The Use and Abuse of Ethnicity

Abstract

Class analysis from a mode-of-production perspective involves a structural view of society in which the relevant categorizations are defined by the observer, that is, the social scientist. Analysis based on ethnic identity, which gained popularity as part of the politics-of-identity enterprise in the humanities and the social sciences, was in part a reaction against this objective point of view. However, there can be significant problems, analytical and political, for the leadership of a social movement in accepting ethnic identity as the foundation of an analysis. These problems are demonstrated by an examination of the predicament of the Confederaci6n Sindical Unica de Trabajadores Campesinos de Bolivia (Unitary Union Confederation of Bolivian Peasant Workers-CSUTCB). The analysis of this article places the issue of ethnic identity within a structural approach that accommodates its historical reality and its political significance. The framework I use helps to explain the political dynamics of a mediating class of indigenous (indigena) leadership that plays a major role in the efforts of the Bolivian state to continue its capture/accommodation of the noncapitalist indigenous population of the Bolivian Andes. Since 1979 the occupants of this class have been the leaders of the CSUTCB. I explain how this group-defined as a social class by its political role-plays its part in an ongoing social process.' This process continues because the social practices of the indigenous population of the Andes and elsewhere in Bolivia (and elsewhere in Latin America) have not been subsumed2 by capitalist social relations of production.3

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