Neoliberal Multiculturalism and Indigenous Movements

The four books under review address several of the most compelling issues that have arisen following the democratic transitions of the 1980s and 1990s in Latin American countries with indigenous populations. The main concerns shared by the authors, all anthropologists, are indigenous mobilization, indigenous-state relations, and official multiculturalism. Reforms that sought to bring marginalized indigenous populations into the political process receive particular attention. The paradox of neoliberal multiculturalism, according to Charles R. Hale, “is that a progressive response to past societal ills has a menacing potential to perpetuate the problem in a new guise” (12). The reforms “intended to heal the rift between the state and the populace,” writes Nancy Grey Postero (220), did not work as planned, and the books reviewed here seek to understand why. Although the authors address several other topics, I focus on how they deal with indigenous organizing, neoliberal ideologies and policies, democratization, and the role of structural racism. The differences among the books are substantial, as a result of different research sites and the various interests, methodologies, and research scope of the authors.

Wanting to do research that would benefit Guatemala’s indigenous communities, Hale queried his activist Maya friends about what kind of investigation would be most helpful. The response was clear: study nonindigenous Guatemalans (known as ladinos) and how they feel about Maya activism in particular, and about race, ethnicity, and class more generally. Hale and his family lived in the provincial city of Chimaltenango for two years. His roughly 150 interviews plus many informal conversations reveal deep anxieties in the population about Maya ascendancy, a racial “ambivalence” that is the central concept of his study. This ambivalence is best expressed as a paradox: “the newfound affirmation that Mayas and ladinos are equal is both constitutive of, and a constant threat to, the dominant racial order in the making” (218). Hale asks why racial hierarchy remains virtually unchanged for the vast majority of Guatemalans, despite a formidable change at the level of the state that affirms indigenous people as equals and respects and celebrates indigenous culture. Clearly, the “image of gradual progress . . . toward intercultural equality” (44) does not reflect reality. Guatemala’s recent emergence from a civil war that resulted in two hundred thousand deaths, mostly of indigenous people, and a much greater number of refugees forms the chilling backdrop to his study. The book was simultaneously published in Spanish in Guatemala.

How Paraguay’s seventeen indigenous tribes began to organize and ultimately formed a national movement has received relatively little scholarly attention. René D. Harder Horst’s book represents a valuable contribution for this reason alone. Beginning with the colonial era and moving forward through the country’s history, Horst ultimately focuses on Alfredo Stroessner’s brutally repressive dictatorship, one of the longest in the history of the hemisphere (1954–1989). A crucial theme within this narrative is the profound influence that religious institutions—primarily the Catholic Church, but also Protestant missionaries and Mennonite settlers—had on indigenous communities. The church’s transition from reactionary and regime supporting to pro-indigenous and antigovernment makes for a fascinating story. Liberation theology, Vatican II (1962–1965), and the Medellín conference (1968) all contributed to this transformation, along with the rise of global discourses of multiculturalism and growing exasperation with the Stroessner regime. Among the ironies that Horst describes is that, in some cases, religious conversion strengthened language retention and the resolve of some groups...