The publication of La revolución india (The Indian Revolution, 1969) marked a milestone in the Indigenous intellectual production of Latin America. Its author, the Quechua-Aymara writer and philosopher Fausto Reinaga, inaugurated with this text—part philosophical treatise and part manifesto—an originally Indigenous modality of subjectivizing anticolonial thinking. Years later, the work inspired a variety of movements in his home country, Bolivia, and across diverse areas of the Andean corridor. However, this book belongs to a specific moment in Reinaga’s intellectual trajectory, during which he was defining indianismo as a holistic political philosophy aimed at promoting the epistemological liberation of the Indigenous nations of Latin America.
The first two writings that illustrate this formative period in Reinaga’s indianista thought are La “intelligentsia” del cholaje boliviano (The Intelligentsia of the Bolivian Cholaje, 1967) and El indio y los escritores de América (The Indian and the Writers of America, 1968). These works address his critical engagement with the lettered elite of Bolivia and the literature of Latin America, as well as the representational ethos that typifies the incorporation of Indigenous characters in the region’s literary and intellectual traditions. Written during a period of disidentification from the indigenista organizations in Bolivia, these books revisit much of the Latin American literary canon—focusing on indigenismo as a literary movement—in a reevaluation process that called for the emergence of a literature produced by Indigenous writers, articulated from a sovereign philosophical stance. The philosophical and political approach with which Reinaga articulated these demands for literary creation in the region became known as indianismo, a pivotal current of thought in the cultural history of Latin American Indigenous movements.Footnote 1
Reinaga’s sense of indianismo emerges as a political-philosophical project shaped through an oppositional dialectical interplay with indigenismo, a political, cultural, and aesthetic movement characterized by the valorization of Indigenous societies in Latin America but led by non-Indigenous (criollo-mestizo) writers and intellectuals. In opposition, indianismo is forged by a mode of Indigenous subjectivation that situates racialized subjects—primarily Indigenous—within a critical framework that centralizes Indigenous political and intellectual agency to modify their reality through a revolutionary anticolonial methodology. Ultimately, as I elaborate here, indianismo embodies a philosophical proposal rooted in epistemology, insofar as it is based on the production of knowledge as the symbolic battlefield where, in this case, Indigenous writers are expected to intervene.
For the Aymara scholar Carlos Macusaya Cruz (Reference Macusaya Cruz2014), indianismo relocates the Indigenous as a racialized subject and the main agent of a political-philosophical movement forced to distance itself from the ideological imperatives that dominated the world during the Cold War. For the decolonial theorist Catherine E. Walsh (Reference Walsh2007), with indianismo, Reinaga is promoting the construction of a theoretical framework with which to counter colonial thought from a critical stance for Latin America. Indeed, the demand for intellectual sovereignty articulates indianismo both as a political praxis and as a philosophical construct: “Nuestra lucha es contra todo vestigio europeizante … El Derecho Romano, el Código Napoleónico, la democracia francesa, el marxismo-leninismo todo, nos mantiene en la dependencia, en el colonialismo mental, en la ceguera sin encontrar la luz” (our struggle is against all Europeanizing vestiges … Roman law, the Napoleonic Code, French democracy, Marxism-Leninism all keep us in dependency, in mental colonialism, in blindness without finding the light) (Reinaga Reference Reinaga1969, 15). Through a profoundly antithetical dialectic, Reinaga advocates for the consolidation of an indianista philosophical framework. The method he adopts is to build from the opposition to the codes, laws, social theories, and revolutionary praxes that have defined the philosophical influence of the Western world in the Andes. What gives Reinaga’s ideas the status of a philosophical foundation is that he generatively disputes the production of and access to knowledge (epistemology) from an Indigenous political subjectivity.
However, what role does literature play in the formation of the indianista philosophical program? This realm of Reinaga’s agenda has remained largely underexamined by both Latin American literary studies and Global South decolonial studies, which in recent years have revived some of Reinaga’s ideas in the sphere of critical race theory.
This article aims to illuminate the role assigned to literature by Reinaga in the process of formation of indianista political-philosophical currents. In examining the three manuscripts written and published by him during this period: La “intelligentsia” del cholaje boliviano (1967), El indio y los escritores de América (1968), and La revolución india (1969), I argue that Reinaga indexes literature as an essential dimension in the elaboration of a revolutionary Indigenous philosophy. In doing so, I identify Reinaga as delineating a philosophy at the service of Indigenous literatures. That is, he conceptualizes a modality of intellectual production, thematization, and knowledge articulation that must be epistemologically invested in the service of an Indigenous, anticolonial, political praxis. On the basis of a reappraisal of Indigenous knowledge, Reinaga proposes a philosophical framework that supports a literary production meant to instigate an Indigenous revolution. This framework, in turn, calls for a literary production informed by Indigenous philosophies, such as his political-philosophical approach: indianismo.
He outlines this agenda through a drastic, critical review of Latin American literary production—primarily on indigenismo—and the social assignment that this literature creates for Indigenous characters. For him, the failed characterization of Indigenous figures in indigenismo reveals a lack of engagement with Indigenous philosophies in this literary production process. Reinaga puts forward as a demand the radical modification of the mode of subjectivation (creative consciousness) of literature by reorienting the political vision and creative qualities toward Indigenous actors committed to anticolonial modes of thought. That is, I propose reading Reinaga’s formation of a philosophy for literature as an intellectual construct and a moment that politically founds the interest in creating analytical frameworks organized by Indigenous epistemologies. His philosophical vision embraces an intellectual division of labor, spanning political action (e.g., the establishment of the Bolivian Indian Party in the early 1960s) to cultural action, as exemplified by literary creation.Footnote 2
In methodological terms, this article adopts a literary critical approach while aiming to identify a philosophical structure embedded in nonfiction manuscripts. First, I analyze the ideas presented in La “intelligentsia” and El indio, positioning these texts within a critical genealogy that advocates for the formation of Latin American philosophical thought. Simultaneously, I argue that this genealogy critiques the philosophical dependency that has contributed to the limited or inaccurate representation of Indigenous characters in Latin American literature. In this context, I contend that Reinaga proposes a model for Indigenous literary production—which he terms indianista—that establishes the foundations of the epistemological arguments that years later would be continued and, in some cases, reinvented as Indigenous scholarship developed.
