Experiencia indígena y posicionamientos nacionales: luchas ciudadanas de migrantes bolivianos/as en la ciudad de La Plata, Argentina

Abstract

In this article, I propose to analyze the appropriation dynamics of indigenous politicization in Bolivia that occur among Bolivian migrants in La Plata, one of the main cities of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Based on ethnographic participant observation in the activities of Bolivian migrant associations, consular agencies, Argentine State institutions and social and political organizations, my conclusion is that, despite the constraints to adopt ethnic identifications in the political space in the context of reception, migrants explicitly recover forms of identification and collective organization of their country’s indigenous movement. The originality of the article is given by the approach to the relationship between ethnicization and national positioning. Following the previous literature, we note the strengthening of indigenous positions, but these do not appear primarily as a way of presenting and mobilizing demands, but rather as a background of struggle that actively informs their subjectivation as citizens in the destination country. In this respect, indigenous transnational politicization is not constituted in opposition to the parameters of the State; rather, it incorporates an experience that is semanticized as ethnic in the insertion of migrants into the political community.

Keywords

• citizenship
• indigenous struggles
• international migration
• politics
• state
• transnationality