Michelle Bigenho: Abstract
1998 "Coca as a Musical Trope of Nation-ness," Political and Legal Anthropology Review 21 (1): 114-122
In this article I use a song performance from Yura, Potosi as a lens through which to view the widespread nature of coca as a trope of Bolivian nation-ness. The trope of coca, as viewed through music, provides a narrative of nation-ness in Bolivia which uniquely combines ethnic and class politics. The inclusion of ethnicity and class proves rare in Bolivia, where the postmodern shift from class politics to ethnic politics permeates both the state and alternative political discourses. Bolivian discursive claims favoring the continued production of the coca leaf are constructed through references to an ethnic heritage. Such claims are pitted against the policies of the the United States which favor the blurring of any attempt to differentiate between the coca leaf and cocaine. Many of those who now work in the coca fields of the Chapare are "relocated" miners who, after state closure of mines, brought with them a class-based experience of organizing. Using a musical example from highland Bolivia, I show how the politics of coca reference an ethnic and class-based narrative of nation which is at work even far from coca fields.