La Paz's Colonial Specters

This original study examines a vital but neglected aspect of the 1952 National Revolution in Bolivia; the activism of urban inhabitants. Many of these activists were Aymara-speaking people of indigenous origin who transformed the urban environment, politics and place of "indígenas" and "neighbors" within the city of La Paz. Luis Sierra traces how these urban residents faced racial discrimination and marginalization despite their political support for the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR). La Paz's Colonial Specters reassesses the contingent, relational nature of Bolivia's racial categories and the artificial division between urban and rural activists.
Building on rich established historiography on the indigenous people of Bolivia, Luis Sierra breaks new ground in showing the role of the neighborhoods in the process of urbanization, and builds upon analysis of the ways in which race, gender and class discourse shaped migrants interactions with other urban residents. Questioning how and why this multiclass and multi-ethnic group continued to be labelled by elites and the state as "un-modern" indigena, the author uses La Paz to demonstrate the ways in which race, class, and gender intertwine in urbanization and in conceptions of the city and nation.
Of interest to scholars, researchers and advanced students of Latin American history, urban history, the history of activism and the history of ethnic conflict, this unique study covers the previously neglected first half of the 20th century to shed light on the urban development of La Paz and its racial and political divides.

Luis M. Sierra is Assistant Professor of History and Director of the Global Initiatives Office at Thomas More College, USA, where he teaches World Civilizations and US History as well as graduate classes in Environmental History, US and Latin American Relations, The History of Modern Sports and Piracy and Black Markets. His research focuses on urbanization and indigenous politics in La Paz, Bolivia.

1. Introduction: Urban Morphology and Development
2. Consent of the Governed: Public Space, Private Failings
3. The Work Race Does: Government Discrimination and Discourse
4. Alternative Identities: Class and National Identities as Political Projects
5. Indígenas and Citizens: Popular Understandings of Race and Nation
6. The Indigenous Neighborhoods: Popular Political Activism
7. Urban Revolution: The Indigenous Neighborhoods' Roles in the MNR Revolution
8. Indigeneity: Obstacle for Revolution and Reform
Bibliography
Index