El Alto, Rebel City

Self and Citizenship in Andean Bolivia

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2812631
AutoresPablo Lapegna (0000-0003-3196-2897, State University of New York at Stony Brook, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen89
Número3
Páginas542-543
Fecha de publicación2009-08-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoREVIEW
Reseña deEl Alto, Rebel City: Self and Citizenship in Andean Bolivia, Sian Lazar, 2008
RevistaHispanic American Historical Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0018-2168 • E-ISSN: 1527-1900
EditorialDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/00182168-2009-030
OpenAlexW2008070789
IdiomaEN

Sian Lazar’s goal in El Alto, Rebel City is to examine the tensions between collective and individual senses of self, citizenship, and political agency. Lazar argues that liberal (and ultimately also communitarian) perspectives of citizenship overemphasize individualism, failing to capture the collectivist traditions actualized in the practices of civil society’s organizations in Bolivia. Assuming that citizenship is as much a status as a practice, the author asserts that “national citizenship must articulate with local forms of belonging and citizenship” (p. 25). To observe those local practices, Lazar practiced ethnography in El Alto, formerly a “satellite city” of La Paz which has seen an expansion of population in the last decades as a result of economic changes and internal migration. Rather than painting a Manichean picture of how Western ideas of citizenship are imposed on non-Western subjects, the author examines how people combine individualized and collectivist senses of citizenship in their practices. Lazar aims to demonstrate that the interactions between individuals, local civil organizations, and the state create a hybrid citizenship that mirrors the hybrid cholo identity of the majority of El Alto’s inhabitants.In the first part of the book, Lazar focuses on place-based organizations and identities, showing how El Alto became an area of intense commercial, political, and cultural life and how juntas vecinales (neighbor committees) and juntas escolares (school boards) interact with patronage networks, the state, and international NGOs. In the second part, she describes the work-based senses of self and the dynamics of trade unions, analyzing the conflicts and negotiations between street vendors, fishermen, and the central and local governments.In the most insightful sections of the book, Lazar addresses the internal working of civil associations and unions and how they interplay with other organizations and the state. For instance, the author reveals how clientelism and contentious politics constitute two (not necessarily contradictory) faces of political life in El Alto, taking heed of recent literature that aims to bridge the divide between studies on patronage networks and social movements (chap. 3). Equally illuminating is her examination of the street vendors and the conflicts between pescaderas (women fish sellers of El Alto), the federation of fishermen, and the state (chaps. 6 and 7). Lazar demonstrates that trade union and communitarian traditions are not antithetical but actually become hybridized in the practices of El Alto dwellers, thereby challenging Bolivian intellectuals that counterpose the legacy of the “Westernized” unions to the heritage of the ayllu.In El Alto, Rebel City, Lazar is able to capture the “multi-tiered” version of citizenship in Bolivia, proving that (at least for El Alto) it is more accurate to conceive of citizenship as a series of practices stemming from “nested affiliations” than as a status circumscribed to the individual. The book, however, could have been more pointed if Lazar had concentrated on digging deeper into theoretical debates instead of expanding her areas of ethnographic observation and scrutiny. For example, the chapters on community dances, celebrations, and religious practices are somewhat forced into the discussion on citizenship. The author incorporates so many aspects of El Alto’s life that she is forced to address too many bodies of literature (on collective action and routine politics; on rituals, performance, and community; on religiosity in Latin America; on ethnicity and markets), which may overwhelm the reader. This problem is mirrored in the book’s methodology. Lazar covers such a great variety of situations and actors that she tends to interpret the point of view of the dwellers rather than provide rich descriptions (of situations, interactions, or discourses) that would empower readers to draw their own conclusions. The author also could have better substantiated the book’s methodology by presenting a longer discussion of the constraints she faced as a foreign, female ethnographer.Overall, El Alto offers a clearly written portrait of a city that has become key to understanding current Bolivian politics. This rich case study can inform conceptions of citizenship that emphasize the role of practices, social organizations, and collective traditions. Scholars interested in the making of citizenship in Bolivia and its vibrant and changing civil society will find this book useful and inspiring

Agency (philosophy) · Citizenship · Collectivism · Ethnography · Individualism · Political science · Politics · Population · Social science · Sociology · State (computer science) · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Indigenous Cultures and History · Law · Politics and Society in Latin America · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies

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