Andean Contributions to Rethinking the State and the Nation

Introduction

The Andean region of South America is alternatively understood as a geographic, historical, or cultural area. The Spanish named the steep mountain slopes that parallel the Pacific coast along the entire western edge of South America the Andes because of their terraced appearance. The mountain range begins in Venezuela in the northern part of the continent and runs through Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and along the Chile/Argentina border to the southern tip of the continent. Historically, Tawaninsuyu (the Inca Empire) extended almost the entire length of the mountains. In 1532, the Spanish colonized the area as part of the Viceroyalty of Peru. Independence movements created the current countries in the 1820s. The term Andes is also used to refer to a set of common cultural characteristics that pre-date the Incas and have evolved and persisted until the present. Studies of these cultural traits often focus on the central Andean republics of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia and commonly interrogate subaltern challenges to dominant state structures. That more limited focus is the emphasis of this article.

General Overviews

A good comprehensive study of the Andean world remains to be written. In the absence of a synthetic survey, readers desiring an introductory text will have to consult books with a more limited conceptual reach or edited volumes that draw on the expertise of multiple scholars. The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas (Salomon and Schwartz 1999) is a lengthy but masterful collection of studies. Andrien 2001 limits his focus to the Spanish colonial period but draws on a range of cultural, political, and economic topics that are representative of the region as a whole. The essays in Thurner and Guerrero 2003 similarly provide a useful introduction to post-independence themes. Jacobsen and Aljovín de Losada 2005 and Larson, et al. 1995 help situate developments in the Andes in terms of theoretical debates. Larson 2004 is the best single volume on the 19th century. Drake 1989 focuses more narrowly on a key point in the development of capitalism in the 1920s. Urbano 1991 focuses more specifically on issues of power and violence.

Andrien, Kenneth J. Andean Worlds: Indigenous History, Culture, and Consciousness under Spanish Rule, 1532–1825. Diálogos. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001.
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A broadly conceptualized synthetic study of the colonial Andes. Organized thematically rather than chronologically, with a particular focus on economics and religion. A final chapter examines Andean resistance to Spanish rule, including Tupac Amaru’s 1780 uprising. Provides an excellent entry point to the colonial Andes.
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Drake, Paul W. The Money Doctor in the Andes: The Kemmerer Missions, 1923–1933. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1989.
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This book analyzes the technical assistance that Princeton University economist Edwin Walter Kemmerer provided to five Andean republics in the 1920s. The missions advocated centralized economic and political controls that led to far-reaching modernization. A fundamental work for understanding the emergence of capitalism in the Andes.
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Jacobsen, Nils, and Cristóbal Aljovín de Losada, eds. Political Cultures in the Andes, 1750–1950. Latin America Otherwise. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
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A highly theoretical volume with essays prepared by leading scholars for a conference at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2000. This collection of comparative historical studies focuses on Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru from the mid-18th to the mid-20th century and provides a key entry point to understanding debates about state formation in the Andes.
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Larson, Brooke. Trials of Nation Making: Liberalism, Race, and Ethnicity in the Andes, 1810–1910. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
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Expands from a key chapter in The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas (Salomon and Schwartz 1999) on the emergence of state formation in the 19th century. With separate chapters on each Andean republic, this text provides the best interpretative synthesis of subaltern attempts to shape the nature of the types of nations elites sought to form in the Andes.
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Larson, Brooke, and Olivia Harris, with Enrique Tandeter, eds. Ethnicity, Markets, and Migration in the Andes: At the Crossroads of History and Anthropology. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995.
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A monumental compilation of historical and anthropological studies by prominent scholars on markets and exchange structures in the Andes. Editors Larson and Harris contextualize the study with excellent discussions of economic systems and ethnic relations. Challenges standard notions of how peasants confronted processes of state formation.
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Salomon, Frank, and Stuart B. Schwartz, eds. The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas. Vol. 3 of South America. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
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This massive two-part volume summarizes the current state of research on indigenous peoples in the Andes from their arrival on the continent to the present. Rather than aiming for a comprehensive handbook, it emphasizes key themes. Particularly strong on the precontact and colonial periods.
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Thurner, Mark, and Andrés Guerrero, eds. After Spanish Rule: Postcolonial Predicaments of the Americas. Latin America Otherwise. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
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An outstanding collection of essays by historians and anthropologists that engages postcolonial debates in the Americas. Conceptualized as covering all of Latin America, but the editors as well as most of the contributors are Andeanists.
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Urbano, Henrique, ed. Poder y violencia en los Andes. Debates Andinos 18. Cuzco, Peru: Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos Bartolomé de Las Casas, 1991.
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A collection of papers from an interdisciplinary colloquium on power and violence held in Quito, Ecuador, in 1990. Written during the context of the Shining Path guerrilla insurgency in Peru. Leading scholars analyze the formation of state structures in a broad historical and cultural context.
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Contemporary Political Movements

A series of works, largely by anthropologists and political scientists, have sought to understand why in the late 20th century protests in the Andean republics often took significantly divergent directions in spite of a largely common cultural heritage. Bolivia-based Jesuit anthropologist Xavier Albó has a prolific body of work that provides a key foundational point for many of the other studies, although unfortunately many of his works are not broadly available in English. See Albó 2008 and Burt and Mauceri 2004 for surveys of contemporary movements. Yashar 2005 is a highly theoretical treatment that can be contrasted with Dangl 2010, which has a journalistic treatment. Political scientist Donna Lee Van Cott’s many books and essays (see Van Cott 2000, Van Cott 2005, and Van Cott 2008) are also widely respected and cited for their probing analysis of indigenous movements. Van Cott as well as Lucero 2008 and Andolina, et al. 2009 provide comparisons of movements in different Andean countries, with a particular focus on Ecuador and Bolivia.

