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  • Mestizaje Upside-Down: Aesthetic Politics in Modern Bolivia
  • Rachel M. Gisselquist
Mestizaje Upside-Down: Aesthetic Politics in Modern Bolivia. By Javier Sanjinés C. (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004) 226 pp. $29.95

In Latin America, mestizaje, the process of racial and cultural intermixing among Spanish-descended criollos, Indians, and others, has been seen as the means through which unified nations could be created, composed not of disparate ethnic groups but of a new synthesis, mestizos. For Bolivia, among the most indigenous and poorest countries in the region, [End Page 308] the concept of mestizaje has been especially important to the twin projects of nation building and modernization. Standard liberal discourse until the early twentieth century saw the indigenous as innately inferior, blaming Bolivia's "backwardness" on local influence and racial intermixing, which weakened the Iberian racial core. Beginning in this period, however, the Bolivian mestizo-criollo intelligentsia began to see the indigenous in a new light. Criticizing the liberal elite's adoption of European models, they argued that the nation's future and strength lay in the development of Bolivian national culture, for which the indigenous people were powerful and vital repositories. Franz Tamayo's Creación de la pedagogía nacional ("Creation of the National Pedagogy") (La Paz, 1910) launched the "mestizo ideal" as the "synthesis of indigenous will and mestizo intelligence," the basis of this national culture (58).

A combination of sociopolitical history and literary and artistic criticism, Sanjinés' book is an erudite meditation on Bolivian nationhood. Focusing on the concept of mestizaje, he skillfully interprets essays, novels, paintings, and photographs to illustrate the evolving vision of the nation held by the country's mestizo-criollo elite. Beginning with Tamayo's work, which introduced the mestizo ideal in the image of Tamayo's own person and body, Sanjinés pays special attention to the evolution of this bodily metaphor, tracing it through early twentieth century painting and beyond. He does a skillful job of showing how art influenced politics and vice versa, highlighting the nationalizing effect of Bolivia's defeat in the Chaco War (1932–1935). He also pays special attention to the role of Carlos Montenegro and Augusto Céspedes in writing the new "revolutionary nationalism" of the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR), the political party that led the country's 1952 revolution, seeking to "democratize" mestizaje and bring nationalism to the masses.

Sanjinés has a more revolutionary objective in this book. In this mestizo-criollo construction of the nation, he aptly points out, the indigenous people are a silent subject. He intends not only to show the limitations of such a construction but also to turn the mestizo ideal on its head by working from the perspective of the indigenous "other." Borrowing a metaphor from the Katarista movement, developed by a group of primarily Aymara intellectuals in the 1970s, he wants to see with "both eyes," taking into account the oppression of classes and of nations or ethnic groups. In particular, he draws on statements by indigenous leader Felipe Quispe and the "radical" or "Indianista" branch of Katarismo, which rejects the existing political system and works "without and against it." Drawing on this work, he offers a provocative view to an alternative, "Indianized" Bolivian nationhood.

Given Sajinés's argument, however, it is striking that this book focuses on only one indigenous perspective, that of the primarily Aymara Indianistas. Thus does the author impose a false suggestion of unity on Bolivia's diverse indigenous population. Noticeably absent, for instance, are the voices of indigenous leader Evo Morales, who almost won the [End Page 309] presidency in 2002, and, in general, of the Quechua, the other main indigenous group. Perhaps anticipating such criticism, Sanjinés points out that due to their geographical location and social mobility, the Quechua have been more bought into the mestizaje ideal and are therefore less able to promote a "decolonizing discourse" (109–110). Sanjinés's position seems dangerously close to suggesting that their perspectives are somehow less legitimate, that they are somehow less able to speak for themselves. As insightful as this book is, Sanjinés's version of "mestizaje upside-down" is in danger of...

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