Second, I extend my analysis to the book La revolución, in which literature is integrated into a revolutionary, anticolonial, and philosophical program. Here, I demonstrate how Reinaga assigns a political telos to Indigenous writing, framed by indianismo, and reinterprets literary tropes originally developed by the indigenista canon of the early twentieth century. In this section, I argue that Reinaga not only challenges indigenista modalities but also proposes an anticolonial philosophical framework that is meant to significantly influence Indigenous literary authorship and liberatory revolution. By way of conclusion, I contend that while Reinaga’s philosophical-literary project never crystallized into a self-identified indianista movement, fundamental aspects of his vision manifest as significant continuities in contemporary literary production across Abiayala.
In recent years, a number of decolonial theorists have paid attention to Reinaga as a foundational figure of anticolonial thought in Latin America during the twentieth century. For instance, Freya Schiwy (Reference Schiwy2007, 272) revisits his ideas on gender complementarity as a European ideological import in her studies on decolonizing feminist thought in Bolivia, while on many occasions, Walter Mignolo (Reference Mignolo2005, 51–52; Reference Mignolo2000, 129–130) has highlighted Reinaga as a key intellectual in the historiography of anti-Eurocentric thought.Footnote 3 For his part, Arturo Arias (Reference Arias2018, 615–616) recognizes Reinaga as part of a genealogy of nonacademic Indigenous intellectuals who inspired a “grassroots decoloniality” evident in Indigenous mobilizations and the literary production of Abiayala. Not sufficiently cited in Anglo-European scholarship, the Chilean sociologist María Elena Oliva (Reference Oliva2014, 131–144) has made interesting efforts to connect the intellectual process involved in Reinaga’s indianismo with the sense of negritude discernible in the works of Aimé Césaire and Frantz Fanon. These types of connections have also been elaborated on by José Antonio Lucero (Reference Lucero2008), who historicizes Reinaga’s intellectual production in light of what he considers a strong influence from Fanon. La revolución’s footnotes and Reinaga’s writing style are illustrative of this specific connection.
This work ultimately contributes to expanding studies on Reinaga’s work, aligning with those by Tara A. Daly and Irina A. Feldman (Reference Daly and Alexandra Feldman2024), who focus on the period known as amáutico between 1978 and 1983, following the period visualized here as the indianista formation from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s.Footnote 4 For Daly and Feldman, Reinaga’s later writings offer a somewhat contradictory, yet still anticolonial, construction of categories such as “man” and “cosmos,” which are central to his conception of the human. Building on Daly and Feldman’s and Macusaya Cruz’s periodization, as well as drawing from these previous interpretations of Reinaga’s intellectual contributions, I focus exclusively on his evaluations of literature as a pivotal cultural system for the consolidation of an indianista philosophy from which I interpret the design of what I call here a philosophy for Indigenous literature. The construction of a set of philosophical values specifically situated within the field of epistemology (knowledge creation and literary production), is intended to serve an Indigenous revolution.
An Indigenous challenge to Latin American literature
El indigenismo es la literatura producida por el cholaje intelectual. No es una literatura india, producida por el indio es una literatura chola producida por el cholo. Es el cholismo literario que toma para su quehacer al indio y sus cosas. [Indigenismo is the literature produced by the intellectual cholaje. It is not an Indian literature, produced by Indians, it is a cholo literature produced by cholos. It is the literary cholismo that uses Indians and their things for its purpose.] (Reinaga Reference Reinaga1967, 319, original emphasis)Footnote 5
In La “intelligentsia” del cholaje boliviano (1967), Reinaga makes a critical review of the historical-cultural conditions that determine the intellectual production in his country. The previous quotation belongs to a fragment of his essay in which he interrogates the political role of Bolivian indigenista literature, with special emphasis on writers of the Bolivian canon: Alcides Arguedas, Franz Tamayo, Guillermo Francovich, among others. For him, all these are criollo authors or, in some cases, mestizos whom Reinaga constantly refers to as cholos—for him an alienated social category—in describing subjects with Indigenous roots but who consciously undergo a process of acculturation.Footnote 6 Illustrating indigenista literature as a neocolonizing cultural production as it is subsumed by criollo-mestizo actors who approach Indigenous people only to extract topics or cultural references, Reinaga discredits this literary movement as a valid interlocutor on the political and cultural needs of Indigenous collectivities. In a way, in these objections he anticipates some of the ideas that define the structure of what for him is a proper Indigenous literature (“No es una literatura india, producida por el indio”). Although at this point it may seem an essentialist claim, easily redressable through the positionality of writers, in this book he begins to construct a profound argument that goes beyond the identity politics of writers and promotes the incorporation of an Indigenous ethos into the Bolivian literary system. In other words, he paves the way for the epistemological argument that lies at the heart of a notion of an Indigenous philosophy for literature.