Albó, Xavier. Movimientos y poder indígena en Bolivia, Ecuador y Perú. La Paz, Bolivia: CIPCA, 2008.
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Builds on a series of earlier works, including a key chapter in The Cambridge History of the Native Peoples of the Americas (Salomon and Schwartz 1999, cited under General Overviews) on 20th-century indigenous movements. Separate chapters on Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, followed by a comparative chapter, provides one of the best surveys on contemporary political movements in the Andes.
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Andolina, Robert, Nina Laurie, and Sarah A. Radcliffe. Indigenous Development in the Andes: Culture, Power, and Transnationalism. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
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Examines how nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) work with indigenous organizations in Ecuador and Bolivia on rural development issues in what the authors call a “social neoliberalism.” Best for its interrogation of the influence of multiscalar transnational development strategies in rural communities.
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Burt, Jo-Marie, and Philip Mauceri, eds. Politics in the Andes: Identity, Conflict, Reform. Pitt Latin American Series. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004.
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A collection of outstanding comparative analyses of political changes in the 1990s with a particular focus on identity politics, violence, and democracy. In a field heavily dominated by the central and southern Andes, this work has a notable emphasis on the northern Andes. The volume is strongest in its discussions of political violence and democracy.
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Dangl, Benjamin. Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2010.
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Journalist Dangl examines the current dances between nominally left-leaning South American governments and the dynamic social movements that helped pave their way to power. This work is strongest for its ethnographic and direct, personal observations rather than its theoretical contributions. Nevertheless, it opens the way for an important avenue of study.
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Lucero, José Antonio. Struggles of Voice: The Politics of Indigenous Representation in the Andes. Pitt Latin American Series. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008.
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Lucero uses the case studies of indigenous movements in Ecuador and Bolivia to investigate the question of how and why some activist voices become more visible and successful than others. Includes particularly good discussions of multicultural neoliberalism and identity constructions, with a particularly strong emphasis on indigenous evangelical Christian organizations.
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Van Cott, Donna Lee. The Friendly Liquidation of the Past: The Politics of Diversity in Latin America. Pitt Latin American Series. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000.
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Based on her dissertation work, compares the 1991 constitutional assembly in Colombia with the 1994 political changes in Bolivia, both of which significantly expanded the rights of indigenous peoples. Largely framed around a discussion of democratization in a political science framework.
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Van Cott, Donna Lee. From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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Examines a shift from new social movement (NSM) organizing strategies to ethnic parties in the 1990s, using case studies from throughout the Andes to ask why indigenous parties emerged in some places and not elsewhere and why they experienced various levels of success. Effectively summarizes arguments in previously published articles.
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Van Cott, Donna Lee. Radical Democracy in the Andes. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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In her last book, Van Cott examines ten municipalities in Bolivia and Ecuador where indigenous parties governed from 1995 to 2005. Asks whether indigenous parties are fulfilling their promises to deepen democracy and argues that Andean authoritarianism limits the potential benefits of local participatory democracy.
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Yashar, Deborah J. Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge. Cambridge Studies In Contentious Politics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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Yashar argues that changing citizenship regimes that challenged local autonomy led to the politicization of ethnic identities in the Andes, and this development explains the emergence of strong indigenous movements in Ecuador and Bolivia while no similar movement developed in Peru. A theoretically rich but historically and ethnographically problematic work.
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Ecuador

Of the three central Andean republics, Ecuador is the smallest and most commonly marginalized in academic and particularly historical studies. A massive nonviolent indigenous uprising in 1990 in Ecuador that corresponded with the bloody Shining Path guerrilla insurgency in neighboring Peru, which made research in that country increasingly dicey, shifted much of the Andean fieldwork northward, leading to a surge of important work on nationalism and state formation in Ecuador. For Spanish readers, Andrés Guerrero is key to understanding the emergence of modern Ecuador; see Guerrero 2010, which is a convenient entry point to the author’s work. Although published in a series on U.S. relations with Latin American republics, Pineo 2007 provides one of the best basic political narratives to introduce a reader to Ecuador. Torre 2010 engages a key issue of populist politicians during the 20th century. Corkill and Cubitt 1988 provides a survey of Ecuador’s political history in the 1980s. Striffler 2002 provides an important example of peasants organizing on the coast.

Corkill, David, and David Cubitt. Ecuador: Fragile Democracy. London: Latin American Bureau, 1988.
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An excellent, short handbook on the emergence of civilian government in the 1980s.
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Guerrero, Andrés. Administración de poblaciones, ventriloquía y transescritura. Atrio. Quito, Ecuador: FLACSO, 2010.
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Sociologist Guerrero is a leading and one of the most prolific scholars of Ecuador, but unfortunately few of his works have been translated into English. This collection of previously published essays provides a convenient entry point to Guerrero’s important work on the encounters and tensions between indigenous communities and the dominant culture.
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Pineo, Ronn F. Ecuador and the United States: Useful Strangers. The United States and the Americas. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2007.
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Solid general overview of Ecuador’s history since independence, with a particular focus on the coastal port city of Guayaquil. As can be expected in a series on international relations, this tends to emphasize political developments to the exclusion of social history. Includes a useful bibliographic essay.
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Striffler, Steve. In the Shadows of State and Capital: The United Fruit Company, Popular Struggle, and Agrarian Restructuring in Ecuador, 1900–1995. American Encounters/Global Interactions. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002.
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Through an examination of shifts in agricultural production on the Ecuadorian coast, Striffler analyzes how peasant and worker struggles contributed to capitalist transformations and historical changes that brought an isolated part of Ecuador from the margins to the center of a global economy. An important and well-received book that crosses borders between history, anthropology, sociology, and political science.
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Torre, Carlos de la. Populist Seduction in Latin America. 2d ed. Ohio University Research in International Studies, Latin America Series 50. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010.
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An updated compilation of previously published material that critiques the actions of populist politicians, a key issue in Ecuadorian studies. De la Torre argues that the persistence of populism in Ecuador is due to a failure to incorporate popular sectors into a functioning democracy.
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Edited Volumes

A series of edited volumes provides readers with useful collections of the broad range of scholarship that typifies academic research on Ecuador. Anthropologist Norman Whitten’s first edited volume (Whitten 1981) is a classic in the field and includes often-cited articles, updated with Whitten 2003. Torre and Striffler 2008 is the broadest anthology among those surveyed here. Clark and Becker 2007 is designed to be read as a survey of two centuries of Ecuadorian history from an indigenous perspective. North and Cameron 2003 examines neoliberal economic policies.

Clark, A. Kim, and Marc Becker, eds. Highland Indians and the State in Modern Ecuador. Pitt Latin American Series. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007.
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A collection of essays, mostly by young scholars, that emphasizes state-of-the-art research on indigenous-state relations in highland Ecuador. Includes comparative essays that place Ecuador in a broader context. Also includes a comprehensive bibliographic essay on indigenous peoples in Ecuador.
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North, Liisa L., and John D. Cameron, eds. Rural Progress, Rural Decay: Neoliberal Adjustment Policies and Local Initiatives. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian, 2003.
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Highlights a series of case studies on the consequences of neoliberal economic policies and development strategies that seek to counter their adverse consequences, with a particular emphasis on local communities. Includes scholarly work that otherwise has not received broad distribution in the English-speaking world.
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Torre, Carlos de la, and Steve Striffler, eds. The Ecuador Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.
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Lengthy anthology organized along chronological and thematic lines from the conquest to the present. Draws on the work of experts in the field, with much of the material written for this volume. Extensive writings on politics and culture. This volume is a useful introduction to Ecuadorian studies.
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Whitten, Norman E. Jr., ed. Cultural Transformations and Ethnicity in Modern Ecuador. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1981.
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Extensive collection of anthropological articles that interrogate issues of ethnicity and cultural change in indigenous, Afro-descendant, mestizo, and white communities throughout Ecuador. A wide variety of topics and theoretical approaches illustrate the importance of anthropological investigations in Ecuador.
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Whitten, Norman E. Jr., ed. Millennial Ecuador: Critical Essays on Cultural Transformations and Social Dynamics. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2003.
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Collection of articles intended to bring the earlier Cultural Transformations and Ethnicity in Modern Ecuador (Whitten 1981) up to date. Focuses more heavily on issues of globalization, modernity, and millennialism, and more appropriate for specialists than the earlier collection.
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Colonial Period

Until relatively recently, colonial studies have far outpaced historical research into other periods in Ecuador. The works here build on that tradition. Rather than synthetic overviews (see the General Overviews section for such approaches), these books focus on more specialized topics. Andrien 1995 provides a standard introduction to colonial economic history. Although not highly theoretical, Lane 2002 provides the easiest introduction to broad themes of subaltern engagements with state structures in colonial Ecuador. Salomon 1986 and Newson 1995 bridge transformations during the pre- and postconquest periods. Moreno Yánez 1985 is the leading work on indigenous revolts; Gauderman 2003 introduces the theme of gender; Milton 2007 is good for understanding how society is put together; and Powers 1995 is an outstanding study of migration.

