The Nation State v. Indianist Revitalization Dialectic in Bolivia

Since early in 2006, the republic of Bolivia has been ruled by the first indigenous president in that country's history: the Aymara Eva Morales, union leader and first name in the ballot of the so-called "Movement for Socialism" (MAS). His political rise, electoral victory and government program have drawn considerable attention from international mass media and been the subject of valuable political and sociological analyses. From the perspective of comparative anthropology, the process can be understood as an instance, in the Andean cultural context, of what Anthony Wallace called a "revitalization movement," triggered by the convergence, at a juncture of crisis begun in 1997, of a number of historical conditions of variable duration in Bolivia as a national project.