For Reinaga, the literary intervention of Indigenous authors will develop the anticolonial political cause as something more than a cultural trope. That is why he feels compelled to clarify the nature of La “intelligentsia”: “Este libro es indianista, no indigenista. Pertenece al gran granero de la ideología india” (This book is indianista, not indigenista. It belongs to the breadbasket of Indian ideology; 239). That is, he envisions his own literary production within a program of ideological construction and, on the basis of this expectation, shifts his claim to the representational limitation of indigenista literature. The radical vision that Reinaga sets up with these assessments has a twofold objective: to inspire Indigenous social actors to exert political influence through literary production and to establish the foundations for an ideologically Indigenous approach to literary criticism. Interestingly, this is in dialogue somehow with the claim made a few years later by the Cuban poet and critic Roberto Fernández Retamar in his Para una teoría de la literatura hispanoamericana (For a theory of Hispanic American literature; Reference Fernández Retamar1975), in which he formulates a call for theoretical development to organize Latin American literary studies that is ideologically framed within what could be termed an anticolonial program promoted by the Cuban Revolution back then.Footnote 7 As Walsh (Reference Walsh2007) has noted, Reinaga’s political program implies a redesign of the theoretical frameworks that articulate anticolonial thought, within which I identify literature as one of the various spatial and factual dimensions where he intends to intervene.
It is noteworthy that the dialectical analysis Reinaga applies to literature is a strategy he previously identified in the Peruvian indigenista writer and philosopher José Carlos Mariátegui and his Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (Seven interpretive essays on Peruvian reality; Reference Mariátegui and Urquidi1928). Despite being critical of Mariátegui’s indigenista nature and the fundamentally Marxist content of his ideas, Reinaga recognizes in the Peruvian intellectual an “idea-fuerza” (force-idea) that inspires him to articulate, through literature, a revolutionary notion based on a sense of Indianness (Reinaga Reference Reinaga1969, 129). In his essay “El proceso de la literatura” (Literature on trial), Mariátegui critically examines Peruvian literary historiography, accusing it of reproducing colonial values that restrict the development of Indigenous literature in Peru. Through a Marxist lens, Mariátegui argues that social and economic conditions facilitate the reproduction of a colonialist spirit in Peruvian national literature, focusing critically on a tradition of liberal aristocratic authors, such as José de la Riva Agüero and Ricardo Palma, as emblematic examples of the bourgeois-colonial trait structuring Peruvian literature. Closely familiar with Mariátegui’s work, Reinaga, in La “intelligentsia” (1967), makes a similar claim but reframes his dialectic through an Indigenous-driven anticolonial lens, where the main variable undermining Indigenous culture is the epistemological contempt inherited from the colonial structure. In this sense, while Mariátegui questions the privilege enjoyed by white-criollo literati, Reinaga incorporates mestizos-cholos into this challenge.
His indictment against cholismo literario as a cultural phenomenon that subalternized the circulation of Indigenous symbols creating a neocolonial literary imaginary is radicalized in El indio y los escritores de América (1968), where he broadens his analytical spectrum beyond Bolivian literature. Here he makes the same critical review done in La “intelligentsia” on Bolivian indigenista writers but extends his coverage to different countries and emblematic writers of Latin America. Particularly noteworthy are his reviews of the ideas of writers who did not necessarily ascribe to indigenismo but who incorporated Indigenous characters or societies in their works. For instance, the Argentinean Leopoldo Lugones, the Mexican José Vasconcelos, and the Peruvian José Santos Chocano, whom he describes as intellectuals who are part of a Latin Americanist philosophical project with brief “anti-imperialist hints,” one in which the Indigenous subject is useful only to mark an intellectual difference from Anglo-Saxon philosophical schemes (Reinaga Reference Reinaga1968, 475–477). In other words, Reinaga laments that Latin American writers have essentialized the symbolic representation of Indigenous societies in their works, for in so doing they have oxymoronically incurred in a neo-imperialist intellectual praxis. For him, what Lugones, Vasconcelos, and Chocano have in common is that they are philosophically constrained by a neocolonial Western epistemology that subsumes the literary characterization of Indigenous peoples.
In view of this panorama, Reinaga takes on the responsibility for unmasking the colonial nature implicit in Latin American literary praxis. To this end, he makes powerful statements such as “Los literatos explotan al indio, hacen por tanto una literatura de explotación; no de liberación y justicia” (The writers exploit Indians, therefore they make a literature of exploitation; not of liberation and justice; Reinaga Reference Reinaga1968, 540). His lexical choices are illustrative of the political program that inspires this text. Terms such as exploitation, liberation, and justice imbricated in a literary analysis define in many ways the nomenclature that inspires anticolonial philosophy at the end of the twentieth century, and they also inform his growing philosophical stance.Footnote 8 What is interesting about Reinaga’s examination is that he is illuminating literature—as much a cultural praxis as a platform containing symbolic discourses—as a dimension from which to intervene epistemologically to forge an anticolonial current of thought. Behind the statement accusing a “literatura de explotación” against the Indigenous, there is a reactive call for a revolutionary literature, a literature committed to opposing such exploitation. That is to say, a literature ideologically inspired by the philosophical principles of indianismo, a political philosophy that aspires to culturally intervene through literary production. Statements such as this one respond to the latter: “Llegará la hora, como que ha llegado ya, en que los auténticos y verdaderos indios, indios de sangre y espíritu, irrumpan en la ‘república de las letras’, y aparezcan cerebros indios, produciendo pensamiento indio. Y entonces, hay que estar seguro de ello, que se cantará el responso para el ‘indigenismo’ como para el ‘cholismo’. Quedando el ‘espacio vital’ libre para la literatura indianista” (The time will come, as it has already come, when the authentic and true Indians, Indians of blood and spirit, will burst into the “republic of letters,” and Indian brains will appear, producing Indian thought. And then, one must be sure of it, that the liturgy’s prayer will be sung for “indigenismo” as for “cholismo.” Leaving the “vital space” free for the indianista literature; Reinaga Reference Reinaga1968, 502).