Andrien, Kenneth J. The Kingdom of Quito, 1690–1830: The State and Regional Development. Cambridge Latin American Studies 80. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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An outstanding study of demographic and economic changes in colonial Ecuador from 1690 to 1830. Focuses on the three major regions of Quito in the northern highlands, Cuenca in the southern highlands, and Guayaquil on the southern coast. Argues that Spanish policies contributed to the underdevelopment of the colony.
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Gauderman, Kimberly. Women’s Lives in Colonial Quito: Gender, Law, and Economy in Spanish America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.
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Explores connections between gender and racial categories in colonial society and argues that patriarchy held little explanatory power for women’s lives in colonial Quito. Rather, their racial status, not their gender or marital status, determined the legal scope of their economic activities. Investigates the question of how women were able to act independently from the dominant male culture.
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Lane, Kris E. Quito 1599: City and Colony in Transition. Diálogos. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2002.
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Interesting and engaging book written in a storytelling fashion that uses the year 1599 as a watershed in Quito to talk much more broadly about transformations in the colonial Andes. Six largely independent chapters discuss slavery, maroon communities, indigenous elites, mining, merchants, and pirates.
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Milton, Cynthia E. The Many Meanings of Poverty: Colonialism, Social Compacts, and Assistance in Eighteenth-Century Ecuador. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
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Prize-winning book that discusses poverty in late colonial Quito. Argues that race, gender, age, and social class all defined poverty and that the “deserving poor” were not necessarily those who were the most economically disadvantaged. In the process, explores changing social and religious attitudes and the evolution of colonial political policies.
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Moreno Yánez, Segundo E. Sublevaciones indígenas en la Audiencía de Quito: Desde comienzos del siglo XVIII hasta finales de la Colonia. 3d ed., corrected and expanded. Serie Antropología. Quito, Ecuador: Ed. de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, 1985.
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Good survey of colonial indigenous resistance to the Spanish.
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Newson, Linda A. Life and Death in Early Colonial Ecuador. Civilization of the American Indian Series 214. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.
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Examines demographic changes in early colonial Ecuador, including the impact of the Inca conquest.
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Powers, Karen Vieira. Andean Journeys: Migration, Ethnogenesis, and the State in Colonial Quito. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1995.
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This study of population movements in the audiencia of Quito from 1534 to 1700 draws on Latin American demographic history to advance significantly the field of social history of colonial Ecuador. Powers utilizes migration as a tool of human agency to understand socioeconomic and political changes in indigenous societies.
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Salomon, Frank. Native Lords of Quito in the Age of the Incas: The Political Economy of North Andean Chiefdoms. Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology 59. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
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Pioneering study that reconstructs the political and economic institutions of the small but complex pre-Inca societies of the northern Andes. Explores how the nature of Inca rule influenced future ethnic relations under colonial rule and in the subsequent independent republic.
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Liberalism

Increasing scholarly attention is being paid to liberal reforms in Ecuador, although a good, general, English-language survey of 19th-century conflicts between liberals and conservatives and subsequent liberal hegemony after Eloy Alfaro’s 1895 revolution still remains to be written. These works focus on narrower topics but together successfully examine the range of issues that are key to an understanding of Ecuador since independence. Henderson 2008 and Guerrero 1991 provide good surveys of the 19th century, whereas Clark 1998 and Pineo 1996 are counterparts for the early 20th century, with Clark focusing on the highlands and Pineo on the coast.

Clark, A. Kim. The Redemptive Work: Railway and Nation in Ecuador, 1895–1930. Latin American Silhouettes. Wilmington, DE: SR Books, 1998.
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Analyzes the political economy and culture that the railroads created in Ecuador. Clark argues that the role of the railroad in Ecuador was unique in Latin America because of how liberals designed it to redeem and tie the country together rather than create an export infrastructure.
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Guerrero, Andrés. La semántica de la dominación: El concertaje de indios. Quito, Ecuador: Ediciones Libri Mundi, 1991.
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A key study of the large landed estates (haciendas) in the Ecuadorian highlands as political systems that used consensus and coercion to achieve class and ethnic domination of elite white landholders over indigenous workers. Excels at explaining mechanisms of domination, with less attention to indigenous resistance to those systems.
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Henderson, Peter V. N. Gabriel García Moreno and Conservative State Formation in the Andes. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2008.
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Henderson attempts a balanced analysis of the highly polarizing 19th-century president Gabriel García Moreno who represented the seeming enigma of being a modernizing conservative. A good place to begin studies of 19th-century debates over state formation.
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Pineo, Ronn F. Social and Economic Reform in Ecuador: Life and Work in Guayaquil. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996.
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A history of the impact of liberal social and economic governmental policies in the coastal port city of Guayaquil from 1870 to 1930. Pineo situates his analysis in the context of a monoculture export economy and massive migration to the city and examines how these changes influenced the nature of state formation.
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Indigenous Movements

Since a 1990 indigenous uprising rocked Ecuador, studies of subaltern populations in the country have increased dramatically. Anthropologists and political scientists have contributed many of these studies on contemporary engagements with state formations, although increasingly historians have contributed studies that place their work in a broader context. O’Connor 2007 is one of the best theoretically engaged pieces of literature for understanding issues of state formation in Ecuador. Becker 2008 charts developments across the 20th century, whereas Pallares 2002, Selverston-Scher 2001, and Becker 2011 explore new developments in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Becker, Marc. Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador’s Modern Indigenous Movements. Latin American Otherwise. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.
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A polemical study that challenges standard interpretations that leftists co-opted indigenous movements for their own political purposes and instead proposes that urban activists were key in facilitating rural indigenous challenges to their political and economic exclusion.
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Becker, Marc. Pachakutik: Indigenous Movements and Electoral Politics in Ecuador. Critical Currents in Latin American Perspectives Series. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011.
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An examination of how indigenous social movements have engaged electoral politics to increase their influence over state policies and the inherent trade-offs and compromises involved in doing so.
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O’Connor, Erin E. Gender, Indian, Nation: The Contradictions of Making Ecuador, 1830–1925. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2007.
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Employs a gendered analysis to probe the relationship between nation-states and indigenous communities during the first century of Ecuadorian independence. Excels at examining how overlapping issues of race, class, and gender created patriarchal systems of domination that kept both indigenous women and men in a subjugated position.
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Pallares, Amalia. From Peasant Struggles to Indian Resistance: The Ecuadorian Andes in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.
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An important study that seeks to portray a shift from class analysis to ethnic identity in late 20th-century indigenous movements. Pallares employs an interdisciplinary approach to examine how indigenous activists remade class, race, and ethnicity in the process of engaging in a political struggle.
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Selverston-Scher, Melina. Ethnopolitics in Ecuador: Indigenous Rights and the Strengthening of Democracy. Coral Gables, FL: North-South Center Press at the University of Miami, 2001.
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Employs a political science methodology to examine indigenous political participation and identity formation in the provinces of Loja, Bolivar, and Pastaza. Argues that diversity, not homogeneity, is critical for a stable democracy. A short book that provides an accessible introduction to issues of ethno-nationalism.
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Amazon

Traditionally Ecuador’s academic landscape has been divided between historians who studied the colonial legacies of European-oriented political formations in the highlands and anthropologists who studied contemporary expressions of ethnicity in the eastern lowlands. The works in this section bridge that gap and in the process significantly advance our understandings of the relationships between state formation and indigenous social movements in Ecuador. Sawyer 2004 provides one of the best examinations of how subaltern indigenous actors can shape state policies. Viatori 2010 extends this discussion to a much smaller and more marginalized group that uses the language of nation to advance its political interests and even survival. Uzendoski 2005 and Whitten and Whitten 2008 are more standard ethnographies.

