Search

This paper explores the puzzle of why ethnic cleavages became more salient and resulted in national political mobilization in Ecuador and Bolivia, while class-based cleavages have remained more salient for national mobilization in Peru? A comparison of indigenous mobilization in the three Andean cases provides a useful test for competing theories of ethnic identity in order to inform the debate over whether ethnic identity is different in kind from other types of identity, such as class. The paper utilizes the cases to evaluate four broad approaches to identity: Primordialism; "Thick" Constructivism, Rational Choice, and Situational. A secondary purpose of the paper is to suggest ways that the literature on ethnic identity may inform the research among Latin American scholars studying indigenous mobilization in the Andes.The paper concludes that the three cases support the "situational" view of ethnicity, which posits that ethnicity is fundamentally different from class because it is rooted in culture and relies on the symbolic use of some aspect of culture to differentiate one group from another. People organize their perceptions and various identities become more salient in different situational contexts, depending on how an issue is framed, which is why symbols are so important. The paper finds that while indigenous identity remained salient in the Peruvian highlands, ethnicity was not a particularly useful tool around which to organize mass mobilizations because it was constructed differently than in Ecuador and Bolivia, thus inhibiting a national indigenous movement. Factors such as the failure to incorporate the concept of mestizaje into the nationalization campaign of the 20th century and the tendency for indigenous symbols to be incorporated into the nationalization process and reframed to be symbols of Peruvian nationalism led indigenous peoples in Peru's highlands to redefine indigenous identity to be compatible with notions of mestizaje and its associations with modernity and socio-economic advancement. In contrast to Ecuador and Bolivia, where indigenous social movements raised ethnic banners to resist and challenge the prevalent mestizo national images, in Peru, indigenous symbols were less useful for mobilizing indigenous peoples around their struggle for socio-economic advancement. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Latin Americanist scholars have described large scale protests, in which indigenous people have been noticeably present, as part of the larger phenomena of indigenous social movements which started in the late 1960s and have grown in prominence with governmental attempts to adopt new liberal economic reforms (Brysk 2000, Lucero 2008, Postero and Zamosc 2004, Yasher 1998, Van Cott 2003). However, while many of the protests described by these authors did have a large number of indigenous participants and were organized by self-proclaimed indigenous organizations, these organizations chose to frame their struggles against neo-liberal economics in two different and sometimes contradictory ways. For example, The Confederation of Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), began as an indigenous organization dedicated to protecting indigenous culture, and first gained national prominence by protesting for cultural rights, such as the right to bilingual education. However, when the President entered into serious negotiations with the IMF in 1999, CONAIE once again took to the street, but this time the organization's platform held no mention of cultural rights. Instead of being framed as a protest for indigenous rights, the CONAIE framed the 1999/2000 protests as struggles for the rights of workers against neoliberal economic reforms imposed by the working class. The framing of the protests as a protest for workers' rights is particularly striking given the history of racism and discrimination that indigenous peoples have historically suffered at the hands of the working mestizo class. On the other hand, AIDESEP, a regional indigenous rights organization in the Peruvian Amazon, has continued to emphasize indigenous cultural rights even in the face of neoliberal economic land reforms. This paper will therefore look at case studies from Ecuador and Peru to determine why some indigenous organizations framed protests against the adoption of neoliberal economic reforms in terms of workers' rights, while others were framed in terms of indigenous cultural and land rights. In the end I find that the Peruvian organizations had weaker domestic networks than the Ecuadorian movements, and therefore relied heavily on the internationally salient frames of indigenous rights and environmental protection, while the Ecuadorian organization CONAIE was free to adopt more nationally salient frames. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobilization of ethnic identities has received increased attention in recent years. This paper examines the organizing efforts of indigenous groups in Ecuador and Peru in order to understand why ethnic identities are mobilized and politicized by some populations and not others. I argue that ethnic mobilization results from the formulation of a collective identity by entrepreneurs and activists through consciousness-raising and meaningful framing of symbols, which shapes or takes advantage of opportunities to advance the claims and grievances of the community to a broader audience, at least some of whom endorse the validity of the movement. Ethnic identities are then politicized by the ways in which movement members interact with other actors within the political system, and with the system itself. Of the many mechanisms that social movement scholars argue play a role in episodes of contentious politics, I focus on the mechanisms of identity formation, attribution of opportunity or threat, and certification by outside actors. Movement entrepreneurs, or brokers, do the work of identity formation by framing identities through consciousness-raising and activating symbols that resonate with potential movement members so that those individuals re-order attributes of their identity to privilege an ethnic identity as their public identity. Movement entrepreneurs also play a key role in attributing opportunity or threat to an event or issue, around which ethnic identities can be mobilized. Certification of the mobilization of ethnic identities by those outside the movement conveys a sense of validation of the ethnic identity and communicates endorsement of the identity to movement members and potential members. How ethnic identities are politicized depends on the sites that movement entrepreneurs have connected, literally (in the case of coalition-forming) and figuratively (in the case of politicization of discourse). I found that the aforementioned mechanisms of ethnic mobilization played important roles in all cases of ethnic mobilization, but the importance was weighted differently across cases, depending on from where the articulation of the identity came. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]