He predicts the imminent emergence of a literary form not only authored by Indigenous actors but also intended to forge and disseminate a new mode of thought capable of making anticolonial incursions into lettered culture. Namely, he proposes indianista literature as the natural venue for an Indigenous philosophy, understanding the latter, as Dale Turner (Reference Turner2006, 81) suggests, as a set of normative rules that aim to explain the world from an Indigenous perspective and, in turn, protect such indigeneity. In this vein, the “true Indians” destined to forge indianista literature play a role similar to what Turner defines in the political-legal sphere as “word warriors” (113), subjects who embody Indigenous discursive integrity by representing the cultural, political, and philosophical interests of their communities in intellectual contexts. Therefore, indianista philosophy is defined not only by its anticolonial values (e.g., anti-Eurocentrism, the claim of Andean social-racial purity) but also by being an Indigenous approach—with an undeniable pan-Andean bias—characterized by identifying literature as one of its many fields of action.
The temporal articulation indexed in Reinaga’s philosophical formulation offers a clear vision of the revolutionary time in which Indigenous literature must intervene (“llegará la hora, como que ha llegado ya”). On the one hand, we see the re-creation of a messianic temporality akin to that proposed by Walter Benjamin. For Benjamin (2007, 262–263), in a revolutionary context, messianism implies the reformulation of present time (Jetztzeit) as the dialectical condensation of past and future, which dismantles the dominant historicist epistemology that articulates history as a mere concatenation of events.
However, within the Aymara philosophical tradition, there exists an original epistemological construction of revolutionary temporality condensed in the notion of nayrapacha (past as future). The Aymara philosopher Carlos Mamani Condori defines nayrapacha as a principle of temporal affirmation that, in addition to situating a here and now, indexes the past within the social elaboration of the future. As Mamani Condori (Reference Mamani Condori1992, 14) explains: “Pacha y nayra son por eso pasado, presente y futuro; uniendo las dos palabras tenemos nayrapacha: tiempos antiguos. Pero no son antiguos en tanto pasado muerto, carente de funciones de renovación. Implican que este mundo puede ser reversible, que el pasado también puede ser futuro” (Pacha and nayra are therefore past, present, and future; joining the two words we have nayrapacha: ancient times. But they are not ancient in the sense of a dead past, devoid of functions of renewal. They imply that this world can be reversible, that the past can also be the future). For Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (Reference Rivera2012, Reference Rivera Cusicanqui2015), nayrapacha is a concept that describes the intellectualization of time in the Andean world and offers a break from the linear conception of temporality imposed by Western epistemologies. For example, she identifies cultural iterations of nayrapacha in the temporal ruptures of Jorge Sanjinés’s (2018, 205–207) cinema.Footnote 9
In constructing an indianista philosophy, I suggest understanding the temporal implications through which Reinaga proclaims the advent of Indigenous literature through the lens of nayrapacha. This prognosis is not an arbitrary invocation that places excessive weight on the political role Indigenous writers are expected to assume; rather, it constitutes a disruptive incursion into the unbearable present that Reinaga perceives in the failed characterization of Indigenous figures in indigenista or cholista literature. Nayrapacha establishes the philosophical implications that Reinaga envisions for a form of literature forged from an epistemologically Indigenous matrix.
The claims of authenticity directly allude to the criollo-mestizo writers who are the protagonists of the indigenista literary movement, but the space of intervention announces the teleology inherent to this new literature, which he names as “republic of letters.” Of course, this republic of letters refers not necessarily to the community of enlightened European intellectuals, but to its Latin American correlate, whose structural origin is historically determined by colonialism: ciudad letrada (lettered city). Conceptualized by Ángel Rama (Reference Rama1984), the ciudad letrada responds to an urbanistically factual and intellectually symbolic space forged by the bureaucracies and lettered intellectuals who benefited from the power relations defined during the colonial period in Latin America.Footnote 10 It is this space that Reinaga proclaims as the sphere of intervention for indianista literature. A symbolic site formed by the neocolonizing literary praxis of the criollo-mestizo intellectuals that he labels under categories such as indigenismo or cholismo. For Reinaga, the ciudad letrada is a porous symbolic space through which Western philosophical imperatives have permeated the imperative signifiers that indianista philosophy must counteract, most notably, but not exclusively, through the medium of Indigenous literature.
The role of literature in shaping a revolutionary present is significantly defined by the value of indigeneity and articulates the mode of intellectualization of indianista activists. After all, Reinaga envisions in the dismantling of the criollo-mestizo lettered elite the foundational moment of an Indian nation-state. Therefore, he portrays indianista literature as the expansion of an anticolonial philosophical agenda that is eloquently expressed in his proclamations on the function of literature (“y aparezcan cerebros indios, produciendo pensamiento indio”). The call to expand the production of Indigenous thought is, in turn, a call that connotes the value of literature in disseminating indianismo as a revolutionary philosophy. After all, as Esteban Ticona Alejo (Reference Ticona Alejo2010, 41–43) points out, Reinaga’s intellectual production should be understood as a constant search to build an emancipatory epistemology for which the revocation of colonial symbols was an indispensable task. Indigenista literature and the criollo-mestizo lettered elite (ciudad letrada) contain these categories within the intellectual public debate, and that is why Reinaga places so much emphasis on them while defining the terms with which to organize what I identify here as a philosophy for Indigenous literature.
However, this type of distant reading is not the only methodological approach he employs, as his analysis incorporates close reading passages on specific works and authors to trace the colonial patterns present in indigenista literary production, as in the case of the Ecuadorian writer Jorge Icaza and his major novel Huasipungo (Reference Icaza1934).Footnote 11 Reinaga’s comments on Icaza and his work illustrate the political significance he assigns not only to the production but also to the structure that facilitates the circulation of the literary pieces created by criollo-mestizo writers. That is why he points out the following: “La estructura interna y externa de Huasipungo es totalmente europea. Es una novela para literatos y público occidentalizados. Al indio no le entra por ningún poro. No es un aliciente, menos una chispa para su liberación. El indio no entiende ni siente a Huasipungo. El éxito comercial y las traducciones responden a una propaganda organizada y bien tarifada, no a su valor intrínseco y trascendencia histórico-social” (The internal and external structure of Huasipungo is totally European. It is a novel for westernized writers and audiences. It does not enter the Indian through any pore. It is not an incentive, much less a spark for their liberation. Indians do not understand or feel Huasipungo. The commercial success and translations respond to an organized and well-priced propaganda, not to its intrinsic value and social-historical transcendence; Reinaga Reference Reinaga1968, 538–539).