Sawyer, Suzana. Crude Chronicles: Indigenous Politics, Multinational Oil, and Neoliberalism in Ecuador. American Encounters/Global Interactions. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004.
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Politically engaged anthropological study of indigenous opposition to petroleum exploration in the 1990s. Presents a damning critique of neoliberal politics that underdeveloped a marginalized and dependent economy. Largely free of theory and jargon and limited in temporal and geographic scope but key for understanding emergence of powerful social movements in Ecuador.
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Uzendoski, Michael. The Napo Runa of Amazonian Ecuador. Interpretations of Culture in the New Millennium. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005.
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Anthropologist Uzendoski presents an ethnography that focuses on culture, traditions, kinship, and rituals. A final chapter explores how contemporary indigenous activists use the legacy of Jumandy, a legendary leader of a 1578 failed attempt to expel the Spanish, as a model to agitate for economic and social justice.
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Viatori, Maximilian Stefan. One State, Many Nations: Indigenous Rights Struggles in Ecuador. School for Advanced Research Global Indigenous Politics Series. Santa Fe, NM: School for Advanced Research, 2010.
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An important book by a young scholar that examines struggles for survival among the Zápara, the smallest indigenous nationality in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Particularly focuses on the use of language as a tool to gain official governmental recognition. Key for understanding the constructions of identities.
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Whitten, Norman E., and Dorothea S. Whitten. Puyo Runa: Imagery and Power in Modern Amazonia. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008.
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Based on decades of anthropological research, the Whittens present an ethnography of changing Indigenous cultures in Ecuador. Although little of the book directly engages issues of state formation, written as a capstone to a lengthy career it provides a broad brush stroke of the cultures against which these political changes have taken place.
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Peru

Traditional Andean ethnographies emanate out from Cuzco, the heart of Tawantinsuyu, the Inca empire, in the Peruvian highlands. Although recent scholarship has made significant strides in decentering studies of Andean state formation, Flores Galindo 2010 still remains a key work for understanding these political processes. Klarén 2000 provides a useful narrative introduction to Peruvian history, whereas Starn, et al. 1995 is a broad anthology that draws on a variety of disciplines and perspectives.

Flores Galindo, Alberto. In Search of an Inca: Identity and Utopia in the Andes. New Approaches to the Americas. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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Originally published as a series of essays in the 1980s, this English translation of the most important work of the premier historian of the Andeans is key to understanding the region. Rather than a linear narrative, these brilliant essays reflect on themes of Andean identity and utopia and present a probing analysis of messianic and millenarian movements.
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Klarén, Peter Flindell. Peru: Society and Nationhood in the Andes. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
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A standard textbook treatment that surveys the history of approach from the arrival of people in the Andes through Fujimori’s rule in the 1990s. A useful introduction to economic, political, and social issues that shaped Peruvian history. Includes a useful bibliographic essay.
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Starn, Orin, Carlos Iván Degregori, and Robin Kirk, eds. The Peru Reader: History, Culture, Politics. The Latin American Readers. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995.
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Published as part of Duke’s Latin America Readers series, anthropologists Starn, Degregori, and Kirk provide a selection of documents and writings that provide an excellent starting point for understanding key themes in Andean cultures and state formation.
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Colonial Period

A series of local and thematic studies paint a broad picture of subaltern resistance to Inca and Spanish colonialism in the Andes. Spalding 1984 remains one of the best books in any language for understanding political and social changes during the colonial system. Adorno 1986 examines one of the most renowned indigenous chroniclers who provides a subaltern perspective on the conquest, and Dueñas 2010 extends this discussion to some of the least known texts. MacCormack 1991 and Mills 1997 both examine religion and the dynamics it contributed to the Spanish conquest. Although some have quibbled with Silverblatt’s 1987 gendered interpretations of colonial society, that author’s work still remains foundational for understanding the creation of patriarchal forms of domination. Graubart 2007 extends these discussions with a look at the empowerment of indigenous women. Stern 1982 is a classic on the early colonial period.

Adorno, Rolena. Guáman Poma: Writing and Resistance in Colonial Peru. Latin American Monographs 68. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986.
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Guamán Poma’s Nueva corónica y buen gobierno was a lengthy illustrated letter to King Philip II and a key chronicle for understanding indigenous perspectives on the Spanish conquest of the Andes. Adorno presents a key literary analysis of his discourse and challenges to Spanish rule.
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Dueñas, Alcira. Indians and Mestizos in the “Lettered City”: Reshaping Justice, Social Hierarchy, and Political Culture in Colonial Peru. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2010.
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Uses previously unknown texts to examine an Andean intellectual tradition of using writing to challenge colonial hierarchies as part of a resistance to colonial rule and a struggle for social empowerment.
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Graubart, Karen B. With Our Labor and Sweat: Indigenous Women and the Formation of Colonial Society in Peru, 1550–1700. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
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Graubart presents a penetrating study of gender, power, and ethnicity in Peru during the first two centuries of Spanish colonization. She examines how indigenous peoples and African descendants, including women, were shaped by as well as challenged the formation of colonial governance. Concludes that colonial societies were more dynamic and flexible than commonly assumed.
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MacCormack, Sabine. Religion in the Andes: Vision and Imagination in Early Colonial Peru. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991.
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An intellectual history that examines Andean religion during the colonial period, including a penetrating analysis of indigenous beliefs and rituals.
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Mills, Kenneth. Idolatry and Its Enemies: Colonial Andean Religion and Extirpation, 1640–1750. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.
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A key study on extirpation of idolatry for the Andes, part of the Spanish campaigns to root out non-Catholic forms of religion in the Americas. An important work for understanding indigenous religious resistance to colonial rule.
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Silverblatt, Irene. Moon, Sun, and Witches: Gender Ideologies and Class in Inca and Colonial Peru. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987.
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A fascinating examination of class and gender in Andean society. Anthropologist Silverblatt traces an Andean tradition of parallel descent and argues that only with the Inca and Spanish conquests did society become male dominated. Her description of gender complementarity is based on a reading of early colonial chronicles.
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Spalding, Karen. Huarochirí: An Andean Society under Inca and Spanish Rule. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984.
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Historian Spalding presents a groundbreaking synthesis of a regional history that examines transformations of local societies under Inca and Spanish rule. Argues that the conquest forced adaptation among both the conquerors and the conquered, and these events fundamentally altered both societies. A final chapter on resistance to colonial rule argues that colonial control depended heavily on subaltern cooperation.
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Stern, Steve J. Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest: Huamanga to 1640. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982.
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Examines the Spanish conquest from the point of view of subjugated indigenous communities in the Huamanga area. Rather than seeing them as hapless victims, historian Stern demonstrates how Andean peoples influenced the evolution of colonial society and the nature of class structures.
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Tupac Amaru

The 1780 Tupac Amaru uprising that began in Cuzco, Peru, and briefly swept across the Andes showed the cracks in the Spanish colonial administration of the region and eventually led to independence for South America. The books collected in this section provide analyses of that revolt and its long aftermath in the Andes. Stavig 1999 and Stavig and Schmidt 2008 provide the best introductions to late colonial revolts. The essays in Stern 1987 and in Walker 1996 place those uprisings in a broader political context.

