Notes
N o t e s Introduction 1. While debates exist over whether to use the terms First World and Third World, Global North and Global South, or the developed and the ‘‘bottom billion,’’ Bolivia’s status by most measures falls into the category of a classically dependent economy. And while some measures characterize Bolivia as middle income or medium development (e.g., UNDP 2009), the majority of Bolivians rank as poor or very poor by global standards. 2. Statistical measures of Bolivian incomes and social identities are notoriously inaccurate. While the World Bank (2013), for example, lists 49 percent of Bolivians as living above the national poverty line, such a precise figure should be treated with caution. Nor do income measures reveal how people identify themselves in racial and class terms. I estimate that approximately 20 or 25 percent of Bolivians comprise the group I am terming the ‘‘new middle classes,’’ while the older, established urban middle classes and the superelite together comprise approximately 10 percent. 3. I am using the term ‘‘subaltern’’ as used by political theorist Antonio Gramsci to refer generally to nonelite groups in society, defined in racial, class, or ethnic terms, or a combination of all three. Subalternity is defined in different ways in different countries. In Bolivia, an array of terms express subalternity and will be explained more fully throughout the book. These refer to class, race, and culture in varying combinations, including poor/wealthy (pobre/rico), campesino/professional (profesional ), and indigenous/white (runa/q’ara). 4. Coca, a leaf that serves as a mild stimulant and appetite suppressant to those who chew it, has been grown for thousands of years in the Andes and has served as an object of spiritual and ceremonial importance. The coca and cocaine boom began in the late 1970s in Bolivia following a steep rise in demand for cocaine in the United States and Europe. As a result, the price of cocaine and coca leaf shot upward in Bolivia. The tropical Chapare region, offering an ideal climate for growing coca, attracted thousands of Bolivians fleeing land scarcity and drought. With the mass firings in mines and factories following Bolivian free-market reforms in 1985, the Chapare became a haven for ex-miners and factory workers and their families searching for work. In the early 1980s, many economists estimated, more than 50 percent of 218 Notes to Pages 3–14 the Bolivian economy was based on cocaine and coca exports (Flores and Blanes 1984; Painter 1998; Healy 1986). At least 400,000 people (roughly 5 percent of the Bolivian population) were working directly in coca or cocaine production by 1981, and this percentage grew higher in subsequent years (Healy 1986; Flores and Blanes 1984). 5. See, for example, ‘‘Aliados del MAS revelan que hay pugnas por pegas,’’ La Razón, January 27, 2011; ‘‘Evo reconoce que dirigencia sindical sólo busca pegas y candidaturas,’’ Los Tiempos, June 8, 2009; ‘‘El MAS reconoce que pelea por pegas perjudica a Evo,’’ Los Tiempos, November 2, 2007. 6. I conducted a total of thirty-seven months of ethnographic field research in Bolivia. My research trips were May–November 1995, December 1997–December 1998, July–August 2003, July–August 2004, July 2005–June 2006, and August 2009. 7. ‘‘Amanda’’ is a pseudonym. I have used pseudonyms for all people except public figures speaking or acting on the public record. Likewise, the community of Choro is a pseudonym. To preserve the confidentiality of the community and its residents, I have not identified Choro precisely on the map of Sacaba municipality. 8. For exceptions, see work on middle classes in other Third World countries by Dickey 2000; Cahn 2008; Liechty 2002; O’Dougherty 2002; Colloredo-Mansfield [1999] 2004; Rutz and Balkan 2009. 9. For an introduction to the harmful effects of free-market reforms on employment and the Bolivian economy, see Kohl 1999; Postero 2005; Conaghan and Malloy 1994. For an introduction to the effects of free-market reforms more broadly, see Comaroff and Comaroff 2001; Ferguson 2006; Greenhouse 2010; Hale 2005. 10. Bolivian leftist political leaders and many scholars were deeply critical of decentralization reforms like the LPP, arguing that decentralization was part of a larger ideological project to complete the work of reengineering: from a state that promised —someday—to create prosperity and development to a free-market society in which each person must struggle alone (e.g., Kohl 1999; Gill 2000). Along with critics of similar reforms in...
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