In this passage, Reinaga specifically analyzes a work that is part of the Latin American novelistic canon and that had a substantial impact among the intellectual circles of the Andean corridor. This Indigenous philosopher first critiques the literary form of the novel itself as an ineffective device for engaging with the political-cultural imaginary of Indigenous society (“Al indio no le entra por ningún poro”). Both in form and in content, Reinaga judges Huasipungo to be a cultural product tailored to Eurocentric consumer expectations, reassigning to the novel liberal values. In Foucauldian terms of the “author function,” he reduces the value of Icaza and his novel to that of a mechanism devoid of sociohistorical transcendence, ultimately condemning it as merely an artifact that generates a commercial brand.Footnote 12
In doing so, the novel is dissociated from the political telos envisioned by the indianista perspective for Indigenous literature and its philosophical implication. Furthermore, Reinaga identifies the individualistic and possessive characteristics inherent in the novel form as incompatible with the sensibilities and cultural praxes that inspire Indigenous philosophies. Interestingly, his critique aligns with Benjamin’s (2007, 83–110) analysis of the novel as a product of the mechanization of cultural commodities (“El éxito comercial y las traducciones responden a una propaganda organizada y bien tarifada”). For Benjamin, the novel subordinates literature to the productivist logic of intellectual property, reducing it to a commodity circulating exclusively within the capitalist system and thus threatening the extinction of storytelling as a literary praxis. While Reinaga does not explicitly propose a formal revaluation of storytelling, his critique of the novel form opens a space for considering alternative modes of narration. These alternative forms, in turn, became part of broader debates on reconciling modern literary structures with Indigenous creative traditions and knowledge production, which I have discussed here as the formation of a philosophical praxis expected to have repercussions for literary production. In other words, Reinaga views indigenista novels as an obstacle to the advancement of the epistemological foundations that underpin revolutionary indianista philosophy.Footnote 13
Second, Reinaga’s questioning of Huasipungo is underpinned by a claim that he explicitly condenses under emancipatory ideas (“No es un aliciente, menos una chispa para su liberación”). For him, indianista literature requires a social function determined by the anticolonial political interest of the Indigenous peoples. After all, as Turner posits, Indigenous intellectuals are meant to employ Indigenous knowledges to defend their collective interests. The novel being the literary genre par excellence of modernity, the sense of the liberatory claim that Reinaga proclaims is inscribed within a philosophical vision where liberation operates as a countermodern praxis. That is, liberation counteracts the modern cultural imperatives that were installed in Latin America as part of the colonial process. Here I am borrowing from the sense of liberation constructed by Enrique Dussel (2011, 15–18), who, elaborating philosophical arguments, posits liberation as a process of political activation in which peripheral societies design counterdiscourses that emancipate them from modernity as a subalternizing process. Indianismo is, by nature, a liberatory philosophical approach that seeks the collapse of Western cultural imperatives in Indigenous contexts. For Reinaga, the indigenista novel, in its form and content, does not contribute to the dismantling of modern-colonial imperatives but rather reinforces them by subjugating the image of Indigenous peoples in the cultural imaginary within a structure of capitalist consumption.
At this point, it could be argued that La “intelligentsia” and El indio constitute a critical revision of the criollo-mestizo literary tradition, aimed at delineating the mission that indianismo assigns to Indigenous literature. In these writings, Reinaga lays the groundwork for the formation of a philosophy of Indigenous literature that is ideologically infused with the indianista vision he was developing at the time. His position is situated within a philosophical framework, as it engages with epistemological arguments—such as the reformulation of revolutionary time and creation-circulation of knowledge—and extends beyond a mere call for the critical independence of Indigenous literatures by advocating for their study through Indigenous categories.
The philosophical mission underpinning his critique of Latin American literature, particularly indigenismo, is embedded in an anticolonial political project that anticipates some of the arguments articulated by contemporary Indigenous critics, such as the Maya K’iche’ scholar Emil Keme (Reference Keme2018) and the Kichwa scholar Armando Muyolema (Reference Muyolema2013). Both, in distinct ways, emphasize the need to reconfigure the philosophical principles through which the role of Indigenous cultures in literary production is evaluated, firmly situating these discussions within a political framework. In other words, by defining a philosophy for Indigenous literatures, Reinaga initiates a mode of intellectual production that enables Indigenous subjectivities to participate in theoretical discourse, as well as in the development of strategies and categories of analysis.