Stavig, Ward. The World of Tupac Amaru: Conflict, Community, and Identity in Colonial Peru. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.
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Uses the 1780 Tupac Amaru uprising as an entry point to present a social history of colonial Peruvian society, with a particularly strong discussion of the Potosí mita. Argues that uprisings were rare, few indigenous peoples participated, and such revolts were often the result of alcohol abuse.
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Stavig, Ward, and Ella Schmidt, eds. The Tupac Amaru and Catarista Rebellions: An Anthology of Sources. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 2008.
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A solid collection of documents on late colonial revolts in the Andes, many not widely available before and provided here in English for the first time. Headnotes, a bibliography, a chronology, and a glossary provide a broader context. Historian Charles Walker’s introduction gives one of the best brief overviews of the uprising.
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Stern, Steve J., ed. Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World: 18th to 20th Centuries. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
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A key collection of essays on rural revolts in the Andes from the late colonial period to the mid-20th century. Locates Andeans in a broader theoretical and comparative framework. Particularly important is Stern’s introduction, which asks for a rethinking of peasants as actors.
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Walker, Charles, ed. Entre la retorica y la insurgencia: Las ideas y los movimientos sociales en los Andes, siglo XVIII. Estudios y debates regionales andinos 92. Cuzco, Peru: Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos “Bartolome de las Casas,” 1996.
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Similar in conceptual framework and importance to Stern 1987, although it focuses more narrowly on Tupac Amaru and late southern Andean colonial uprisings. Draws on developments in social and cultural history to gain a deeper and more probing understanding of social movements.
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Modern Period

A series of important works probe key issues of state formation since Peruvian independence from Spanish colonial control in the early 19th century. Thurner 1997, Jacobsen 1993, and Walker 1999 offer examinations of state–peasant relations during the 19th century, and Nugent 1997 presents one of the strongest analyses of state formation in the 20th-century Andes and a model for other scholars to follow. Cadena 2000 is best for understanding constructions of race and ethnicity, and García 2005 applies these concepts specifically to educational systems.

Cadena, Marisol de la. Indigenous Mestizos and the Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, 1919–1991. Latin America Otherwise. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000.
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The title of anthropologist de la Cadena’s book Indigenous Mestizos has subsequently become a common trope for understanding the construction of ethnic identities in the Andes. A highly theoretical study of mestizaje in Cuzco, including examining cultural and biological constructions of race. Illustrates the complex and ambivalent nature of these characteristics.
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García, María Elena. Making Indigenous Citizens: Identities, Education, and Multicultural Development in Peru. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2005.
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A fascinating study of educational policy and how community members want to better their lives through taking advantage of opportunities rather than embracing indigenous identities. Anthropologist García provides a model of politically and socially engaged scholarship that probes questions of indigenous mobilizations.
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Jacobsen, Nils. Mirages of Transition: The Peruvian Altiplano, 1780–1930. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
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An important historical case study of economic and social developments in Puno that examines state formation and resistance during the long 19th century. A well-documented and highly readable study.
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Nugent, David. Modernity at the Edge of Empire: State, Individual, and Nation in the Northern Peruvian Andes, 1885–1935. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997.
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Important and thought-provoking ethnographic analysis of state formation in the early 20th-century Andes from a subaltern perspective. Based on extensive use of archival sources, anthropologist Nugent argues that local communities welcomed the nation-state as an alternative to local landholder control.
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Thurner, Mark. From Two Republics to One Divided: Contradictions of Postcolonial Nationmaking in Andean Peru. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.
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An examination of state–peasant relations in 19th-century Peru. Thurner’s title provides a convenient shorthand for understanding how Spanish colonial administration divided society into separate realms for Europeans and Andeans. The 19th-century liberal reforms eliminated this bipartite division through a largely failed attempt to assimilate indigenous peoples into a mestizo culture.
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Walker, Charles. Smoldering Ashes: Cuzco and the Creation of Republican Peru, 1780–1840. Latin American Otherwise. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
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Walker points to indigenous agency as key to understanding the turbulent transition from colony to republic in the Andes. Argues that Andeans were at the heart of struggles over state formation and possessed a political consciousness. Rather than passive or disengaged, indigenous peoples were active agents who “imagined” an alternative vision of the nation that conflicted with that of the dominant culture.
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Mariátegui

José Carlos Mariátegui (b. 1894–d. 1930) was the founder of Peru’s socialist party and a key political theorist for understanding the rules of indigenous peoples in the process of state formation in the Andes. Mariátegui’s key works are available in English translation in Mariátegui 1971 and Mariátegui 1996. In addition to Mariátegui’s own works, Chavarría 1979 and Vanden 1986 provide the best analyses for understanding his contributions.

Chavarría, Jesús. José Carlos Mariátegui and the Rise of Modern Peru, 1890–1930. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1979.
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Interprets Mariátegui’s thought in the context of Peruvian history, with a particular focus on his contributions to the formation of ideas of the nation-state. A bibliographic essay and an appendix of selected documents adds value to the volume. One of the best studies on Mariátegui in any language.
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Mariátegui, José Carlos. Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality. Translated by Marjory Urquidi with an introduction by Jorge Basadre. Texas Pan American Series. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971.
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An English translation of Mariátegui’s most important work, originally published in Spanish in Peru in 1928. Commonly characterized as the one book that all Peruvians should read to understand their country’s reality. The essays critique Peruvian economics, indigenous marginalization, land tenure relations, education, religion, regionalism, and literature.
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Mariátegui, José Carlos. The Heroic and Creative Meaning of Socialism: Selected Essays of José Carlos Mariátegui. Edited and translated by Michael Pearlman. Revolutionary Studies. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1996.
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Wide-ranging anthology of Mariátegui’s writings, presenting much of his work in English for the first time. Explores his thoughts on global affairs as well as Latin American and Peruvian concerns, in addition to ideologies, literature, art, and culture.
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Vanden, Harry E. National Marxism in Latin America: José Carlos Maríategui’s Thought and Politics. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1986.
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A penetrating study of Mariátegui’s Marxism that explains how it responds to the specifics of his local Peruvian reality. Surveys his extensive writings and political engagement and contextualizes his ideology in terms of broader voluntarist Marxist trends that emphasize the roles of subalterns in state formation.
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Peasants

Agrarian reforms in the Andes in the 1960s triggered a wealth of studies on land tenure patterns and peasant resistance. Many of these studies focused on the Peruvian highlands, with Handelman 1975 being the best. A second generation of studies builds on these earlier works to create a deeper understanding of agrarian worlds and subaltern challenges to nation-state formation. Mallon 1983, Mallon 1995, Gonzales 1985, Smith 1989, and Peloso 1999 are excellent examples of this new approach, which draws on subaltern studies methodologies that bring in concepts of peasant agency. Mayer 2002 and Mayer 2009 pull from a long history of peasant study.

