The Pluri-Extractivist State: Regional Autonomy and the Limits of Indigenous Participation in Gran Chaco Province

Anthias, Penelope

Abstract

On 20 November 2016, residents of Gran Chaco Province in south-east Bolivia voted by popular referendum to approve a statute that established Gran Chaco as Bolivia's first autonomous region. This article examines regional autonomy in the Chaco as an example of how identities, territory and political power are being remapped at the intersection of an extractivist development model and competing visions of a plurinational state. I chart how regional autonomy, an elite-led project centred on demands for a fixed share of departmental gas royalties, has been institutionalised under the framework of plurinationalism and used to bolster central state power in this gas-rich region. The article considers the historical evolution of this regionalist project, its intersection with broader processes of state formation under the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement towards Socialism, MAS) government and its implications for the Chaco's Indigenous peoples, who have achieved significant representation within the regional assembly while seeing their own visions of territorial autonomy sidelined by an extractivist development agenda.

Citation

Anthias, P. (2022). The Pluri-Extractivist State: Regional Autonomy and the Limits of Indigenous Participation in Gran Chaco Province. Journal of Latin American Studies, 54(1), 125-154. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022216x21000997

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Aug 25, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Jan 17, 2022
• Publication Date: 2022-02
• Deposit Date: Feb 9, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 4, 2022
• Journal: Journal of Latin American Studies
• Print ISSN: 0022-216X
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-767X
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 54
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 125-154
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022216x21000997
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1214145