Indianismo, Indigenismo, and a philosophy for Indigenous literatures
El indio tiene que producir su literatura de indios y para indios; el indio tiene que hacer su literatura en su propia lengua y con el fuego de su propio espíritu. La literatura india tiene que ser sentida, pensada y escrita en keswa y aymara, para las masas de millones de indios keswas y aymaras, que hoy como ayer —esta sociedad occidentalizada— se niega a poner alfabeto a estas lenguas… [Indians have to produce their literature by and for Indians; Indians have to produce their literature in their own language and with the fire of their own spirit. Indian literature has to be felt, thought and written in Keswa and Aymara, for the masses of millions of Keswa and Aymara Indians, that today as yesterday—this westernized society—refuses to alphabetize these languages.] (Reinaga Reference Reinaga1969, 136)
In many respects, La revolución india (1969) is a call to political action that addresses multiple dimensions of the social, political, and cultural life of Indigenous peoples. In this eclectic monograph, which combines political analysis, commentary on historical events, and philosophical argumentations, Reinaga consolidates the ideological project of indianismo. The summoning tone in the quote that opens this section is unequivocal: Indigenous social actors must produce a literature forged from their own epistemological matrix and shaped by their sociohistorical affinity (“el indio tiene que hacer su literatura en su propia lengua y con el fuego de su propio espíritu”). In this particular instance, he invokes Quechua and Aymara writing as a cultural praxis both sensorially and consciously determined by an autochthonous mode of intellectual production. The use of language here is not artificial; rather, it is directed toward constructing an enunciative space in which Indigenous literature aspires to achieve what indigenista literature could not: penetrating the revolutionary consciousness of Indigenous society. To achieve this goal, Reinaga calls for a form of literature grounded in Andean philosophical principles (“La literatura india tiene que ser sentida, pensada y escrita en keswa y aymara”).
Critical annotations such as Reinaga’s, which allow us to identify in language and Indigenous political subjectivity (epistemology) components that define an enunciative site through literary creation, were taken up years later by Indigenous scholarship. For example, consider the arguments put forward by the Mixe scholar Yásnaya Aguilar Gil (Reference Aguilar Gil2016, 157–158), who defends creative writing in Indigenous languages as a twofold mechanism that is both creating an autonomous site for Indigenous literatures and is itself a mode of intercultural intervention into the dominant literary and linguistic space (i.e., the overwhelming presence of Spanish as a lingua franca in Latin America). Although the role of language is key in the literary production of Indigenous peoples in this region, for Reinaga it is crucial not to lose sight of the fact that Indigenous literature as a process pertains to the philosophical frame of indianismo. After all, he himself embraces Spanish as a lingua franca. Consequently, this form of Indigenous enunciation is less linguistically determined than it is shaped by an intellectual project philosophically committed to Indigenous modes of transforming reality. The reason this approach is examined here as a philosophy of Indigenous literature stems from the recognition of indianismo as a political and social philosophy that promotes the transformation of reality through an original epistemological method.
To consolidate this project, Reinaga identifies the need to strengthen the positionality of Indigenous writers as an epistemologically autonomous space of enunciation. That is why he defines himself as follows: “No soy escritor ni literato mestizo. Yo soy indio. Un indio que piensa; que hace ideas; que crea ideas. Mi ambición es forjar una ideología india; una ideología de mi raza” (I am neither a writer nor a mestizo literate man. I am an Indian. An Indian who thinks; who makes ideas; who creates ideas. My ambition is to forge an Indian ideology; an ideology of my race; Reinaga Reference Reinaga1969, 45). Reinaga’s epistemological framework intentionally imbricates categories such as “ideology” and “race” as the sociohistorical basis that defines the subjective conditions of indianista philosophy, and it is this combination that defines him as an Indigenous writer.
The production of ideas rooted in an Indigenous subjectivity articulates the philosophical foundation of indianismo. Through his texts La “intelligentsia,” El indio, and La revolución, Reinaga constructs an original philosophical approach whose methodological pillars are grounded in literary creation as cultural praxis, the incorporation of Andean philosophical principles (e.g., nayrapacha), and the generation of revolutionary ideas as philosophical praxis (transformation of a neocolonial reality). What makes La revolución particularly significant, however, is its prescriptive nature. Written in accessible language and intended to shape the consciousness of Indigenous peoples, the work incorporates literature into a political-philosophical programmatic agenda that diversifies the tradition of anticolonial discourses in Latin America. Crucially, Reinaga achieves this from a perspective that foregrounds values such as indigeneity and epistemological liberation. These objectives define the expectations that indianismo assigns to Indigenous literature, reevaluating and redefining the symbolic categories that structure Indigenous thought and literary creation: “El indio no puede tener la misma literatura que sus señores amos. El indio tiene que tener ‘su’ literatura; suya y propia; no ‘indígena’ ni ‘indigenista’, sino una literatura india, indianista” (Indians cannot have the same literature as their masters. Indians have to have “their” literature; their very own; not “Indigenous” or “indigenista,” but an Indian literature, indianista) (Reinaga Reference Reinaga1969, 137).
This passage reflects Reinaga’s objections to the Inter-American Indigenista Congress (CII, by its Spanish acronym) and what he perceives as the trivialization of the category “Indigenous” by the predominantly criollo-mestizo intellectuals and politicians who participated in it. The categorical distinction he seeks to articulate stems from the need to align his political-philosophical indianista project with the literary production of the time. During the peak years of the CII, held in countries like Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Guatemala—nations characterized by significant Indigenous populations—indigenista writers and intellectuals such as the Mexicans Manuel Gamio and Miguel León-Portilla, as well as the Peruvian José María Arguedas, dominated cultural debates. Once again, Reinaga emphasizes literature as a praxis intended to grant cultural autonomy to Indigenous actors. Epistemological liberation serves as the philosophical cornerstone of indianismo and the guiding principle of Indigenous literature: “El problema del indio no es de asimilación; es de liberación” (The problem of the Indian is not assimilation; it is liberation; Reinaga Reference Reinaga1969, 137). Through a profoundly dialectical method, the critique of indigenismo serves as the basis for the philosophical delineation of indianismo as a liberatory and secular philosophical framework.
In La revolución, Reinaga revisits an agenda he introduced in his two previous books: a frontal critique of indigenismo as a mode of delineating an authentic philosophical frame. He identifies within indigenismo an ideological co-optation and thematic distortion of the issues affecting Indigenous peoples across the Americas in general and the Andes in particular. His anticolonial philosophy therefore targets the indigenista representational ethos that defines the portrayal of Indigenous characters in the literary tradition to articulate indianista values, ideas, and beliefs for Indigenous literature. For instance, he critiques the misrepresentation in works such as Huasipungo, arguing that such portrayals limit the scope of Indigenous modes of subjectivation both in the symbolic realm of fiction and in the material domain of literary circulation—whether through books, magazines, or other formats. In response, indianismo assumes the responsibility of offering a countervailing set of ideals, and it is here that Reinaga presents a philosophy for Indigenous literatures as a dual epistemological approach: a revolutionary ideology and a praxis of cultural intervention.
