The term interculturalidad emerged in the seventies in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador from the discussions around programs on bilingual education and the right of the people to learn in schools in their own language (Degregori and Sandoval, 2007; De la Cadena, 2005). Some years later the concept went beyond the public educational problematic towards the debate on cultural diversity in the society and the state (Degregori and Sandoval, 2007).
The concept of interculturalidad has different potential meanings. The most basic view is a ‘dialogue between cultures’ or a ‘communicational process’ that has been expanded in the last years thanks to immigration and the mass media (Garcia Canclini, 2013). This is, according to Albó and Galindo (2012), a negative notion of interculturalidad because the restrictive interest in the processes of communication might end up in a situation in which the dialogue is developed in an essentialist way by imposing one specific political and cosmological framework, and including or excluding those peoples portrayed as inferiors. This notion is indeed embedded in a hegemonic attempt of improving Indian knowledge and providing them with more market opportunities (De la Cadena, 2005).
A more radical and deep conception of interculturalidad goes beyond the notions of interrelation or communication (as usually understood in the European context) by emphasising how this process expresses a different way of thinking and living in relation and against coloniality (Walsh, 2006; De la Cadena, 2005). This version of interculturalidad comes from indigenous peoples who use it to demand not only respectful relations vis-a-vis the state, but also the very transformation of the unitary state logic and structure (Walsh 2002 in De la Cadena, 2005). Thus, De la Cadena (2005) argues that it aims at constructing a new social relation against former social hierarchies: “it becomes a novel and deeply subversive state-making technology and an epistemological site for the production of a different kind of knowledge” (p. 24).
In that context, interculturalidad is different from pluri or multiculturalism, concepts that were born in the context of first world intellectuals, who recurrently use them.
Indeed, the ‘pluri’ or ‘multi’ of these concepts only indicate the existence of many cultures in a specific setting, whereas the term interculturalidad includes an explicit reference to interactions among them, common relations and common learning; but these relations of constant learning and mutual enrichment do not end up either with the inclusion of one culture into the other or the fusion of cultures (Albó and Galindo, 2012). That is why this concept is deeply related to the notion of ‘plurinationalism’.
While interculturalidad refers to the processes of interaction among indigenous peoples and the state in a way that public policies express both systems of being/knowledge and political economies; plurinationality refers to one possible the result of these
95 interactions: a new state structure that recognises indigenous peoples as nations. This new structure is, however, not static: interculturalidad in plurinational contexts would entail constant interactions among nations.
Thus, interculturalidad must be understood as a principle of social co-existence and as a political practice that leads to a policy construction. This principle can be inserted in the institutional design of multiculturalism (in most Latin American constitutions today) but also it could transcend these institutional arrangements towards new institutional designs, such as the plurinationality of Ecuador and Bolivia, the project of a Federal state that recognises indigenous nations (Tully, 1995) or something different, such as an
‘intercultural state’ where the interactions could lead to the reconstruction and recognition of some indigenous nations. In all the cases, interculturalidad demands a dialogue directed to the transformation of the state logic in all its dimensions (political, economic, epistemological and ontological).
Interculturalidad proposes thus a dialogue without indigenous acculturation. The Peruvian writer Jose Maria Arguedas proposed the epistemic platform to think in intercultural terms (Degregori and Sandoval, 2007; De la Cadena, 2005). He proposed to observe the Indian not in a dialectical relation to the master, but in a different cosmological dimension that nonetheless, shares the same economic materiality. The problem with Arguedas was that during his time (the fifties) there were no consolidated indigenous movements, in contrast, the political Left or Right portrayed the Indians as included or excluded from the state and the dominant society. Arguedas had to live in a context of “Indigenism without Indians” (Degregori and Sandoval, 2007: p. 40).
