Beginning in 1990, indigenous uprisings changed the face of politics in Ecuador and Bolivia. In Ecuador, a significant but minority political coalition focused attention on indigenous communities as the rural poor, while in Bolivia Evo Morales emerged as president, holding that office for over ten years until his tumultuous exit in 2019. Jeffery Paige explores these two indigenous revolutions through over 20 extensive interviews with key indigenous political leaders in both countries and offers contextual information and interpretation to guide the reader through their detailed accounts.
Revolution itself is redefined and reconceptualized by Paige and his interlocutors. No longer the armed guerrilla conflicts of the mid twentieth century, the revolutions in Ecuador and Bolivia operated along two dimensions. These revolutions sought change through democratic processes, through a constitutional transfer of power rather than through armed struggle. In the streets, there were mass uprisings and demonstrations, predominantly peaceful but still disruptive: blocking roads, shutting down transportation, barricading government buildings.
The other, underlying, dimension “represented a sharp break not only with Western modernity but also with transitional indigenous cosmology while mixing elements of both” (29). This symbolic transformation combined an economic and political communalism with roots in indigenous traditions with elements of popular democratic socialism. One of Paige's interviewees, Marlon Santi, describes it as “a solidary economy that generates resources for all, that gives dignity, gives life, and a future where humanity can continue to exist” (68). The term sumak kawsay was used in both countries to convey this notion; loosely translated as “living well,” the term conveys a social order that is shaped by interdependence of families and communities and a further interdependence of humans and the natural and spiritual worlds, in which resources are used sustainably and equitably. Sumak kawsay conveys a symbolically radical break with the modern emphasis on the individual, neoliberal capitalism, and the extractivism that has accompanied it.
As Paige indicates, the indigenous revolutions in both Ecuador and Bolivia have deep roots that emerged not simply as resistance to neoliberalism, but also in response to decades of political and social organizing and centuries of colonial oppression. Significantly, indigenous identity itself became a lens that focused resistance, and Paige traces many of the differences between the two revolutions to the ways in which indigenous identities were uniquely mobilized. Ecuador's leaders focused on indigenous communities as nations, and they highlighted the rights and autonomy of those nations within a plurinational state. In this view, indigeneity was circumscribed by territory and ethnicity (284–85). In Bolivia, with a larger percentage of indigenous people, leaders defined indigeneity in a way that was “broad enough to include indigenous people in the highlands and the lowlands, those living in traditional homogenous ayllus in the highlands and those living in diverse immigrant communities in the semitropical and tropical regions, and even those who claim to have no indigenous identity at all” (245). Although there are additional factors in the relative success of the two movements, including a stronger history of left-wing movements in Bolivia as well as the presence of an influential group of indigenous intellectuals and academics, the ability of the Bolivian movement to create a more inclusive vision of contemporary indigeneity stands out as a key difference in success in electoral politics. As a topic that is fraught with issues of authenticity and freighted by the consequences that can accompany indigenous status, the discussion of indigenous identity by the indigenous leaders interviewed by Paige adds considerably to our understanding of how that identity has been constructed, reconstructed, and played out in lived experiences.
Overall, this book makes a tremendous contribution to our understanding of indigenous political movements. Paige offers excellent contextualization for the interviews, deftly guiding the reader through historical circumstances and the intricacies of multiparty relationships. For scholars of the region, it offers tremendous insights into the experiences and viewpoints of the impressive list of interviewees, key figures in the movements. It will be a useful text for oral historians and their students as a model for making ethnographic meaning out of interview narratives. And for those interested in revolutions and social change more broadly, it offers a case study of how these movements can take shape in the twenty-first century, with the hope that mass movements and utopian dreams can transform democratic politics.
