Indigenous Rights at the Crossroads of Development and Environmental Protection in the TIPNIS, Bolivia

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Walton, L. (2019). Indigenous Rights at the Crossroads of Development and Environmental Protection in the TIPNIS, Bolivia. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
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Abstract

On September 25, 2011, Bolivia garnered international attention when federal police violently attacked the camp of indigenous protestors marching against the construction of a highway through the Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure (TIPNIS). The international backlash against the violence forced Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, to temporarily ban construction of the highway in Law 180. After a counter-march led by cocaleros (coca leaf-growing Aymara and Quechua peasant migrants to the region) demanding the highway arrived in La Paz, the government revived the highway project. It conducted a consultation in the TIPNIS in 2012 and began construction in the TIPNIS’s southern colonization zone in 2017. Scholars and the media have used the TIPNIS conflict to evaluate Morales’s project of social, economic, and political reforms. This focus on Morales has obscured the voices of the TIPNIS communities, who participated in the national debates over indigenous identity, indigenous rights, development, and environmental protection that developed out of the conflict over the highway. This thesis will argue that the TIPNIS communities exploited the window of opportunity opened by the consultation process to press their own visions of indigenous identity, indigenous rights, and environmental protection.

Details
Author

Walton, Leah

Title

Indigenous Rights at the Crossroads of Development and Environmental Protection in the TIPNIS, Bolivia

Physical Description

1 online resource (162 pages) : PDF

Date

2019

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

On September 25, 2011, Bolivia garnered international attention when federal police violently attacked the camp of indigenous protestors marching against the construction of a highway through the Territorio Indígena y Parque Nacional Isiboro Sécure (TIPNIS). The international backlash against the violence forced Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, to temporarily ban construction of the highway in Law 180. After a counter-march led by cocaleros (coca leaf-growing Aymara and Quechua peasant migrants to the region) demanding the highway arrived in La Paz, the government revived the highway project. It conducted a consultation in the TIPNIS in 2012 and began construction in the TIPNIS’s southern colonization zone in 2017. Scholars and the media have used the TIPNIS conflict to evaluate Morales’s project of social, economic, and political reforms. This focus on Morales has obscured the voices of the TIPNIS communities, who participated in the national debates over indigenous identity, indigenous rights, development, and environmental protection that developed out of the conflict over the highway. This thesis will argue that the TIPNIS communities exploited the window of opportunity opened by the consultation process to press their own visions of indigenous identity, indigenous rights, and environmental protection.

Genre

masters theses

Subjects--Topics

Area studies
History

Subjects--Places

Latin America

Degree

M.A.

Keywords

Bolivia
Environmental Protection
Indigenous Rights
Tipnis

Subject Area

Latin American Studies

Advisor(s)

Soliz, Carmen

Committee Members

Weeks, Gregory
Juengst, Sara

Degree Note

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2019.

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Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Walton_uncc_0694N_12099

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:2266