Reimagining politics: Video and indigenous struggles in contemporary Bolivia
Item
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Title
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Reimagining politics: Video and indigenous struggles in contemporary Bolivia
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:54cddbc945c4:10016
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identifier
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10106
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Creator
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Zamorano, Gabriela,
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Contributor
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Marc Edelman
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Date
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2009
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Cultural anthropology | Mass communication | indigenous media | Latin America
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Abstract
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This dissertation examines indigenous video production and circulation as a means by which indigenous organizations and mobilizations articulate new claims on national politics. Specifically in the current efforts for refounding the Bolivian state with the participation of indigenous peoples, videos produced by native people contribute to recounting stories that build upon social reality in order to bring attention to what indigenous media makers see as necessary, possible, imaginable, or desirable.;The uniqueness of Bolivian indigenous video production is most evident in the remarkable alliance between the non-governmental "National Plan of Indigenous Communication" (Plan Nacional Indigena Originario de Comunicacion Audiovisual), and the powerful peasant and indigenous confederations. My argument is that indigenous communication constitutes a central feature of new political practices of struggle in Bolivia. In order to understand how this happens I examine two aspects related to indigenous communication. One is its definition as a site of politics, namely, a space which generates debate, negotiation, and disagreement about reality in order to envision alternative national futures. The second one is about understanding the Plan Nacional as part of a major engagement of civil society---organized into powerful social movements---with the national project and with the contentious Bolivian state. By making reference to the political past, challenging the present, and imagining possible futures, fictional and documentary videos reenact the continuities and ruptures of national political projects in particular ways. Such representations constitute political uses of history that are central to the claims that indigenous mobilizations make on the state.;Five central questions guide the research (1) How are political language, traditions and practices recreated, challenged or imagined in both documentary and fictional videos? (2) How do indigenous media makers situate themselves in relation to dominant cultures and the state? (3) How do training, funding, and circulation influence both the production process and the narrative structure of videos? (4) How are images of the Indian depicted in videos built upon other forms of representing indigeneity and contribute to challenging or reproducing the dominant ideologies? And (5) how do the history, goals, and strategies of video production relate to the recent history of indigenous movements?
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Anthropology
