Charles Hale "Cultural politics of identity"

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Cultural Politics of Identity in Latin America

Author(s): Charles R. HaleReviewed work(s):Source: Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 26 (1997), pp. 567-590Published by: Annual ReviewsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2952535 .

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Annu.Rev.

Anthropol.

1997. 26:567-90

Copyright?O 997

by

AnnualReviews

Inc.

All

rights

reserved

CULTURALPOLITICSOFIDENTITY

IN

LATIN

AMERICA

CharlesR. Hale

Department

of

Anthropology,The

University

of

Texas at

Austin, Austin,

Texas 78712

KEY

WORDS:

dentity olitics,

ocial

movements,ntellectuals

ABSTRACT

The phrase

"identitypolitics"

has come to

encapsulate

a wide

diversity

of

op-

positional

movements

in

contemporary

Latin

America,

marking

a

transition

away

from

the

previous

moment

of

unified, "national-popular"

rojects.

This

review

takes a dual approach o

the

literature

merging

from that

transition, o-

cusing on changes in both the objects of study and the analysts' lens. Four

questions

drive this

inquiry: When did

the moment

of

identity politics

arise?

What accounts for

the

shift? How to characterize ts

contents?

What

conse-

quences

follow

for the

people

involved? Past answers to such

questions

often

have tended to fall into

polarized

materialistand discursive

theoretical

camps.

In

contrast,

this review

emphasizes

emergent scholarship

that takes

insights

from both while

refusing

the

dichotomy,

and

assigning

renewed

importance

o

empirically grounded

and

politically engaged

research.

INTRODUCTION

A

prospective

graduate

tudent

recently

visited me and

provided

an

account of

her past

academic odyssey, which led her

finally

to

opt for anthropologyat

Texas.

All

her

prior

work had

culminated, she

explained,

in

a

plan

to return

home

(a

Latin

American

country)

to

study

the

politics

of identity. She is far

from

alone. The

phrase "identitypolitics" now figures

prominently

n

anthro-

pology

graduate

school

applications

and

graduate

seminars

everywhere,

as

well as in manyjournalsrelatedto anthropology hathave been founded n the

past

decade

(Identities,Social

Identities,

Cultural

Studies

of

Latin

America,

Journal

of

Latin American

Anthropology,

Cultural Studies

Birmingham).

567

0084-6570/97/101

5-0567$08.00



568

HALE

Even more telling is

the shift that has occurred n some long-running

ournals,

whose focus previously

fit

neatly

within

the antecedent moment of

Marxist

analysis, class politics,

andnational-popular isions of social change

(e.g.

So-

cialist Review,NACLA,NuevaSociedad).Farfrom limited to academia, heis-

sues at stake also animatespiriteddebate

in

the mass media, and

in

politics

and

policy, throughout he Americas.1

This review offers

a framework o organizeand think through he

outpour-

ing of work on identity

politics, with a specific emphasis on Latin

America.

The phrase "identity

politics" will refer to collective

sensibilities and actions

that come from

a

particular

ocation within

society, in directdefiance of uni-

versal categories that tend to subsume, erase, or suppress this

particularity.

"Location,"

n

this sense, implies a distinctive

social memory,consciousness,

and

practice,

as well

as

place within

the social structure.2To illustrate,consid-

er

a

group

of

Nicaraguan

women

labor

organizers

who worked

during

the

1980s within the Sandinista

WorkersUnion (CST).

By the decade's end,these

organizers

had

become

fed

up

with CST's universal

category

"class,"

which

allowed little room for specific attention

o women's

experiences

as

workers,

and even less for critique

of

patriarchy.

When

they

left the CST to

form a

sepa-

rateorganizationdevoted

to the particular

xperiences, interests,

and

struggles

of women

workers,

they

entered the realm of

identity politics (Criquillon

1995).

The review proceeds

in

four parts.

I

begin

by asking when identity

politics

achieved

prominence

in

Latin America

and

in

Latin Americanist

anthropol-

ogy. Is it possible to

specify a momentof "rupture"fterwhich identity

politics

came to the fore? Next

I

ask how

analysts

account for

this shift.

Given

the het-

erogeneity

of

the

subject,

is it more

appropriate

o

pursue

a

series

of

wholly

distinct

explanations,

rather

han a

single

one?

