Indigenous Politics in Modern Latin America
Instructor: Jaclyn Sumner
Course Number: History 26501
Meeting Times/Location: Tuesday & Thursday 12-1:20pm
Office Hours:
[email protected]
This class examines the history of indigenous political movements in Latin America during the
20th century. In recent decades, Evo Morales and Subcomandante Marcos have captured the world's
attention by pushing debates over indigeneity onto the national and international stages. In this course,
students will analyze indigenous political movements – and how they came to be - through the lens of
history. As Latin American governments consolidated, changed, and expanded, how did they contend
with their indigenous constituencies? And, conversely, how did indigenous peoples contend with
governments? What tools did indigenous peoples use to mobilize politically? In what ways did
ethnicity shape political participation? Is it important to understand ethnicity in order to grasp politics
in modern Latin America? In order to answer such questions, Guatemalan Mayans, Andean peasants,
and Zapatistas of southern Mexico, will be among the cases studied. This course features many primary
sources – literature, manifestos, testimonies, interviews, photographs, and art - in addition to scholarly
analyses, as a way of giving precedence to indigenous peoples' historical voices.
As a survey of Latin America, covering different places like the Andes, Mexico, and Central
America, the class is designed both to introduce new students to the region, as well as provide in-depth
study for those who are already familiar with the region. Though the course is roughly divided by
chronology and geography, students are encouraged to think about how historical actors would
dialogue with one another. For example, what would a participant in Peru's Shining Path movement say
to Subcomandante Marcos? How would Rigoberta Menchu respond to the concerns of an indigenous
Bolivian miner of the early 1900s? In conceptualizing such questions, students will think critically
about the changing roles that indigenous peoples have played in different places, at different points of
history. The central goals of this course of are to expose students to politics, society, and culture in
contemporary Latin America, as well as to improve critical thinking and writing skills. That said,
students are highly encouraged to purchase The Craft of Research by Wayne Booth, Gregory G.
Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams – an essential text for scholarly writing, - as well as attend office
hours to further discuss their inquiries and essays.
Grading & Course policies:
20% Class participation
Attendance at every class is expected; anticipated absences should be discussed in
advance with the instructor. Students are allowed one excused absence during the quarter.
Students are expected to do all weekly readings and participate ACTIVELY in discussion.
20% Brief Responses and Discussion Questions
For weeks 2-9, students will post a brief one to two paragraph response to the readings on the
course discussion board on chalk, in addition to two-three discussion questions related to any of
the readings. Responses should demonstrate that you thought critically about the readings and
are able to compose an argument in response to them. Students are welcome to respond to other
students. We will further discuss these requirements in class.
25% Midterm
The mid-term will be in class and will consist of short answers and essays.
35% Final Paper
Students can either write a paper (8-10 pages) based on a comparative analysis of the readings
(I will provide essay prompts), or they may write a research paper (10-15 pages) that traces the
history of an indigenous political movement, party, or group, from its inception to the present.
Students are encouraged to use primary documents, including but not limited to newspapers,
human rights reports, websites, or political debates, as well as scholarly debates surrounding
their topic. The essay must be HISTORICALLY based. If you decide to write a research paper,
I must approve the topic in advance, and do so by week 5. During week 5, students will be
expected to meet with the instructor to discuss source options. By week 7, students should
submit an annotated bibliography, which lists their source followed by a brief summary and
explanation of its relevance to their topic. These deadlines will be upheld and if missed, the
student will not be able to write a research paper. Plagiarism will not be tolerated (and is very
easy to detect, I may add).
Course Learning Goals:
 Contextualize current debates surrounding the role of indigenous peoples in Latin American
social, cultural, and political life
 Understand the development, construction, and evolution of ethnic and racial identities in a
variety of historical and geographical circumstances
 Gain familiarity with a wide range of interdisciplinary approaches to the study of native life in
Latin America
 Increase the student’s ability to express themselves both verbally and in writing
 Identify arguments and the sources upon which they are based
 Assess the contributions and problems with scholarly texts
 Learn to conduct extensive bibliographic searches for monographs, journal articles, recent
newspaper articles, and political debates
 Formulate an argument based on recent primary sources, and properly situate that argument in
current scholarly debate
Course Texts:
Becker, Marc. Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador's Modern Indigenous Movements.
Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.
Dawson, Alexander S. Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 2004.
Gould, Jeffrey L. To Die in This Way: Nicaraguan Indians and the Myth of Mestizaje, 1880-1965.
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998.
Menchú, Rigoberta, and Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. I, Rigoberta Menchú: an Indian woman in
Guatemala. London: Verso, 1984.
*All readings are on reserve at the Regenstein Library, on e-reserve, on chalk or available on
JSTOR. All required books are available for purchase at the Seminary Coop bookstore, and are
also on reserve at the Reg. Students will be expected to PRINT OUT all course readings and
BRING THEM TO CLASS.*
Week 1: The Meaning of Ethnicity in Latin America
Tuesday:
Introduction to course themes
“Casta Paintings,” and 18th -19th Century Notions of Race.
Thursday:
Nancy Grey Postero and Leon Zamosc, “Indigenous Movements and the Indian
Question in Latin America,” in Nancy Grey Postero and Leon Zamosc (eds.), The
Struggle for Indigenous Rights in Latin America, 1-31.
Peter Wade, “The Meaning of Race and Ethnicity,” and “Blacks and Indigenous People
in Latin America,” 4-40, in Race and Ethnicity in Latin America.
Week 2: Mexican Indigenismo and Early 20th Century Thought
Tuesday:
“La raza cósmica,” José Vasconcelos, in The Mexico Reader, 15-19.
“The Sons of La Malinche,” Octavio Paz, in The Mexico Reader, 20-27.
“Ode to Cuauhtémoc,” Carlos Pellicer, in The Mexico Reader, 406-410.
Stephen Lewis, “Mestizaje,” In Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society, and Culture,
ed. Michael S. Werner, 2: 838-42.
Alexander S. Dawson, Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico, 3-95.
Thursday:
Mexican Mural Photos (Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco)
Alexander S. Dawson, Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico, 96-164.
Week 3: Intellectuals and Changing Notions of Indigeneity in the Andes
Tuesday:
Alcides Arguedas, The Sick People, Selections, in Nineteenth-Century Nation Building
and the Latin American Intellectual Tradition, A reader, editors Janet Burke and Ted
Humphrey, 342-364.
Marc Becker, Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador's Modern Indigenous
Movements, 1-104.
Thursday:
José Carlos Mariátegui, “The Indian Problem,” from Seven Interpretive Essays on
Peruvian Reality, 1928, in Latin America Since Independence, 129-136.
Alberto Flores Galindo, Buscando Un Inca, Selections.
Marc Becker, Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador's Modern Indigenous
Movements, 105-143.
Week 4: The Meanings of Ethnicity in Central America
Tuesday:
Jeffrey Gould, To Die in This Way: Nicaraguan Indians and the Myth of Mestizaje,
1880-1965, 102-202.
Thursday:
Jeffrey Gould, To Die in This Way, 203-272.
Week 5: Emerging Consciousness in Central America
Tuesday:
Guillermo Bonfil Batalla, “The Problem of National Culture” in The Mexico
Reader, 28-32; México Profundo: Reclaiming a Civilization, Selections.
Rosario Castellanos, “Death of a Tiger,” in City of Kings.
Thursday:
Greg Grandin, “Regenerating the Race: Race, Class, and the Nationalization of
Ethnicity,” in The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation, 130-158.
Víctor Montejo, “The Multiplicity of Mayan Voices: Mayan Leadership and the Politics
of Self-Representation,” 123-148, in Indigenous Movements, Self-Representation, and
the State in Latin America.
Week 6: Contemporary Mobilizations
Tuesday:
Rigoberta Menchu, I, Rigoberta Menchu, 1-153 (Selections).
Thursday:
Rigoberta Menchu, 154-289 (Selections).
