Horswell, Michael J.

This dissertation examines the processes of social, cultural, and political
change that have taken place in Bolivia since the decade of the 1970s and how they
have paved the way for the rise to power of indigenous people and the election of Evo
Morales to the Presidency. It also addresses a growing trend toward more radical
reforms to State structures after Morales' inauguration, which has created serious
institutional chaos and a polarization of civil society. The reforms proposed by the
Morales administration and its political party (Movimiento al Socialismo) include a
new constitution which aims to re-found Bolivia favoring its Andean ethnic groups,
and an indefinite re-election of president Morales. At the same time, his party now in
control ofthe muddled Constituent Assembly charged with writing the new
constitution, intends to diminish the constitutional mandate of a 2006 referendum,
whose results favored autonomias (an administrative and political descentralized
State model, similar to Spain's or Peru's) in four provinces, which would allow a more efficient administration of the different geographical, cultural, and productive
regions of Bolivia while preserving national unity.
This dissertation investigates and recognizes the achievements of Bolivian
indigenous movements (not only Andean, but also those from the Eastern lowlands,
which in fact were the pioneers in the struggle to regain their rights and identity) and
the need to reform a State that should accommodate their rights, values, and traditions
along with those of the rest of Bolivians, the mestizos (mixed blood) and the nonindigenous,
on the basis of consensus and national solidarity. To reach that goal it
defends the necessity to preserve the guidelines of Western participative democracy
and freedom in combination with the modalities of indigenous communitarian
democracy. This basic concept, if applied, would lead the members of the current
Constituent Assembly to write an all-inclusive constitution based on consensus and
reciprocal solidarity, while opening the necessary space for national dialogue and
development, even in the indigenous communities.
This dissertation also proposes the promulgation of autonomias
departamentales in accordance with the results of the 2006 referendum. Its thesis
underlines that autonomias are the most coherent and viable way to descentralize the
administration of the diverse regions of Bolivia in a near future. Autonomies
represent a creative system that is capable of untying the asphyxiating knot imposed
on the regions (departamentos) by a centrist and vertical State, founded in 1825,
which pretended to extend its political and economic control over different historical
realities, geographical contexts, and diverse cultural backgrounds whose
representatives are today demanding fresh air. Methodologically, the panoramic review and analysis of different texts
throughout this dissertation identifies the main causes of the actual social fracture in
Bolivia, as well as proposes a set of possible solutions. Each chapter contains the
analysis of a primary text, along with the discourse of indigenous leaders,
constitutionalists, Bolivian public intellectuals, and my own voice. Among them are
Marcial Fabricano, Alejo Veliz, Felix Patzi, Juan Carlos Urenda Diaz, Ana Maria
Romero de Campero, Alvaro Garcia Linera and Victor Hugo Cardenas, whose
ideological positions, theoretical contributions, and proposals are essential for my
construction of a concise analysis and possible solutions to the perplexing challenges
facing Bolivia today.
This dissertation is based on the recognition that Bolivia is a culturally and
geographically heterogeneous country, where coexistence between its diverse ethnic
groups and regions -aggravated by profound ideological differences, a proverbial
impossibility to govern the country, and the poverty of the majority of its
inhabitants- has reached perilous levels of polarization and social unrest. A real
change and a real de-colonizing revolution (which inspires president Eve Morales and
vicepresident Alvaro Garcia Linera's ideological program) cannot be produced and be
real without the implementation of regional autonomies (autonomias
departamenta/es) and the strengthening of autonomic indigenous municipalities and
territories, already legislated by the actual constitution.
NOTE
A Spanish version of this dissertation (which includes a Collocutio and three more
chapters) follows the present text. Chapters V and VI are focused on the analysis of eastern Bolivia (where a parallel and no less controversial identity, facing the
Andean, has emerged: e/ ser crucefzo) and autonomic proposals more in detail.
Chapter VII presents the voices of Bolivian public intellectuals (indigenous and non
indigenous) who, and for the reasons they explain, are not members of the present
Constituent Assembly.