I

then examine the

characterof

identitypolitics: Does

the phrasereferto a collection

of practicesand

sensibili-

ties that have key features n common?This will lead, finally, to a considera-

tion of

outcomes and consequences:What have people

achieved

through

the

1This opic s entirely

oo extensive ven to begin o cite. Fora cogentrecent ommentaryhat

relates ublicdebate

ntheUnitedStates pecificallyo anthropology,

ee di Leonardo

1996). n

thisessay,she

makes he interestingoint hat n the mainstream

ublic ye,

"identity olitics"s

imbuedwithboth

a "constructivist"i.e.

all histories re ituated,

elativeruths) nd"essentialist"

(i.e. ourhistory s therightone) contents,

without ddressing

he substantialisparitiesetween

these wo discourses.takeup

this ssue

n

what ollows.

2This ormulation

s influenced y readingsn thenewcultural

eography,he

mpetusorwhich

camefromDonaldMoore.The literature

hatrelates pace

and dentity olitics

n

this way

is

extensive; orks

hat found specially

seful ncludeMoore1997),Massey 1994),

Pile& Thrift

(1995),

and

Gupta

&

Ferguson1992).



LATIN AMERICANIDENTITYPOLITICS

569

practice of identity politics, with what

impact

on their lives?

Rather

han

pro-

vide definitive

answers to

these

questions,

I

frame the discussions

they have

generated, specify key

divergences

and

areas of

consensus,

and

chart

the

promisingdirections

n

which new research s headed.

Throughout, tack

back

and

forth

between

the

topic

itself

and the assumptions

underlying

anthropo-

logical

analysis, drawing

inspirationfrom otherswho have engaged in

such

critique(Coronil 1996,

Kearney 1996, Taussig

1993,

Williams

1989, Yuidice

1996,

CA Smith 1997). By making intellectuals

the objects of study as

well,

we

keep

the

politics

of

anthropological heory

on center

stage

and

take fuller

advantage

of the "dualor

multiple

consciousness" hat

results

(Harrison1991).

Justifiable and

enlightening

for

nearly any

body

of

literature,emphasis on

the

entanglement

of the

analyst's

lens and

topic

of

study

is

especially

crucial

n

this case. Onthe one hand,the massive and widespreadevidence for a shift in

the

characterof

oppositionalpolitics

in Latin

America-the

"explosion"

of

grassroots organizations

(Castanieda1993), the rise of "new social

move-

ments"

(Escobar

& Alvarez

1992)-is impossible

to miss.

Emblematicof

this

shift is

the

surge

of

political

activity by indigenous peoples throughout

he

hemisphere

on the occasion of the Columbus

quincentenary Gabriel

1994,

Hale

1994a, SAIIC 1992):

their

newly acquirednational-level

political

influ-

ence,

and their leaders'

adamancy

o

speak

for themselves. On the other

hand,

much writing on the topic invites skepticism. For example, Arturo Escobar

(1992a,

p. 82) recently wrote

with

annunciatory

enthusiasm of

new social

movements, asserting

that:

up

to the

1960s,

identities

were,

in a

sense, clearly

defined and

unproblem-

atic. One knew who was

who,

so to

speak,

and how he or she was

defined as a

memberof a

group.

One also knew what to do and how to do it

(Development

or

Revolution, depending

on one's

perspective).

But

this

is no

longer

true.

Assertions like

this

one cry out for hard-nosedhistorical and

theoretical cri-

tique(e.g. Edelman 1996,Knight 1990). Sucha neatbefore-afterdichotomy, f

relevant

at all, could only

reasonablyapply to intellectualswell versed in

para-

digm

hopping.

When

applied

across the

board,

t

leaves the distinct

mpression

that

the two realms how

people enact politics

and

how analysts understand

these enactments-have been

seriously

conflated.Even more to the

point

are

ef-

forts to read

complex

social

and

political processes

through

a few

purportedly

emblematic

iterary exts,

which

yield predictable

portrayals

f Latin

American

societies saturatedwith

hybridity,multiplicity,

and

other so-called keywords

of the shift to identitypolitics (e.g. de la Campa1995). Such claims culminate

in

the idea thatLatin

America has always been hybrid

(e.g. Chanady1994), an

assertion

that,

in

its

very

incontestability,reinforces

the

suspicion

that

chang-

ing theoreticalfashions

play

a

majorrole

in

constituting heirown

subject.