Gonzales, Michael J. Plantation Agriculture and Social Control in Northern Peru, 1875–1933. Latin American Monographs 62. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1985.
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Examines changes in control over agricultural labor in plantation economies on the northern Peruvian coast during a transition to a modern capitalist economy.
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Handelman, Howard. Struggle in the Andes: Peasant Political Mobilization in Peru. Latin American Monographs 35. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1975.
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An examination of peasant mobilization in Peru in the 1960s, including an analysis of the causes and consequences of political actions. Land-seizure movements brought in urban allies that broke down peasant isolation. Handelman argues that peasants are more revolutionary than is sometimes thought.
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Mallon, Florencia E. The Defense of Community in Peru’s Central Highlands: Peasant Struggle and Capitalist Transition, 1860–1940. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983.
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Mallon examines the peasant’s role in the transition to capitalism in Peru’s central highlands, casting them as actors who drove historical changes. Portrays social impact of industrialization based on careful research in local archives.
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Mallon, Florencia E. Peasant and Nation: The Making of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995.
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Building on her previous work on peasants in highland Peru, Mallon explores 19th-century “alternative” peasant nationalisms in an attempt to explain why Mexico was more successful with hegemony and liberalism and why Peru ended up with fragmentation and repression. Peruvian case studies focus on Junín and Cajamarca.
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Mayer, Enrique, ed. The Articulated Peasant: Household Economies in the Andes. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2002.
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An edited collection of essays published between about 1980 and 2010 on peasants in Peru by an eminent Peruvian scholar. Essays vary chronologically from the Incas to the present and engage a variety of themes related to reciprocity, community structures, and household economies. Useful for gaining a broad understanding of nation-state formation in the Andes.
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Mayer, Enrique. Ugly Stories of the Peruvian Agrarian Reform. Latin America Otherwise. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
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Analyzes the arc from Peru’s radical agrarian reform process in 1969 until neoliberal economic policies in the 1990s undid those programs. This book is based on anthropologist Mayer’s interviews with a broad range of people involved in the land expropriations, leading him to reevaluate the original agrarian policies.
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Peloso, Vincent C. Peasants on Plantations: Subaltern Strategies of Labor and Resistance in the Pisco Valley, Peru. Latin America Otherwise. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
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Outstanding case study of plantation labor after the abolition of slavery on Peru’s southern coast. Notable for extending study of peasants from indigenous labor on highland estates to a little-studied area populated by African descendants on the coast. Draws on agrarian reform records to create an excellent example of a subaltern study.
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Smith, Gavin A. Livelihood and Resistance: Peasants and the Politics of Land in Peru. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
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Smith examines a long campaign for control of hacienda lands in a highland community. Emphasizes peasant resistance and ways in which their daily economic interests and political struggles contribute to social and political identities. Draws on interdisciplinary nature of peasant studies to build an impressive work.
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Shining Path

At the same time as ethnic organizations took hold in Ecuador in the 1980s, the bloody Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) emerged with a vengeance in neighboring Peru. Why similar socioeconomic contexts led to such dissimilar responses, with one emphasizing ethnic-based, largely nonviolent protest and the other resulting in a violent Maoist guerrilla insurgency, has long been an issue for academic debate. Although serious scholarly studies of the Shining Path emerged slowly and initially were largely the domain of journalists (see Gorriti Ellenbogen 1999), anthropologists (see Poole and Rénique 1992), and political scientists (see Palmer 1994), historians are increasingly contributing careful studies that place this history in a broader context. The best of these new studies is Heilman 2010, although Stern 1998 is also useful. Andreas 1985 provides an introduction to the role of women in the movement. Starn 1999 examines reactions to the Shining Path. Stern 1995 provides a much broader survey of the literature than is possible here.

Andreas, Carol. When Women Rebel: The Rise of Popular Feminism in Peru. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill, 1985.
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Anthropologist Andreas wrote one of the earliest academic discussions of the Shining Path based on years of study in Peru. The result is a politically engaged and passionate examination of political consciousness among women in Peruvian popular movements, with a particular emphasis on how women emerged in positions of leadership in the movement.
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Gorriti Ellenbogen, Gustavo. The Shining Path: A History of the Millenarian War in Peru. Latin America in Translation/en traducción/em traducão. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
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A compelling and highly accessible journalistic account of the emergence of the Shining Path in the Peruvian highlands that challenges standard interpretations and narratives of their actions. Originally intended to be the first of three volumes, but the confiscation of the author’s materials in a 1992 coup disrupted those plans.
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Heilman, Jaymie Patricia. Before the Shining Path: Politics in Rural Ayacucho, 1895–1980. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2010.
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Based on archival research and oral history interviews, historian Heilman presents a probing analysis of the historical context that led to the emergence of the Shining Path in Ayacucho in highland Peru. Placing the movement in a broader context of radical political organizing gives us a fuller understanding of the emergence of guerrilla violence.
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Palmer, David Scott, ed. The Shining Path of Peru. 2d ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994.
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Originally published in 1992, the first English-language collection of academic essays on the Shining Path. Draws on the expertise of political scientists, anthropologists, and journalists in both Peru and the United States to explore different aspects of the conflict, including political theory, military strategy, and peasant responses.
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Poole, Deborah, and Gerardo Rénique. Peru: Time of Fear. New York: Latin American Bureau, 1992.
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Politically engaged scholars Poole and Rénique are highly critical of prominent political scientists such as Palmer 1994, whose work they say serves to underscore United States Cold War foreign policy interests. Instead, they root the conflict in Peru’s history of socioeconomic exclusion that marginalizes rural indigenous communities.
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Starn, Orin. Nightwatch: The Politics of Protest in the Andes. Latin America Otherwise. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999.
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Highly readable account based on anthropological field research of vigilante groups in the 1970s that sought to counter problems of crime and violence in rural communities that the government subsequently manipulated to counter the Shining Path. Useful for a ground-level account of the context out of which the insurgency emerged.
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Stern, Peter A. Sendero Luminoso: An Annotated Bibliography of the Shining Path Guerrilla Movement, 1980–1993. Albuquerque: SALALM Secretariat, General Library, University of New Mexico, 1995.
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Although by now obviously dated, bibliographer Stern compiled an outstanding and comprehensive annotated bibliography that provides extensive critiques of more than 1,000 works from 1980 to 1993. Includes a useful introduction and chronology.
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Stern, Steve J., ed. Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980–1995. Latin American Otherwise. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.
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Historian Stern compiled a much broader and deeper volume on the Shining Path than Palmer 1994. Drawing on the expertise of a broad range of scholars, presents a probing analysis of the social and political processes that led to the movement’s emergence. Embraces the results of concrete historical and ethnographic research rather than sensationalistic generalizations that characterized many studies.
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Bolivia

Bolivia is the most indigenous of the Andean republics as well as the poorest country in South America. Beginning with the Spanish extraction of silver from the Potosí mines at the beginning of the colonial period, Bolivia’s resources have provided wealth to others while impoverishing its indigenous work force. Lehman 1999 and Klein 2003 present solid political narratives of this history, but an easier and more concise introduction to this history is Hylton and Thomson 2007, which explores the creation of exclusionary state structures from a local, indigenous perspective, rather than that of the dominant culture. Klein 1993 examines Bolivia’s agrarian background, and Grindle and Domingo 2003 focuses more narrowly on the 1952 revolution. Stephenson 1999 examines more recent events through the lens of gender.