The chroniclers who accompanied Lope de Aguirre on his expedition to find "EI
Dorado," accuse him of being a "crazy" tyrant, responsible for the rebellion to
emancipate the conquerors from the Spanish crown. Aguirre was made a scapegoat,
in Girard ian terms, not only for that reason but due to his critique of what Angel
Rama defined as the "Lettered City," a rebuke voiced in the infamous letter he wrote
to the Spanish king denouncing imperial institutions in the Americas. 20th century,
Spanish writer Ramon J. Sender's novel, La aventura equinoccial de Lope de Aguirre
(1964), reverses the historical discourse in order to use Aguirre's attack on the
"Lettered City," to criticize the intellectuals who supported Franco's regime in
Spain, as well as the Catholic Church. This thesis's critical reading of the source
chronicles on which Sender based his novel leads to a more profound understanding
of both the early modem imperial and the modem fascist violence unleashed, not
only by supposed "tyrants-scapegoats" the likes of Aguirre, but by power itself: that
of monarchies and dictators.

This thesis examines the arduous and controversial attempt of literary critics to
classify appropriately the novel Los rfos profundos (Deep Rivers) by the Peruvian
novelist and ethnographer, Jose Marfa Arguedas and reviews the main theories that were
applied to decipher its meaning. But more than a task of classifying, the thesis itself is a
work of interpretation, which required broadening the research boundaries previously
employed. Confronting the dominance of Western discourse that has shaped how we
understand Andean literature, I identify the elements of indigenous Andean discourse that
are deeply embedded in the novel. This perspective may decisively influence the way we
read Latin American Literature and hopes to more rigorously draw attention to the
presence of ancestral indigenous civilization in the cultural identity of Latin America.

The textiles of Jalq'a and Tarabuco, from Bolivia, are known worldwide for their beauty and complex designs. While most academic attention has concentrated on weaving techniques and esthetics, this thesis explores the semiotics of the designs, not only in an ethnographic context, but as an expression of ideology, cosmogony, and the indigenous groups' cultural history. In addition to reading colonial Andean sources on the pre-Inca and Inca weaving traditions, I analyze the symbolic elements of a sample of acsus, women's traditional skirts. I link the symbols still used today to depictions of pre-Inca mythology and the cultural inclusions from Hispanic culture that have created a syncretism from processes of transculturation.

At the beginning of the 20th century, literary criollism emerged as Latin American nations struggled to achieve national unity and to differentiate themselves from Europe. In Argentina, the "gaucho" was the most autochthonous symbol to be used by the criollists. This thesis examines how two novels, Los caranchos de La Florida and El ingles de los guesos by the Argentinean writer Benito Lynch, in opposition to the exotic version introduced by his contemporaries such as Ricardo Guiraldes, denounce the real situation of the gaucho. The gauchos became the subject of abuse by the landowners and were forgotten by the nation, which excluded them from the national project of unification. I introduce the term "gauchista" literature, analogous to the "indigenista" movement, to characterize Lynch's voice of protest and vindication of the gaucho and his right to education and dignity.

Ecuador is characterized by its variety of ethnic groups, including mestizos, Indians and African descendents that have formed a rich heritage of multiple cultures. Whereas much attention has been given to indigenous and indigenista literature, there is a large gap in Ecuador's literary criticism on its afro-Ecuadorian literature. This thesis examines two afro-Ecuadorian novels, Juyungo (1942) and El ultimo rio (1966). I explore the social and economic environment in which afro-Ecuadorians had to live during the beginning of the 20 th century. Whereas Ecuador's contemporary racial ideology and the social construction of the individual dates from the colonial times, the authors of these afro-Ecuadorian novels contest that discrimination and racism and propose a radically different conception of the nation, one more inclusive of its diverse cultures.

In his testimonial epic poem Argentina y la conquista del Rio de la Plata con otros acaecimientos de los Reynos del Peru, Tucuman, y estados del Brasil, the archdeacon Martin del Barco Centenera manifests a distinct point of view than that evidenced by the participants in the conquista. The concept of "otherness" developed by the author throughout the epic poem, acts as a coordinating nexus between the conquered subject and the conqueror. This alterity tinges the work with a disappointment that is more appropriate of the posterior baroque period, product of the disillusion engendered by the conquista.