But today indigenism is not so much led by state policies or elite intellectuals but by indigenous themselves. It is not acceptable then to use interculturalidad in order to allow their views and concerns to be appropriated by liberal/neoliberal frameworks or socialist agendas. For example, when indigenous peoples vindicate their communal economy they are arguing something very different from the ‘commodity’ form of land and resources advanced by scholars such as De Soto. Similarly, this communal economy is connected to indigenous self-determination in a very different way from communist axioms. Nonetheless, each interaction with indigenous peoples have been marked by past and current assumptions that they are potential landowners or entrepreneurs in liberal terms, or that they share the idea of communism even during the Inca Empire (Mariategui, 1928) or today the so-called socialism of the Buen vivir (Santos, 2010).
The previous explanations show that the main challenges of interculturalidad are the cultural or cosmological distance, and the structural distance among cultures (Diez, 2009). The first distance only might be overcome with the cultural understanding of the Other. Therefore, behind this challenge there is a challenge of decolonising knowledge to overcome the Western pre-established theoretical frameworks. The structural distance lies in the material and power inequality (conditions of poverty, lack of expertise, political power and so forth) which increase the distance between interlocutors. That is why behind the intercultural challenge there is also a structural challenge, or the necessity to decolonise the economic and legal relations. The problem is that this structural challenge is not only a national issue but also it is embedded in a context of a global political economy of extraction.
96 Countries such as Bolivia and Ecuador have advanced in the struggle for overcoming the first challenge, but have remained trapped in the possibilities to overcome the structural conditions in which their Buen vivir projects are being implemented.
Interculturalidad thus must be developed in a way that is able to overcome the extractive aspect of coloniality in its national and global levels.
In that context, the project of interculturalidad can be usefully connected to the project of intercultural translation of Santos (see 2.3.3). The intercultural translation has been conceived primarily as a strategy to develop social relations among social movements with different cultural and ideological backgrounds. The idea is that these social movements become global and in this way, they can propose challenges to the hegemonic globalisation. If one aspect of this hegemony is the global political economy of extraction, intercultural translation must allow the creation of global chains of solidarity and proposals to face the external power of extractivism. When intercultural translation is complemented with the concept of interculturalidad developed in Latin America, this notion becomes a tool for transforming the state and national social relations by being able to establish a platform for engaging in deep discussions amongst indigenous peoples and the state, and indigenous peoples and companies.
Indeed, even though self-determination is the main principle of indigenous peoples, the state is conceived as an inevitable way to achieve social justice, and companies are powerful allies of most state economic policies (see 8.3.3). Then, indigenous peoples must be ready to engage in discussions and negotiations with the state and companies without putting aside their own projects of Buen vivir. This means an exercise of ‘trans-modernity’ (see 2.3.3): the discussions must be directed not to negotiate the terms of inclusion of indigenous peoples, but to negotiate a new extension of the political in which self-determination and territorial concerns are put in place, in sum, the idea is a truthful negotiation between different rationalities regarding the alternatives to capitalism and development.
In this way, the processes of interculturalidad could be an opportunity to forge a platform for the Buen vivir agenda that could be engaged from actors within and outside the state. Outside the state many environmental NGOs and local communities are willing to engage with the indigenous agenda. Martinez-Alier (2009) calls this tendency the ‘environmentalism of the poor’ which emerges when poor people see that their livelihoods are threatened because of mining projects, dams, etc. They protest neither because they are professional environmentalists nor because necessarily they are indigenous, but because they need the environment for the maintenance of their everyday way of life. In many cases, they vindicate their local identity re-inventing indigenous rights and values such as the sacredness of the land. Thus, these local communities explicitly oppose the dispossession of land, forests, mineral resources and water by governments or corporations. Rival (2010) talks about the ‘environmentalism of the people’ by observing in her ethnographic study developed in Ecuador that people are forming a collective environmental consciousness not directly based on specific livelihood interests such as Martinez-Alier suggests, but demand to the state the fulfilment of its legal obligations of respect regarding the people and the place where they live. In any case, the ecological factor highlighted by the Buen vivir agenda becomes an important platform for many people who share a similar impetus regarding nature and extractive activities.