Grindle, Merilee Serrill, and Pilar Domingo, eds. Proclaiming Revolution, Bolivia in Comparative Perspective. David Rockefeller Center Series on Latin American Studies. Cambridge, MA: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University, 2003.
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Published on the 50th anniversary of the 1952 revolution that nationalized the country’s mineral wealth and broke up large landed estates, this edited collection seeks to understand the legacy of those challenges to exclusionary state structures. Most useful for contextualizing Bolivia within other historical developments, especially the Mexican Revolution.
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Hylton, Forrest, and Sinclair Thomson. Revolutionary Horizons: Popular Struggle in Bolivia. London: Verso, 2007.
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Historians Hylton and Thomson present a short, quick overview of Bolivia’s history that achieves more of a journalistic than a historical style. Employs a compelling interpretation of historical events from a subaltern perspective to explain emergence of social movements in the late 20th and early 21st centuries that have presented a strong challenge to exclusionary state structures.
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Klein, Herbert S. Haciendas and Ayllus: Rural Society in the Bolivian Andes in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993.
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An important historical work on rural society during the late colonial and early national periods. An outstanding example of using quantitative data (particularly census materials and notarial records) to paint a broad social history picture of the relations between landed estates and rural communities.
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Klein, Herbert S. A Concise History of Bolivia. Cambridge Concise Histories. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
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Prominent historian Klein first published a textbook presenting a standard political history of Bolivia with Oxford in 1982, and this is essentially the third edition of that work. Most useful as an introductory narrative text of political developments in the country.
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Lehman, Kenneth Duane. Bolivia and the United States: A Limited Partnership. United States and the Americas. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1999.
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Published as part of a series on United States–Bolivian relations, Lehman draws on both primary and secondary literature in both countries to write a book that serves as a compelling political narrative of Bolivia’s history.
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Stephenson, Marcia. Gender and Modernity in Andean Bolivia. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999.
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Draws on novels, testimonials, and other texts to investigate how gender intersections with race and class. An important contribution from the field of literary studies to understand how state formation and modernity shape concepts of womanhood, including those in indigenous communities.
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Colonial Period

The works in this section emphasize indigenous agency in confronting Spanish colonial rule, with a particular focus on the Potosí silver mine and the 1780 revolts that spread south from Tupac Amaru’s base in Cuzco. Bakewell 1984 is the best study of labor relations at the mine, while Mangan 2005 extends this research into the realm of gendered relations and Zulawski 1995 examines the mines at Oruro. Serulnikov 2003 examines the lesser-studied revolts in southern Bolivia, while Thomson 2002 presents a solid review of Tupac Katari’s siege of La Paz. Larson 1998 provides a much broader social history that helps us understand these challenges to colonial rule. Brockington 2006 breaks from the traditional focus on the Bolivia highlands with her groundbreaking research on the eastern lowlands.

Bakewell, Peter. Miners of the Red Mountain: Indian Labor in Potosí, 1545–1650. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984.
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An important study of indigenous labor and indigenous–Spanish relations in early colonial Potosí, the most important mine in South America during the 16th century.
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Brockington, Lolita Gutiérrez. Blacks, Indians, and Spaniards in the Eastern Andes: Reclaiming the Forgotten in Colonial Mizque, 1550–1782. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006.
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Brockington’s study is unique not only in its emphasis on Bolivia’s eastern lowlands (most historical work is conducted on the highlands) but also in her discussion of African slavery (most work examines indigenous communities). The result is an important study that seeks to reclaim Mizque’s forgotten past.
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Larson, Brooke. Cochabamba, 1550–1900: Colonialism and Agrarian Transformation in Bolivia. Expanded ed. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.
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Originally published in 1988, Larson’s book on Cochabamba established her as a leading Andean scholar. This is a solid work on colonial economic and social agrarian structures, with a chapter examining their legacies into the 19th century. The updated edition points to new areas of research.
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Mangan, Jane E. Trading Roles: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Urban Economy in Colonial Potosí. Latin America Otherwise. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
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A strong social history that breaks from a traditional focus on the silver mines of Potosí to emphasize the roles of women in the marketplace.
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Serulnikov, Sergio. Subverting Colonial Authority: Challenges to Spanish Rule in Eighteenth-Century Southern Andes. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
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Serulnikov examines late-colonial indigenous revolts in the southern Bolivian province of Chayanta, with a particular focus on rebel leader Tomás Katari. The book contains a useful analysis of long-term patterns of social conflict in order to understand changing forms of colonial domination.
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Thomson, Sinclair. We Alone Will Rule: Native Andean Politics in the Age of Insurgency. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2002.
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Employs Tupac Katari’s radical 1781 siege of La Paz as an entry point to discuss indigenous leadership and ongoing struggles between local communities and larger anticolonial movements. As a revision of a dissertation, historian Thomson carefully contextualizes his arguments in terms of historiographic debates.
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Zulawski, Ann. They Eat From Their Labor: Work and Social Change in Colonial Bolivia. Pitt Latin American Series. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995.
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Much work on colonial Bolivia focuses on the mining center of Potosí, but Zulawski extends these discussions to Oruro. Emphasizes themes of indigenous migration, labor, gender, and class relations. An important contribution to colonial social history.
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Indigenous Worlds

Bolivia has the highest concentration of indigenous peoples in South America, and their role in shaping state structures is a common theme for both anthropological and historical research, with the two fields often intersecting in useful ways. Langer 1989 and Gotkowitz 2007 provide excellent examples of the best types of historical research on indigenous challenges to state power, while Gustafson 2009 indicates directions that anthropological research is taking on these themes. All of these works intersect history and anthropology at some level, though Abercrombie 1998 does so on the most conscious level. Choque Canqui 2003 is one of a series of books on an important early 20th-century revolt, whereas Langer 2009 provides deeper historical context to 20th-century developments.