Peter Canby, “The Truth About Rigoberta Menchu,” review of I, Rigoberta Menchu, by
Rigoberta Menchu, New York Times Book Review, April 8, 1999.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1999/apr/08/the-truth-about-rigobertamenchu/
Week 7: Zapatistas and the Struggle for Autonomy
Tuesday:
“EZLN Demands at the Dialogue Table,” “The Long Journey from Despair to Hope,”
and “A Tzotzil Chronicle of the Zapatista Uprising,” in The Mexico Reader, 639-669.
Alma Guillermoprieto, “Zapata's Heirs,” and “The Unmasking” in Looking for History:
Dispatches from Latin America, 185-223.
Thursday:
Mark T. Berger, “Romancing the Zapatistas: International Intellectuals and the Chiapas
Rebellion,” Latin American Perspectives 28:2 (March 2001), 149-170.
Christine E. Eber, "Seeking Our Own Food: Indigenous Women's Power and Autonomy
San Pedro Chenalho, Chiapas (1980-1998)." Latin American Perspectives 26, no. 3
(1999): 6-36.
Week 8: Violence and Uprisings in the Contemporary Andes
Tuesday:
Mario Vargas Llosa, “The Massacre,” excerpt from “Inquest in the Andes: A Latin
American Writer Explores the Political Lessons of a Peruvian Massacre,” 221-239, in
Latin America since Independence: A History with Primary Documents.
Maria Isabel Remy, “The Indigenous Population and the Construction of Democracy in
Peru,” in Indigenous peoples and democracy in Latin America.
Thursday:
2008 Ecuadorian Constitution
Marc Becker, “Correa, Indigenous Movements, and the Writing of a New Constitution
in Ecuador,” Latin American Perspectives 38:1 (January 2011), 47-62
Leon Zamosc, “Agrarian Protest and the Indian Movement in the Ecuadorian
Highlands,” in Contemporary Indigenous Movements in Latin America, 37-64.
Week 9: An Indian Government in Bolivia
Tuesday:
2009 Bolivian Constitution
“Bolivia's Left Turn, Documents” 279-309, in Latin America since Independence: A
History with Primary Documents.
Thursday:
Nicole Fabricant, “Performative politics: The Camba Countermovement in Eastern
Bolivia,” American Ethnologist, 36 (Nov., 2009), 768–783.
Xavier Albo, “And from Kataristas to MNRistas? The Surprising and Bold Alliance
between Aymaras and Neoliberals in Bolivia” in Indigenous peoples and democracy in
Latin America.
Week 10: Going Forward and the Indigenous Diaspora
Tuesday:
Deborah J. Yashar, “Democracy and the Post Liberal Challenge in Latin America,” 281308, in Contesting Citizenship in Latin America.
Alison Brysk, “Acting Globally: Indian Rights and International Politics in Latin
America,” in Indigenous peoples and democracy in Latin America.
Leon Fink and Alvis E. Dunn, The Maya of Morganton: Work and Community in the
Nuevo New South (Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2003): 54-78.
Thursday:
Reading Period and Review
Course Bibliography
Becker, Marc. “Correa, Indigenous Movements, and the Writing of a New Constitution
in Ecuador.” Latin American Perspectives 38:1 (January 2011), 47-62.
Becker, Marc. Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador's Modern Indigenous Movements.
Durham: Duke University Press, 2008.
Berger, Mark T. “Romancing the Zapatistas: International Intellectuals and the Chiapas
Rebellion.” Latin American Perspectives 28:2 (March 2001), 149-170.
Bonfil Batalla, Guillermo, and Philip Adams Dennis. México Profundo: Reclaiming a Civilization.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996.
Burke, Janet, and Ted Humphrey, editors. Nineteenth-Century Nation Building and the Latin American
Intellectual Tradition: A Reader. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub. Co, 2007.
Castellanos, Rosario, Robert S. Rudder, Gloria Chacón de Arjona, and Claudia Schaefer. City of Kings.
Pittsburgh, Pa: Latin American Literary Review Press, 1993.
Dawson, Alexander S. Indian and Nation in Revolutionary Mexico. Tucson: University of Arizona
Press, 2004.