572 HALE

when

a

people (un Pueblo) learns (acepta)

its

history

and affirms

(asume) its

identity,does it have the right o define its future."This statement ncapsulatesa

notion of identityas uniqueand

differentiated possessing its own historicalon-

tology) and inherentlyendowed with fundamental ights (beginning with self-

determination).We might want to

think

about the era of

"identitypolitics"

as

beginning when this particularuse of

the term identity became the standard,

generalized

idiom throughwhich groups

engage

in

politics with one another,

the

state,

and

otherpowerfuladversariesHandler1994, Rouse

1

995a).3Ernesto

Laclau's

(1977) now classic essay on

populism helps

to evoke

and

describe

the

previous state of affairs, when the forging of a "national-popular" loc could

theoretically reconcile

the

great heterogeneity of

Latin

American societies

with the need for

political unity.

A

national-popular

loc could

encompass

the

whole gamutof "popular" ectors, while drawingpoliticaldirectionandcoher-

ence

from a

strong

class-conscious

leadership.

Even

socialism,

Laclau

argued,

could

only

succeed

if

grounded

n

a

convincing

discourse of lo

popular.

This

vision of

national-popular olitical

transformation

as

been

prominent

in the sensibilities and strategyof twentieth-century olitics in LatinAmerica,

especially

in

oppositionalpolitics,

through(to

choose the latest

possible

end-

point)

the Sandinista

electoral defeat of

1990

(Castaiieda 1993,

Rowe &

Schelling 1991).

The

national-popular

ision

also

played

a

key

role

in

keeping

oppositionalpolitics within the flow of historywith a "bigh":a narrative hat

connected Latin America

with

Western liberal

notions of economic develop-

ment, membership

n

the

community

of

sovereign nations,

and

societal mod-

ernization

(albeit

on a

path

critical of

capitalist exploitation

and

imperialism).

Equally important, t empowered

intellectuals to perform the

crucial

role of

mediator:

o

articulate he

heterogeneity

of

lo

popular

with the

homogeneous

discourse of the

national-popular.

The fit with Sandinista ntellectuals'

por-

trayals

of their

revolution,

for

example,

could

hardly

be better

(Burbach&

Nu-

iiez

1987,

Nuiiez Soto

1986).

3Theres a related tory f intellectualenealogyo be toldontheemergencef "ethnicity"nd ts

displacement

f

anthropology'srevious

ermof

preference,tribe." glance

at the

literature

n

the early1960srevealsa striking bsence f the term"ethnicity." ver he next wo

decades,

t

becameubiquitous.

n

the 1990s,"ethnicity"s clearly n decline, eplaced n the one

handby

varioususes of the term"identity" nd on the otherby a renaissance f interest

n

racism,

racialization, nd racial identities.For a critical analysis of the "erasure" f

race from

anthropology'sexicon,see Harrison1995).Examples f the renaissancenclude he

workof

MartaCasauis rzui1991) andMarisol e la Cadena 1996),and he essaysby Carol

A

Smith

(1997) and DemetrioCojti (1997), forthcomingn Identidades Racismo n

Guatemala,

volume am

co-editingwithClaraArenas ndGustavo alma f AVANCSO.





574

HALE

politics

has

been

consummated. So complete

is

the erosion

of the national-

popular

that it

can now

stage a modest return,

no

longer as

all-encompassing

political project

but

as

anotherdecentered,rejuvenating though

perhaps

de-

bilitated?)voice from the margins.

WHAT ACCOUNTS

FOR

THE

SHIFT?

Any readerwho has dipped

even superficially

nto the literatureon the politics

of identityin Latin America

will have its

descriptive

featureswell

enough

in

mind

(e.g.

Mato 1994).

The move from

descriptive listing

to

explanatory

analysis of the transition

s

much less commonly

found. Collier et

al

(1995)

provide one piece of the puzzle,

in

an argument

hat focuses on the contradic-

tions of liberal ideology more generally (e.g. Kristeva 1993, Rouse 1995a).

They point

to an inherent

contradictionbetween the universal

principle

of

equality

and the persistingmarginalization

of those who do

not fit within the

universal categories through

which

equality

is achieved (e.g.

"citizen"or

"ab-

stract individual"). This contradictionengenders

political

change, however,

because

it

creates

the

opportunity

or marginalizedgroups

to make claims

in

the name of bourgeois law, albeit

at the risk of

reproducing

he

very cultural

logic that once

oppressed them.

