Searching for Status: New Elites in the New Bolivia

Abstract

This essay argues that those strategies enabling the recognition and distinction of the elite in Bolivia have collapsed since Evo Morales assumed the country's presidency in early 2006. Not only have new political elites taken power, the established and inherited societal stratifications have also been affected. Reviewing three emergent groups potentially occupying new elite positions -- the progressive blanco-mestizos, the wealthy urban indigenoua sectors, and the social movement leaders with their politicized cadres -- it is argued that in today's Bolivia, the political dimensions of anti-elitism have raided the traditional material and cultural-symbolic domains of elite distinction. The political dimensions of anti-elitism might have altered or even largely disqualified the indicators traditionally considered valid in the material and cultural-symbolic domainx. Adapted from the source document.