Enunciación indígena versus “Nacionalismo étnico” en la construcción del Estado plurinacional boliviano

Abstract

This paper discusses with contemporary social research that addressed the question of contemporary changes in Bolivian State that is no longer a Republic but rather a Plurinational State. The main argument is that a part of Bolivian research staff developed a discussion on these contemporary changes mainly mirroring the terms in which this discussion took place in Europe, tending a veil over the material and symbolic processes of the indigenous people contesting and building the nation. It is shown, assuming the perspective developed by Partha Chaterjee and bringing to account main historical events within the katarista trend, that the indigenous people in Bolivia is far from arrange themselves in a folkloric fashion: they do not belong with the “nature” if this means being outside “history” as well as they don’t divide “cultural” from “po- litics”. In this sense, the paper attempts to show two different things at the same time: there is a colonial reproduction of the scope of research since there’s missing a critical task of the theory, meanwhile indigenous peoples forge themselves as potential spearhead of an historical bloc.