97 Actors within the state could also engage in the above-mentioned platform, transforming the politics of Buen vivir into policies of Buen vivir, namely, intercultural policies directed to change the hierarchy imposed by coloniality in legal and economic terms. Obviously this is not an easy task because coloniality of knowledge is deeply entrenched in policy-making and extractivism is profoundly embedded in the national and global political economy, however, this seems to be an important path to be followed for the recognition of territorial rights.
In chapters 6 and 7 I discuss the institutional changes generated in Peru as a consequence of socio-environmental conflicts and the new indigeneity. For now I only would like to highlight that Buen vivir and interculuralidad constitute important theoretical and practical tools toward the interculturalisation of the state and the possibilities to achieve a more just society.
4.5. Conclusion
The relations between the capitalist expansion and indigenous peoples’ territorial rights have been marked by misunderstandings and assimilation. The classical theories on development, modernisation and dependency, do not question the extractivist political economy and do not take into account the differences between indigenous peoples priorities and national projects. The theories of alternative development do not question the structural conditions and the fundamentals of the political economy of extraction, omit to problematize the role of colonisation in current inequality and tend to conceptualise indigenous aspirations from Western frameworks. In that context, global and national policies still remain embedded in the logic of modernisation, such as the arguments that proclaim the supremacy of private property over indigenous communal regimes. In practice, these polices deny indigenous cultural and economic norms and indigeneity itself, re-producing the logic and domination of coloniality.
Post-development theory has proposed important critiques to the mainstream view of development from a post-modern perspective. However, it tends to focus only on local struggles without taking seriously the limitations presented by the global political economy and without proposing feasible national or global policies. Similar flaws are found in the de-growth perspective. Buen vivir, in contrast, is emerging as a different paradigm that re-conceptualises development from the theoretical perspective of indigenous peoples. The Buen vivir agenda emphasises the notions of communality in economic and social terms, self-determination and harmony with nature and other non-human beings. Even though each indigenous people has a specific version of Buen vivir, it is possible to conceive it as a political platform in which they and non-indigenous movements who struggle for solidarity and ecology could meet and generate a politics and policymaking from below.
Buen vivir is being implemented by constitutions, laws and policies in Bolivia and Ecuador, but even though they have produced very important institutional designs in favour of indigenous peoples (they have gained more degrees of autonomy and recognition of social rights), these post-neoliberal regimes reproduce situations of dispossession because the whole economy still relies on the political economy of extraction. In these and other so-called post-neoliberal countries, extractivism remains
98 embedded in national structures, but it also exists in global structures. This is the reason why it is so difficult to overcome.
In this context, post-extractivist strategies are emerging in Latin America at the level of policy-proposals. Post-extractivism proposes a transition from the current predator extractivism to a more reasonable extractivism, in which only the strictly necessary extractivist activities would remain. In this case, the state would have to diversify its economy towards more sustainable economic activities and at the same time promote social and economic rights. Therefore, post-extractivism strategies support the Buen vivir agenda.
Nonetheless, in order to undertake institutional changes based on the Buen vivir agenda, it would be necessary to develop a project of interculturalidad. This project is very different from multiculturalism because it is not about the inclusion and toleration of ethnic minorities to the national society, on the contrary, it recognises that there are different cultures with the same value and that constantly interact with one another in a respectful and enriching way. Interculturalidad, thus, is directed to overcome coloniality by openly proposing the indigenous agenda of Buen vivir, which entails self-determination and the necessary expansion of the political by negotiating alternatives to development and capitalism. In this context, the intercultural translation would have a global dimension in trying to propose global solutions to the global political economy of extraction, and interculturalidad would have a national dimension by trying to transform indigenous politics into intercultural policies, namely, by trying to transform the liberal state into an intercultural state.
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Chapter 5: Research Methodology