The Emergence of Mestizaje in the Works of Adolfo Costa du Rels

This article explores the overlaps between the emergence of mestizaje as a political discourse and the oligarchy’s refashioning of itself as a national elite during the 1920s in Bolivia. In the discussion, I refer to three works of Adolfo Costa du Rels: two different editions of “La Miskki Simi,” a short story first published in the anthology El traje de Arlequin in 1921 and Tierras hechizadas, a novel whose original French version published in 1931 under the title of Terres embrasées. Weaving the historical context into the reading of the three texts, the article demonstrates mestizaje’s provenance as a political discourse can be traced to the oligarchy’s ambivalent attempts at readapting itself to the social, economic and political changes of the period, brought about by the growing politicization of the working classes. While mestizaje, as a discourse has traditionally been associated with pedagogical projects for promoting, conditioning and also containing subaltern negotiations of modernity, this article shows that in undertaking to change the national reality in accordance with their visions, the elite could not escape an introspection on their own role and place in it. The discourse of mestizaje was thus Janus-faced that involved not only the education of the indigenous masses, but also the reeducation of the oligarchic elite.