Dawson, Alexander S. Latin America Since Independence: A History with Primary Sources.New York:
Routledge, 2011.
Eber, Christine E. "Seeking Our Own Food: Indigenous Women's Power and Autonomy
San Pedro Chenalho, Chiapas (1980-1998)." Latin American Perspectives 26, no. 3
(1999): 6-36.
Fabricant, Nicole.“Performative politics: The Camba Countermovement in Eastern
Bolivia,” American Ethnologist, 36 (Nov., 2009), 768–783.
Fausto, Carlos, and Michael Heckenberger. Time and Memory in Indigenous Amazonia:
Anthropological Perspectives. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2007.
Fink, Leon and Alvis E. Dunn, The Maya of Morganton: Work and Community in the
Nuevo New South. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
Garfield, Seth. Indigenous Struggle at the Heart of Brazil: State Policy, Frontier Expansion, and the
Xavante Indians, 1937-1988. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001.
Gotkowitz, Laura. A Revolution for Our Rights: Indigenous Struggles for Land and Justice in Bolivia,
1880-1952. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
Gould, Jeffrey L. To Die in This Way: Nicaraguan Indians and the Myth of Mestizaje, 1880-1965.
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1998.
Grandin, Greg. The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 2000.
Guillermoprieto, Alma. Looking for History: Dispatches from Latin America. New York: Pantheon
Books, 2001.
Flores Galindo, Alberto, Carlos Aguirre, Charles F. Walker, and Willie Hiatt. In Search of an Inca:
Identity and Utopia in the Andes. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Harvey, Neil. The Chiapas Rebellion: The Struggle for Land and Democracy. Durham: Duke
University Press, 1998.
Joseph, G. M., and Timothy J. Henderson. The Mexico reader: history, culture, politics. Durham: Duke
University Press, 2002.
Langer, Erick Detlef, and Elena Muñoz, editors. Contemporary Indigenous Movements in Latin
America. Wilmington, Del: SR Books, 2003.
Larson, Brooke. Trials of Nation Making: Liberalism, Race, and Ethnicity in the Andes, 1810-1910.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Mallon, Florencia E. Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche Community of Nicolás Ailío and the
Chilean State, 1906-2001. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2005.
Maybury-Lewis, David. The Politics of Ethnicity: Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States.
Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies,
2002.
Menchú, Rigoberta, and Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. I, Rigoberta Menchú: an Indian woman in
Guatemala. London: Verso, 1984.
Muratorio, Blanca. The Life and Times of Grandfather Alonso, Culture and History in the Upper
Amazon. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1991.
Postero, Nancy Grey and Leon Zamosc, editors. The Struggle for Indigenous Rights in Latin America.
Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Books, 2006.
Stahler-Sholk, Richard, Glen David Kuecker, and Harry E. Vanden. Latin American Social Movements
in the Twenty-First Century: Resistance, Power, and Democracy. Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2008.
Stern, Steve J. Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World, 18th to 20th
Centuries. Madison, Wis: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987.
Stern, Steve J. Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980-1995. Durham: Duke
University Press, 1998.
Van Cott, Donna Lee, editor. From Movements to Parties in Latin America: The Evolution of Ethnic
Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Van Cott, Donna Lee, editor. Indigenous Peoples and Democracy in Latin America. New York: St.
Martin's Press in association with the Inter-American Dialogue, 1994.
Wade, Peter. Race and Ethnicity in Latin America. Chicago, Ill: Pluto Press, 1997.
Warren, Kay B. Indigenous Movements and Their Critics: Pan-Maya Activism in Guatemala.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Warren, Kay B., and Jean E. Jackson, editors. Indigenous Movements, Self-Representation, and the
State in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2002.
Wearne, Phillip. Return of the Indian: Conquest and Revival in the Americas. Philadelphia, Pa: Temple
University Press, 1996.
Werner, Michael S. Encyclopedia of Mexico: History, Society, and Culture. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn,
1997.
Yashar, Deborah J. Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and
the Postliberal Challenge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.