Globalization, Governance, and the Emergence of Indigenous Autonomy Movements in Latin America: The Case of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua

• Author: Luciano Baracco
• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Date: 01 November 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X17705866
• Subject Matter: ArticlesIndigenous Communities and the State

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 223, Vol. 45 No. 6, November 2018, 37–52

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X17705866

© 2017 Latin American Perspectives

37

Globalization, Governance, and the Emergence of

Indigenous Autonomy Movements in Latin America

The Case of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua

by

Luciano Baracco

A revisiting of Salvador Martí i Puig’s approach to globalization and the turn toward

governance in explaining the roots and impact of the political mobilization of Latin

America’s indigenous peoples since the 1990s recasts governance as a disciplinary regime

that in the case of Nicaragua co-opted potentially radical oppositional movements into the

neoliberal project that accompanied Latin America’s democratic transition. The discussion

takes as its empirical case the autonomy process on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, which

in its twenty-fifth year represents the most sustained devolution of power to indigenous

peoples in Latin America.

Una revisión de los estudios de Salvador Martí i de Puig sobre la globalización y el giro

hacia la gobernanza como manera de explicar las raíces y el impacto de la movilización

política de los pueblos indígenas de América Latina desde la década de 1990 reformula

la gobernanza como un régimen disciplinario que, en el caso de Nicaragua, cooptó

movimientos potencialmente radicales, convirtiéndolos en parte del proyecto neoliberal

que se llevó a cabo a la par de la transición democrática de América Latina. Nuestra dis-

cusión se centra en un caso empírico: el proceso de autonomía en la costa caribeña nica-

ragüense. En su vigésimo quinto año, dicho proceso constituye la devolución de autonomía

indígena más sostenida en América Latina.

Keywords: Globalization, Governance, Autonomy, Miskitu, Nicaragua

Addressing the emergence of indigenous political movements across Latin

America, Martí i Puig (2010: 75) asks the following question: “Why has the

most ancestral element of Latin America emerged from silence to situate itself

in the center of the political arena in the majority of countries in the region?” In

his answer he draws extensively on both governance and social movement

theory. Specifically, he seeks to demonstrate how the turn toward governance

during the 1990s, consequent on a return to polyarchic regimes throughout

Latin America and globalization’s tendency to restructure state–civil society

relations, enhanced opportunities for indigenous peoples to exert political

pressure on national governments and satisfy their social demands. The

reduced role of the state and increasing importance of global actors such as

multinational agencies, corporations, and nongovernmental organizations

Luciano Baracco is an assistant professor of political science and international relations at the

Middle East Technical University Northern Cyprus Campus.

705866LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X17705866LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVESBaracco / INDIGENOUS AUTONOMY IN NICARAGUA

research-article2017

38 LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES

(NGOs) provided the institutional and material resources for the mobilization of

ethnic political actors. The ongoing work of anthropologists and NGOs and the

consciousness-raising efforts of the Catholic Church provided the social capital

necessary for indigenous peoples to exploit the new opportunities offered by the

emerging regime of governance, making this coincidence between governance

and social movements a highly fortuitous environment for the emergence of

indigenous peoples as a major political force (Martí i Puig, 2010: 76–77).

The notion of governance gained a degree of currency among political activ-

ists throughout the 1990s, although the concept has since been subject to a thor-

oughgoing critique. While “government” tends to refer to the activities of a

publicly accountable political actor engaged in policy formulation, “gover-

nance” is commonly seen as the administration involved in policy implementa-

tion by a variety of professional nonpolitical and sometimes nonstate actors.

The focus on governance has been used to depoliticize the struggles engaged

in by competing sectors of the emerging civil societies of countries experienc-

ing democratization by framing them in terms of technical and administrative

procedures concerned with the efficient delivery of public services, peace, and

market-led development that were collectively referred to as “good gover-

nance” (Leftwich, 1993). While Martí i Puig demonstrates that regimes of gov-

ernance offered indigenous peoples new opportunities to pursue their political

demands, he tends to overlook the fact that governance was an essential ele-

ment in the consolidation of the emergent neoliberal project in Latin America.

Despite the managerial strain often associated with it, it embodies a transfor-

mative political project that has profoundly influenced the nature of indige-

nous movements and shaped their impact on the region’s political culture.

Rather than using social movement theory to explain the political mobiliza-

tion of Latin America’s indigenous peoples, my analysis will draw on the cul-

tural impacts of globalization elaborated by Robertson (1992) to demonstrate

that globalization’s tendency to impel a “search for fundamentals” created an

unexpected turn toward identity politics, leading to the formation of political

movements based on claims of cultural rights (Eriksen, 2007; Robertson, 1992).

This turn took place at a critical moment when neoliberalism began its ascen-

dancy, shaping the newly emerging international Indianist movements and

giving rise to what Hale (2005) calls “neoliberal multiculturalism.” The embrace

of formal politics has enabled indigenous peoples to assert their rights, but this

strategy was something of a Faustian bargain that has eroded informal prac-

tices and tradition (Niezen, 2003: 141) while leading to a complex entanglement

with state and donor regulations that constrain indigenous peoples’ more rad-

ical utopian visions (Hale, 2005).

These dilemmas will be examined here through an analysis of the experience

of the Miskitu of Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, who formally obtained auton-

omy in 1990. As it reaches its twenty-sixth year, the autonomy process there is

one of the most sustained processes of devolved powers and recognition of

cultural and territorial rights in Latin America (Finley-Brook, 2016: 338). It was

excluded from Marti i Puig’s analysis because of its having served as a conflict-

resolution mechanism during the civil war throughout the 1980s and having

taken the form of territorial autonomy for self-governing communal territories

in a constitutionally recognized autonomous region.