Making Indigenous Citizens: Identities, Education, and Multicultural Developments in Peru

by Maria Elena Garcia

This book makes a substantive contribution to the rapidly burgeoning literature on indigenous activists and development... it demonstrates convincingly that the rejection of bilingual education inherently reflected fears of affirming ethnic identity because such an identity still implied second-class citizenship.

Set against conventional views of Peru as a place where indigenous mobilization has been absent, this book examines the complex, contentious politics between intercultural activists, local Andean indigenous community members, state officials, non-governmental organizations, and transnationally-educated indigenous intellectuals. It examines the paradoxes and possibilities of Quechua community protests against intercultural bilingual education, official multicultural policies implemented by state and non-state actors, and the training of “authentic” indigenous leaders far from their home communities.

Focusing on important local sites of transnational connections, especially in the highland communities of Cuzco, and on an international academic institute for the study of intercultural bilingual education, this book shows how contemporary indigenous politics are inextricably and simultaneously local and global. In exploring some of the seeming contradictions of Peruvian indigenous politics, Making Indigenous Citizens suggests that indigenous movements and citizenship are articulated in extraordinary but under-explored ways in Latin America and beyond.

Garcia has fashioned a book thats terrific in every way. Her subject is the politics of culture, tradition, and identity in the Andes, and its the best thing Ive read on the topic in as long as I can remember. Making Indigenous Citizens will become a key book in scholarship about the Andes and Latin America.

This book fills a huge gap in the literature on indigenous movements in the Andes: it should be on the bookshelves of every student of indigeneity or the Andes, it would be an excellent assignment for undergraduate or graduate classes and it should also interest people who simply want to better understand this fascinating and long-suffering country. Wonderfully profound and enjoyable work from an exciting new scholar.

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