Abercrombie, Thomas Alan. Pathways of Memory and Power: Ethnography and History among an Andean People. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1998.
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Abercrombie combines anthropology and history to understand the intersection between European forms of historical consciousness and Aymara methods of understanding the past. In the process, Abercrombie examines how rural communities challenge processes of state formation.
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Choque Canqui, Roberto. Cinco siglos de historia. Vol. 1, Jesús de Machaqa: La marka rebelde. Cuadernos de investigación 45. La Paz, Bolivia: CIPCA, 2003.
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Jesús de Machaqa is an Aymara community in northern Bolivia best known for a 1921 indigenous uprising to challenge exclusionary governing structures that was brutally repressed with a massacre. This is the first of four volumes that presents a broad study of the community, factors leading to the uprising, and its resulting legacy.
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Gotkowitz, Laura. A Revolution for our Rights: Indigenous Struggles for Land and Justice in Bolivia, 1880–1952. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.
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Excellent treatment of the roots of Bolivia’s 1952 revolution and how indigenous activists shaped its outcome. Important study because Gotkowitz shifts the historical focus from the miners to rural peasants as key actors in determining this outcome. Closes with useful historiographic reflections on the importance of considering indigenous challenges to state formation.
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Gustafson, Bret Darin. New Languages of the State: Indigenous Resurgence and the Politics of Knowledge in Bolivia. Narrating Native Histories. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
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An anthropological study of how bilingual education and language policies influenced developments in Guaraní communities in southeastern Bolivia in the 1980s and 1990s. These policy debates become a terrain for larger battles over power and knowledge. An important contribution to understanding how marginalized communities shape governmental policies.
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Langer, Erick Detlef. Economic Change and Rural Resistance in Southern Bolivia, 1880–1930. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1989.
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Well-researched study of growing conflicts between indigenous communities and wealthy landholders in the 19th century. Includes discussions of how rural peoples adapted to and pushed back against these changes and the many forms of resistance against exclusionary systems of domination. Challenges standard interpretations of peasant resistance.
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Langer, Erick Detlef. Expecting Pears from an Elm Tree: Franciscan Missions on the Chiriguano Frontier in the Heart of South America, 1830–1949. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
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Based on two decades of research, examines the key role of Franciscan missions in frontier development in southeastern Bolivia and missionaries’ interactions with indigenous communities. Evaluates the key importance of missions in shaping state structures, including influencing the interactions between rural communities and government policies.
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Labor and Mining

Labor and mining are large themes in Bolivia’s historiography because of the historical legacy of the Potosí silver mine that underdeveloped the country as well as the key role of miners in leading the 1952 revolution. Perhaps as a result of this history, Bolivia has one of the most militant labor traditions in the Americas. Two excellent new studies, John 2009 and Smale 2010, examine this history. Nash 1979 is a classic ethnography that creates a broader context for understanding their treatments.

John, S. Sándor. Bolivia’s Radical Tradition: Permanent Revolution in the Andes. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2009.
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Asks why a distinctly radical labor tradition took hold in Bolivia, one of few places where Trotskyist thought became popular. Carefully traces out internal dynamics and different trajectories in the country’s labor organizations. An impressive book that includes an extensive amount of archival research along with oral history interviews with a wide variety of activists.
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Nash, June. We Eat the Mines and the Mines Eat Us: Dependency and Exploitation in Bolivian Tin Mines. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.
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In a now-classic participant-observation ethnography, anthropologist Nash studies mine workers in Oruro. Employing a dependency theory approach, this treatment champions union activities and critiques government polices from a dependency theory approach. Frames this within a broader discussion of rituals. Highly influential work.
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Smale, Robert L. “I Sweat the Flavor of Tin”: Labor Activism in Early Twentieth-Century Bolivia. Pitt Latin American Series. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010.
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A detailed narrative examination of the emergence of tin mining in Oruro and Potosí. Examines strikes and massacres that led to a powerful labor movement. Useful for drawing on new sources and repositioning miners at the center of a political narrative.
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Contemporary Social Movements

In December 2005, Bolivians elected Evo Morales as their first indigenous president. Social movement challenges to exclusionary neoliberal economic policies that led to his election and subsequent debates fueled an extensive debate on Bolivian politics in both the public and academic realms. Crabtree and Whitehead 2008 and Canessa 2005 do not work as introductory texts to Bolivia, but they help advance our understandings of complicated issues in the country. Olivera and Lewis 2004 examines one of the first serious social movement challenges to neoliberal policies, and Kohl and Farthing 2006 present a broader probing analysis of neoliberalism. Lazar 2008 and Postero 2007 are more narrowly focused ethnographies of communities in the northern and southern parts of the country. Dangl 2007 is a journalistic treatment that can be counterpoised to these academic treatments. Zibechi 2010 is also by a journalist, but rather than a narrative summary this text is an excellent work of political analysis.

Canessa, Andrew, ed. Natives Making Nation: Gender, Indigeneity, and the State in the Andes. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2005.
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Draws on young as well as established scholars from a variety of fields to interrogate the roles of indigenous peoples in forming government policies. Particularly focuses on the role of gender in shaping attitudes toward state formation.
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Crabtree, John, and Laurence Whitehead, eds. Unresolved Tensions: Bolivia Past and Present. Pitt Latin American Series. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2008.
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Leading scholars in Bolivia as well as the United States and Europe analyze the political situation that continues to divide Bolivia in the aftermath of the election of Evo Morales. Presents contrasting perspectives on issues of ethnicity, regionalism, state–society relations, constitutionalism, economic development, and globalization.
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Dangl, Benjamin. The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2007.
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Journalist Dangl witnessed first-hand the rise of social movements in Bolivia that challenged their social exclusion. Examines a variety of themes, including coca eradication, water rights, neoliberal policies, land reform, mining, neighborhood associations, culture, and feminism. Most useful for his direct observations and interviews.
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Kohl, Benjamin H., and Linda C. Farthing. Impasse in Bolivia: Neoliberal Hegemony and Popular Resistance. London: Zed Books, 2006.
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Largely framed as a social science development study that examines a twenty-year history of the rise and crises of neoliberal governments. Focuses on policy analysis and builds a strong argument against neoliberalism but not in a polemic or forceful manner. Well-researched and extensive bibliography.
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Lazar, Sian. El Alto, Rebel City: Self and Citizenship in Andean Bolivia. Latin America Otherwise. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2008.
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Based on years of ethnographic fieldwork, anthropologist Lazar examines challenges to neoliberal policies in El Alto, the large Aymara city on the edge of Bolivia’s capital of La Paz. Broadly explains factors that led an indigenous city to be a center of resistance to neoliberal economic polices and the heart of support for Morales’ presidency.
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Olivera, Oscar, and Tom Lewis. Cochabamba! Water War in Bolivia. Cambridge, MA: South End, 2004.
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Activist scholar Lewis assisted social movement leader Olivera to write a key study of a social movement protest that stopped attempts to privatize a municipal water system in Cochabamba. The story they recount became a model that influenced subsequent protest movements in Bolivia.
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Postero, Nancy Grey. Now We Are Citizens: Indigenous Politics in Postmulticultural Bolivia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
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An ethnographic examination of the Guaraní in eastern Bolivia. Argues that governmental multicultural policies serve to entrench exclusionary neoliberal state structures rather than open up liberatory spaces. An important study to understand more broadly contemporary indigenous activism in Bolivia.
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Zibechi, Raúl. Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2010.
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An English translation of a 2007 book by a Uruguayan journalist. Rather than a narrative overview of social movements, Zibechi provides a solid analytical examination of social movement challenges to state power, with a particular focus on El Alto and Aymara movements. Advocates rooting power in community structures rather than gaining governmental power.
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