however, indigenous activists and elected officials have increasingly shaped national political deliberations. Deborah Yashar explains the contemporary and uneven emergence of Latin American indigenous movements - addressing both why indigenous identities have become politically salient in the contemporary period and why they have translated into significant political organizations in some places and not others. She argues that ethnic politics can best be explained through a comparative historical approach that analyzes three factors: changing citizenship regimes, social networks, and political associational space. Her argument provides insight into the fragility and unevenness of Latin America's third wave democracies and has broader implications for the ways in which we theorize the relationship between citizenship, states, identity, and social action.

Part I. Theoretical Framing: 1. Questions, approaches, and cases
2. Citizenship regimes, the state, and ethnic cleavages
3. The argument: indigenous mobilization in Latin America
Part II. The Cases: 4. Ecuador: Latin America's strongest indigenous movement
5. The Ecuadorian Andes and ECUARUNARI
6. The Ecuadorian Amazon and CONFENAIE
7. Forming the National Confederation, CONAIE
8. Bolivia: strong regional movements
9. The Bolivian Andes: the Kataristas and their legacy
10. The Bolivian Amazon
11. Peru: weak national movements and subnational variation
12. Peru. Ecuador, and Bolivia: most similar cases
13. No national indigenous movement: explaining the Peruvian anomaly
14. Explaining subnational variation
15. Conclusion: 16. Democracy and the postliberal challenge in Latin America.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Comparative politics [JPB], Regional studies [GTB]