What, then, is the role of literature in an anticolonial political project like the one Reinaga envisions? It is the production and dissemination of Indigenous thought aimed at restoring the political and intellectual agency of a marginalized social group. Through the interweaving of philosophy and literature, Reinaga seeks to subvert what Rodolfo Kusch (Reference Kusch1976, 25–30) identifies as an “intellectual inferiority complex” defining the identity of the American man. Like Kusch, Reinaga traces this intellectual constraint to colonialism, which imposes Western conceptual imperatives as the only valid framework. In the framework of indianismo, this decolonizing reversal necessitates Indigenous mobilization as a tangible battlefield, correlating with the symbolic battlefield where Indigenous literature—programmatically articulated as indianista literature—would intervene.
Reinaga thus criticizes indigenismo for producing texts that, in his words, “no mueven ni conmueven a ningún pueblo de la tierra” (do not move or affect any people of the Earth; Reinaga Reference Reinaga1969, 45). Consequently, his design of an anticolonial philosophy positions Indigenous literature, philosophically articulated by indianismo, not as an end in itself but as a means to a larger goal: the epistemological liberation of Indigenous peoples. This liberation envisions the refoundation of the social project under the idea of an “Indian Republic,” freed from Western intellectual imperatives (446). Within this political project, indianista literary production functions as an intellectual weapon aimed at cultivating a revolutionary consciousness among its Indigenous readership and inspiring their social mobilization. To achieve this, antagonizing indigenismo—which Reinaga often inaccurately portrays as a homogeneous movement—becomes a critical tactic for advancing indianista activism: “El indio por naturaleza, principio y acto es, debe y tiene que ser no sólo anti-indigenista; sino el indio tiene que ser enemigo del indigenismo. Porque el indigenismo, como literatura, es una literatura sentida, pensada y escrita por mestizos y cholos y para mestizos y cholos. El indigenismo es una literatura del mestizo occidentalizado, para el consumo, no de los indios que ignoran el castellano” (Indians by nature, principle and act are, must and have to be not only anti-indigenista; Indians must also be the enemy of indigenismo. Because indigenismo, as literature, is a literature felt, thought, and written by mestizos and cholos and for mestizos and cholos. Indigenismo is a literature of the Westernized mestizo, for consumption, not of Indians who ignore Spanish) (Reinaga Reference Reinaga1969, 246). The primary issue Reinaga identifies regarding the intellectual and affective disconnection between indigenista literary production and Indigenous readerships lies in the Westernized nature underpinning this type of literature. As a social process, literature created by criollo-mestizo writers incubates Western philosophical imperatives that disengage, misrepresent, and, more problematically, demobilize Indigenous collectives. For Reinaga, indianista philosophy embodies a holistic construct of Indigenous beingness that cannot be supplanted, even by the most radical or empathetic versions of indigenismo. He contends that this revolutionary philosophy, grounded in Indigenous traditions, should serve as the foundational inspiration for Indigenous literary production. This argument is illustrated in an endnote of La revolución, where he quotes the Peruvian criollo writer Mario Vargas Llosa, who describes the mestizo indigenista José María Arguedas as a “culturally Indian” individual. Reinaga rejects this, stating: “Para saber lo que es indio hay que ser indio. Porque aquel que es sólo ‘culturalmente’ indio; solo puede revelar lo indio. Pero quien es indio de carne y corazón, cosmos y raza, no sólo que ‘revela’ lo indio, sino que rebela al indio” (To know what the Indian is, one must be Indian. Because whoever is only “culturally” Indian can only reveal that which is Indian. But whoever is Indian of flesh and heart, cosmos and race, not only ‘reveals’ what is Indian, but also rebels the Indian; Reinaga Reference Reinaga1969, 491). For Reinaga, the subjective conditions of the writer define not only the apprehension of reality but also the philosophical-holistic instruments that permeate their writings and, hence, their revolutionary capabilities.
The problem is not merely about authorship but also about the representational value of these writings. As Catherine Walsh has noted, Reinaga’s holistic political project and his indianismo involve constructing a new theoretical framework to interpret and respond to the multiple oppressions suffered by Indigenous peoples in Latin America. Parallel to establishing a political entity to organize Indigenous movements, the Partido Indio de Bolivia (Bolivian Indian Party), Reinaga extends the pragmatic and theoretical vision of anticolonial thinking into the realm of literature. Thus, literature becomes part of a broader project. As Walsh (Reference Walsh2023, 195) observes, “The struggle [of Reinaga] was not for assimilation into the structures, institutions, and logic of dominant society. Rather, it was for the right to existence as an Indian or Indigenous Nation.” In other words, within the framework of indianismo, literature functions simultaneously as cultural praxis and theoretical production—a form of theory making that responds to the oppressive conditions of colonialism, including racism, poverty, and ontological inferiorization. Philosophically, this approach constitutes an epistemological intervention, as it directly engages with the production and circulation of knowledge.
As a theoretical endeavor, indianismo and its advocacy for literature grounded in Indigenous consciousness align with what María Lugones (Reference Lugones2003, 53–57) describes as “liberating theory.” Such theory is forged through a syllogism that reveals the oppressive logic of the colonial social structure (embodied in criollo-mestizo republics) and the misrepresentative nature of their literatures (exemplified by indigenista writings), leading deductively to the necessity of a liberating alternative—indianismo and Indigenous literatures.
