Title Information
Title
(Un)Making the Racial State: Decolonization, Race, and the Ideal Bureaucrat in Bolivia
Name: Personal
Name Part
Bohrt, Marcelo A.
Role
Role Term: Text
creator
Name: Personal
Name Part
Itzigsohn, José
Role
Role Term: Text
Advisor
Name: Personal
Name Part
Heller, Patrick
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Henry, Paget
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Personal
Name Part
Loveman, Mara
Role
Role Term: Text
Reader
Name: Corporate
Name Part
Brown University. Department of Sociology
Role
Role Term: Text
sponsor
Origin Information
Copyright Date
2018
Physical Description
Extent
xvi, 280 p.
digitalOrigin
born digital
Note: thesis
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Brown University, 2018
Genre (aat)
theses
Abstract
Despite the increasing presence of formerly excluded ethnoracial populations in state spaces across the Americas, research seldom investigates how race shapes their experiences within the state bureaucracy, and how the formerly excluded navigate race within these settings. This dissertation ethnographically examines these questions in the Bolivian central state bureaucracy and particularly the Ministry of Foreign Relations in the context of a government state decolonization project. It focuses on the situated politics around dominant notions of the ideal bureaucrat, or the criteria of worth that defines which kinds of actors are authorized or de-authorized to govern bureaucratic practice. Drawing on participant observation, interviews, and documents, the analysis reveals that dominant notions of the ideal bureaucrat in Bolivia are embedded in circulating narratives of race and modernity that draw a bright boundary between indigeneity and bureaucracy. Under decolonization, indigenous movement control of key authority posts in the state bureaucracy and the state sanctioning of an oppositional ethnoracial project expanded the symbolic and material resources available for boundary work among new indigenous entrants and their allies. This enabled the articulation of competing criteria of bureaucratic worth that contest the old white-mestizo guard’s conception of the ideal bureaucrat and seek to redraw the ethnoracial boundaries of the Foreign Ministry. Bridging theories of the racial state, boundary dynamics, and race in organizations, this dissertation proposes a cultural analytic framework for race and bureaucracy that focuses on how competing macro- and micro-level ethnoracial projects target notions of the ideal bureaucrat to (re)negotiate the racial state.
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/01245945")
Topic
Latin America
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/01069877")
Topic
Political sociology
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/01086616")
Topic
Racism
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/01742067")
Topic
Anti-racism
Subject (fast) (authorityURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast", valueURI="http://id.worldcat.org/fast/01205549")
Topic
Bolivia
Subject
Topic
Racial movements
Subject
Topic
Race in organizations
Subject
Topic
Ethnography of the State
Subject
Topic
Racial State
Subject
Topic
Racial Bureaucracy
Language
Language Term (ISO639-2B)
English
Record Information
Record Content Source (marcorg)
RPB
Record Creation Date (encoding="iso8601")
20180615
Identifier: DOI
10.26300/bvrh-5r93
Access Condition: rights statement (href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/")
In Copyright
Access Condition: restriction on access
Collection is open for research.
Type of Resource (primo)
dissertations