Governing Pluralities in the Making

Indigenous knowledge and the question of sovereignty in contemporary Bolivia

Authors

• Eija Ranta-Owusu University of Helsinki https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6978-6174

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30676/jfas.127493

Abstract

It is a common argument that indigenous movements are not organized to seize state power but rather sovereignty through autonomous arrangements. In Bolivia, however, they evolved rapidly into a governing political instrument. The process of state transformation that followed emphasizes indigenous knowledge as the ideological basis for the construction of a plurinational state, a conglomeration of indigenous autonomies. The article examines dynamics  and contestations around the definition of indigenous knowledge in respect to sovereignty claims, as an articulation between local cosmologies, global development encounters, and the power of capital. At the center of analysis is the changing role of the nation-state. It is argued that in Bolivia, the state is a crucial reference point for indigenous peoples; yet the politics of indigenous sovereignty implies a radically altered understanding of the state both as an object and an instrument of change for the sovereignty of governing pluralities.

 

Keywords: indigenous knowledge, sovereignty, plurinational state, autonomies, state transformation, Bolivia