Combining anthropological methods and theories with political
philosophy, Sian Lazar analyzes everyday practices and experiences
of citizenship in a satellite city to the Bolivian capital of La
Paz: El Alto, where more than three-quarters of the population
identify as indigenous Aymara. For several years, El Alto has been
at the heart of resistance to neoliberal market reforms, such as
the export of natural resources and the privatization of public
water systems. In October 2003, protests centered in El Alto forced
the Bolivian president to resign; in December 2005, the country's
first indigenous president, Evo Morales, was elected. The growth of
a strong social justice movement in Bolivia has caught the
imagination of scholars and political activists worldwide. El Alto
remains crucial to this ongoing process. In "El Alto, Rebel City"
Lazar examines the values, practices, and conflicts behind the
astonishing political power exercised by El Alto citizens in the
twenty-first century.
Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 1997 and
2004, Lazar contends that in El Alto, citizenship is a set of
practices defined by one's participation in a range of
associations, many of them collectivist in nature. Her argument
challenges Western liberal notions of the citizen by suggesting
that citizenship is not only individual and national but in many
ways communitarian and distinctly local, constituted through
different kinds of affiliations. Since in El Alto these
affiliations most often emerge through people's place of residence
and their occupational ties, Lazar offers in-depth analyses of
neighborhood associations and trade unions. In so doing, she
describes how the city's various collectivities mediate between the
state and the individual. Collective organization in El Alto and
the concept of citizenship underlying it are worthy of attention;
they are the basis of the city's formidable power to mobilize
popular protest.
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