Drawing on the ideas articulated in La revolución, I argue that Reinaga completes in this text the delineation of a philosophical construct intended to shape the politics of Indigenous literature in Latin America. As a philosophical stance, indianismo proposes a methodological approach that revisits and overturns Western ideals imposed on the societies of the Americas during colonial settlement, exemplified both by his critique of indigenista literature and his advocacy for revolutionary action grounded in Indigenous epistemologies. It is a holistic, anticolonial vision that seeks to restore the values of precolonial Indigenous societies, such as the Inka, albeit at times romanticizing certain historical aspects. Within this comprehensive philosophical proposal, literature plays a pivotal role, providing an enunciative site for the circulation of indianista ideals and their mobilizing impact on Indigenous readerships. Ultimately, Reinaga aims to inspire the political mobilization of subalternized collectivities in Latin America, employing literature to reimagine cultural tropes that dominate the symbolic sphere. As Aníbal Quijano (Reference Quijano2007, 169–70) defines it, cultural coloniality entails the imposition of beliefs, images, and symbols that the colonized subjects necessarily internalize as part of a system of social domination. For indianismo, literature serves as an effective tool to contest cultural coloniality, as it involves creating new modes of signification that not only dismantle Eurocentric cultural imperatives—produced largely, though not exclusively, by criollo-mestizo lettered elites—but also foster the development of Indigenous philosophical thought through epistemologically liberated intellectual mechanisms.
The philosophy for Indigenous literature that Reinaga articulates during his indianista period operates on two levels. It functions as a vehicle for disseminating the Indigenous anticolonial political program and as an instrument for constructing a new imaginary for Indigenous societies in the Andes and Latin America more broadly. However, the definition of Indigenous literature as ideologically framed by indianismo—what he terms indianista literature—is inherently prescriptive, as it refers largely to a field still in the process of being constructed. The structural conditions under which Reinaga works obscure much of the already existing Indigenous literature in Latin America from his intellectual perspective, which is why his primary referent remains the indigenista tradition. In some ways, this benefits the philosophical goals of indianismo, as it positions literary intervention as a forward-looking praxis, or, as he describes it in El indio y los escritores de América, a movement poised to disrupt the “republic of letters.” Ultimately, indianismo is a revolutionary philosophy aimed at reconstructing the way of being in the world for Indigenous societies. Within this teleological framework, literature created and driven by Indigenous actors assumes a particularly critical political and philosophical relevance in the battleground of intellectuality.
Is there indianista literature in Abiayala?
It is pertinent to inquire where this literature might be located. Did the indianista literary project, as conceptualized by Reinaga, ever come to fruition? To be sure, the label “indianista literature”—as in Reinaga—was never explicitly adopted as a formal movement. Scholars who have traced the history of Abiayala literature over the past four decades will find few writers openly identifying with the specific school of thought promoted by Reinaga during the 1960s and 1970s. Nevertheless, the constellation of expressions within the cultural sphere of Abiayala reveals instances that—with varying degrees of cohesion—reflect the political and philosophical spirit advocated by the Quechua-Aymara philosopher.
While a comprehensive exploration warrants a more extensive study, I present two cases that offer glimpses of this spirit in publications that, paradoxically, might have unsettled Reinaga in formal terms: novels. On the one hand, there is the controversy surrounding the bilingual Maya-Spanish novel X-Teya, u puksi’ik’al ko’olel (Teya, un corazón de mujer / Teya, a woman’s heart), by Marisol Ceh Moo (Reference Ceh Moo2009). This work was criticized by Indigenous peers in Mexico for departing from traditional Mesoamerican genres, such as the short story, poetry, or chant. For Aguilar Gil (Reference Aguilar Gil2016, 157–158), Ceh Moo’s appropriation of the novel form represents a gesture of interculturalization within the literary field, one that compels a renegotiation of the sociopolitical status of literary creation in nation-states with a significant Indigenous presence, such as Mexico.
A further example is Aqupampa (Reference Landeo Muñoz2016), a novel published exclusively in Quechua by the Andean writer Pablo Landeo Muñoz. His refusal to permit a Spanish translation constitutes a gesture that does more than merely provincialize Peru’s predominant monolingual Spanish-speaking readership. This act is central to Landeo’s (Reference Landeo Muñoz2023) vision of mana tawnayuq qillqa, or “writing without crutches,” a policy through which he rejects self-translation “in which the translation into Quechua becomes almost decorative; it is necessary to publish—and much has already been published—in Quechua on its own merit.” In this way, Landeo contributes to the construction of Abiayala as a space of symbolic enunciation—as Keme posits—that enables the autonomous cultural development of Indigenous nations within Latin America.
Although neither case explicitly identifies as indianista literature, both embody the political-philosophical spirit Reinaga envisioned. Whether by appropriating the novel form or by asserting the value of monolingual circulation within the Quechua literary field, Ceh Moo and Landeo deploy anticolonial epistemological arguments in service of a liberating Indigenous political agenda. Even if only partially, they manifest the expansion of the anticolonialism indexed in indianista philosophy—a project that, while failing to reproduce itself nominally, continues to resonate in the literary field. The most salient feature of this gesture is the way both authors destabilize the neocolonial imperatives governing the national cultural landscapes of Mexico and Peru.
Reinaga’s theoretical contributions, as highlighted in this article, bridge the disciplines of philosophy and literature. Ultimately, designing a philosophy for Indigenous literature entails the development of theoretical and political categories for analyzing Indigenous writings that challenge the philosophical imperatives of Western modernity. This paper has sought to delineate Reinaga’s intellectual figure as a foundational voice of Indigenous criticism and anticolonial philosophy tradition. More extensive studies could further explore the impact of his ideas in other areas of cultural and political production among the Indigenous nations of Latin America.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by funding from Hamilton College.
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