Description
Book SynopsisPenelope Anthias's Limits to Decolonization addresses one of the most important issues in contemporary indigenous politics: struggles for territory. Based on the experience of thirty-six Guaraní communities in the Bolivian Chaco, Anthias reveals how two decades of indigenous mapping and land titling have failed to reverse a historical trajectory of indigenous dispossession in the Bolivian lowlands. Through an ethnographic account of the limits the Guaraní have encountered over the course of their territorial claimfrom state boundaries to landowner opposition to hydrocarbon developmentAnthias raises critical questions about the role of maps and land titles in indigenous struggles for self-determination.
Anthias argues that these unresolved territorial claims are shaping the contours of an era of post-neoliberal politics in Bolivia. Limits to Decolonization reveals the surprising ways in which indigenous peoples are reframing their territorial projects in the conte
Trade Review
Her critical reflections on decolonization will be of interest to anthropologists and geographers seeking a ground-up perspective on how extractive economies transform marginalized communities.
* Choice *
Limits to Decolonization demonstrates the limitations of indigenous mapping as a liberatory project, and the emergence of a form of hydrocarbon citizenship, the cultural implications of which are as yet unclear. It is a most welcome addition to the growing literature on contemporary Bolivia.
* The AAG Review of Books *
