Michelle Bigenho: Abstract
1996 "Imaginando lo imaginado: las narrativas de las naciones bolivianas [Imagining the Imagined: Narratives of Bolivian Nations]," Revista andina Año 14 (2): 471-507
In this article I examine the narrative structures behind contemporary Bolivian historiography, situating these narratives of nation within global cultural trends. Principal texts considered include René Zavaleta Mercado's La formación de la conciencia nacional and Lo nacional-popular en Bolivia, Silvia Rivera's Oprimidos pero no vencidos, Claudia Ranaboldo and SEMTA's El camino perdido, Xavier Albó and Josep Barnadas' La cara india y campesina de nuestra historia, UNITAS' La revuelta de las nacionalidades, Javier Medina's Repensar Bolivia, and ILDIS' Lo Pluri-multi o el reino de la diversidad. I argue that many of the characteristics which are considered to be indications of a cultural logic of late capitalism--the death of metanarratives, pluralistic otherness, the inability to root people to fixed places, and the predominance of ethnic and group politics at the expense of class politics--surface within contemporary Bolivian narratives of nation.