Decolonizing the state: Indigenous politics and the limits of Bolivian plurinationalism(Political Ethnography)

Decolonizing the state is an ethnographic exploration of the Bolivian Movement for Socialism (MAS) government's project of progressive state-building at the local level. While the MAS aimed to re-found the nation via legal and constitutional reforms aimed at empowering its majority indigenous population and dismantling colonial legacies, after twenty years in office it dramatically lost power. Based on long-term fieldwork in a Quechua-speaking community, this book examines first-hand the complex, often contradictory outcomes of state-led decolonisation. It brings history and ethnography into dialogue with European critical theory, decolonial and indigenous thought to show how colonial state-making shaped Bolivia’s political order – and continues to constrain transformative change. At a time of growing uncertainty for the Latin American and global Left, Decolonizing the state offers a vital contribution to debates on state power, indigeneity, radical politics, and the practice of decolonisation.

Introduction: Indigenous political conflict in the new Bolivia
I Decolonizing the state in Bolivia
1 Decolonization, states and legibility
2 Indigenous politics and the Bolivian state

II Indigenous local politics and the plurinational state
3 Territory and identity: the National Agrarian Reform (INRA) Law and the legal status of land
4 The meaning of living well: the Popular Participation (LPP) Law and the local politics of development
5 Indigenous autonomy: the Autonomies and Decentralization (LMAD) Law and local governance
6 Legal pluralism and Indigenous justice: the Jurisdictional Demarcation Law and the 2009 Bolivian constitution

Conclusion: The new Bolivia, decolonization and state reform
References
Index

Matthew Doyle is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology at University College London

'Doyle’s compelling ethnography of Indigenous self-governance institutions in highland Bolivia demonstrates the limitations inherent in state-led decolonization projects. He shows how, despite the MAS government’s promises to devolve power to local communities, its reforms ultimately destabilized the very communities they sought to empower. Doyle makes a forceful contribution to the literature on colonialism and the state, arguing that meaningful decolonization requires recognizing and amplifying existing forms of self-governance rather than reducing them to bureaucratically legible forms.'
Nancy Postero, Professor of Anthropology at UC San Diego and author of Now we are Citizens and The Indigenous State