Beyond indigeneity : coca growing and the emergence of a new middle class in Bolivia

Author / Creator

Calderón, Alessandra Pellegrini, author

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Summary

This manuscript is a new foray into indigenous identity social mobility within Latin American social anthropology. Evo Morales' presidency in Bolivia has led to a strong publicity of coca issues an...

This manuscript is a new foray into indigenous identity social mobility within Latin American social anthropology. Evo Morales' presidency in Bolivia has led to a strong publicity of coca issues and to an intensification of indigeneity discourses, which fits into the global trend of people increasingly self-identifying as indigenous. This manuscript asks about how those who cultivate the traditional coca leaves in Bolivia position themselves vis-à-vis the discourses of indigeneity. It crystallizes that coca growers are highly reluctant to embrace the politics of indigeneity by rejecting the "indigenous peoples' slot", while at the same time they are emerging as a new middle class and break with the traditional model of social mobility in Latin America. They stay in-between ethnic categories, but also in-between social classes. By this, ethnic identification and prosperity become arranged in a new, unusual way, and make new forms of political positioning thinkable"--Provided by publisher.

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