Contesting Citizenship In Latin America: The Ri... File

The story doesn't end with a protest. These movements are now posing a . They are asking the state: "Can you be a democracy if you only recognize individuals, or must you also recognize our collective rights and autonomy as indigenous peoples?" .

The book by Deborah J. Yashar explores why indigenous movements suddenly surged in late 20th-century Latin America.

One day, the government changed the rules. It adopted , aiming to treat everyone as individual, equal citizens. While this sounded like "democracy," it actually stripped away the collective protections the villagers relied on for their local autonomy. Suddenly, their lands were at risk, and the "peasant" unions that once protected them were dismantled. Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Ri...

: The shift to neoliberalism unintentionally challenged their local autonomy, giving them a reason to fight back.

Imagine a village where, for decades, the people were recognized by the government strictly as Under this "corporatist" regime, they received land and social services not because they were indigenous, but because they were part of a state-sanctioned agricultural union. In this world, their ethnic identity was private; their political life was tied to their work. The story doesn't end with a protest

Feeling their way of life threatened, the villagers looked for a new way to defend themselves. They didn't just see themselves as workers anymore—they reclaimed their identity as . Why the Village Succeeded (Yashar's Three Factors)

According to Deborah Yashar , this village—and real movements in countries like and Bolivia —succeeded because of three specific things: The book by Deborah J

Here is a helpful story to illustrate the book's core arguments: The Story of the Changing Village