Indianización y municipalización de lo Aymara en Bolivia: El caso de Jesús de Machaca

Abstract

In this article we approach the relationship between traditional Aymara cargo-system and state institutions through the figure of the indigenous municipality. Considering the case of Jesús de Machaca in Bolivia, we focus on nodes of meeting and tension between authorities and the representation system, as part of a research process that is methodologically within what different authors have called ethnography of the State, from where the notion of State itself can be tensed. The analysed experience shows a process of indianization of the municipal structure, while the Aymaras' political and organizational forms occupy a central role in the staging of exercising local power as indigenous self-government; yet at the same time reflects an increasing process of institutionalization, deriving in the municipalization of demands and claims.