We Are Originarios …‘We Just Aren't from Here’: Coca leaf and Identity Politics in the Chapare, Bolivia

Abstract

This article first examines the ways in which coca leaf acquired an important symbolic value in forging a counter-hegemonic discourse that wove together various strands of class and cultural identity struggles in the Chapare province, Bolivia. The second line of enquiry that runs through this article deals with the conflicts that arose when the coca union mutated into a governing political party. Now that the coca growers' leader, Evo Morales, is President of the Republic he is obliged by the international community to reduce the amount of land under coca cultivation. To do this President Morales has had to rhetorically pull coca leaf apart from Andean tradition. This presents a challenge to the integrity of indigenous-peasant based movements in the Chapare because it brings attention to their constructed nature and thus questions the authenticity of the originario identity.

Citizenship or Repression? Coca, Eradication and Development in the Andes

“…Given the lack of alternatives, farmers often replant coca deeper in the jungle. Thus all that eradication achieves is to displace coca cultivation and spread the civil conflict to new areas (Dion & (Grisaffi 2010).…”

‘Some Time From Now They’ll be Good Farmers’: Rethinking Perceptions of Social Evolution in an Area of Interethnic Contact in Lowland Bolivia

“…Several authors have noted that indigenous peoples from the highlands express strong feelings of superiority in relation to indigenous peoples from the lowlands 184 C. Sturtevant (Canessa 2006;Grisaffi 2010;Riester 1976), though few have explored this perception in great detail. In the Alto Beni region, Aymara colonists and Mosetenes alike describe and enact a local hierarchy in which Aymaras occupy a higher position.…”

From the Rainy Place to the Burnt Palace: How Social Movements Form their Political Strategies. The Case of the Six Federations of the Tropic of Cochabamba

“…Ironically enough, the very same president who had previously nationalised the tin mines, Victor Paz Estenssoro, would now be the one to close them down. Many of the miners moved to the Chapare and became cocaleros (Albro, ; Spedding, ; Dangl, ; Gutiérrez Aguilar, ; Grisaffi, ). And they were determined not to lose their livelihood for a second time.…”