A

gradually

broadeningprocess

of inclusion

results, which Collieret al point to as the cultural-juridical nderpinnings or

the rise of

"identitypolitics" in contemporary

imes. Yet

they do not explain

why

this

process

would have such intensity

today. Similarly,

Nina Glick Schil-

ler et al (1992),

leading analysts

of"transnationalism" nd

its implications

for

identity politics

(also the focus of the journal

Identities that

Glick Schillered-

its) conclude

in a recent

essay

that, "The socially

constructednatureof our

en-

tire

repository

of

terms

to define and bound identity-"nationality,"

"race,"

and

"ethnicity"-has just recently

begun to

be scrutinizedadequatelyby

social

scientists.

And the

implications

of transnationalism

or

hegemonic

construc-

tions

of

identity

have

yet

to be

analyzed."

Arjun

Appadurai (1990, 1995), though

cogent

in his critique of both

"world-systems"

and

"comparative-historical"

pproaches

(the

former ne-

glects "disjuncture"nd the

latter"interconnectedness"),

nd

creativein coin-

ing terms

that evoke present conditions (ethnoscapes,

memoryscapes,

etc),

also finds rigorous explanation

lacking.

He notes that

"a

strong theory

of

globalization,

from

a

socioculturalpoint

of view, is likely to

requiresomething

that we

certainly

do

not now

have: a

theory

of intercontextual

elations which

incorporatesour existing sense of intertexts" 1995, p. 212). How then to ex-

plain the shift, to avoid telling

the story

from the Eurocentriccenter (Waller-

stein

1995),

while achieving

a

reasonably

comprehensive

account?

How

to

proceed

if

existing analytical

ools have beenrendered

nadequate or thejob?







LATINAMERICAN

DENTITY OLITICS577

ments

in

Brazil (Burdick 1993),

on the politics

of Africandiasporic dentities

in Latin

America(Gordon1998b, Scott 1991),

on the

many

manifestations

of

the women's

movements

(Radcliff

&

Westwood

1993, Stephen

1995).

This

workis also distinguished-though invaryingways-by thegoal of achieving

a relationship

of dialogue, exchange, and mutual

critique with

the subjects of

research.Neither

antitheoreticalnor averse to generalization,

hese authorsare

mindful

of the need to tell

a story

in which the

protagonistsmight

recognize

themselves

as such, rather

hanas

pawns

in

someone else's theory

wars. While

it is too early

to know whether a "new cognitive

mapping"of the shift

will

emerge

from such research,

n the meantimewe are learning

a lot more about

what identitypolitics mean

in a series of

specific

times

and

places.

HOW CAN IDENTITYPOLITICSBE CHARACTERIZED?

The

first dimension of

Latin American

identitypolitics-extrapolating

from

Stuart

Hall's

(1988)

influential

essay-has

as

its

key

feature

a

challenge

to

the

premise

that

a

unified

subject

could

"represent"

both "depict"

and

"speak

for")-heterogeneous

identities

and social

processes.

In

the

case of

Latin

American

indigenous politics,

for example,

the landmark document

is the

"Declaration

of

Barbados,"

he result

of

a

meeting

in

1971

in which anthro-

pologists (mainly

Latin American

Mestizos) acknowledged

the rise of

indige-

nous cultural-political

militancy

and called

for

an

activist

anthropology

n

the

service of

"Indian iberation"

Wright1988).

The full

impact

of

this

challenge

came into

play

with "Barbados

I,"

a

less

publicized

and

more

tension-ridden

meeting

in

1979,

where

Indian eadersthanked

anthropologists

or

their

"soli-

darity"

but roundly

criticized them

for

appropriating

ndian

voices,

for

pre-

suming

to know

what "Indian iberation"

meant.4

The second dimension

in-

volves critiqueof the internalrelationsof difference

within any given form

of

political

initiative,

the effort to

unsettle

all

forms

of

essentialism,

emphasizing

the invention of tradition,the hybridityof cultures, and the multiplicity of

identities. These lattersensibilities

are captured n

the phrase"culturalpolitics

of

difference" (Alarcon 1990, Anzalduia1987,

de Lauretis

1990,

Sandoval

1990, West 1990);

the most comprehensive

andinfluential application

of this

argument

to Latin America

is

Nestor Garcia

Canclini's Culturas

Hibridas

(1995;

see also

Escobar

1992b,

Quijano 1995).

The tension

betweenthese two dimensions

of

identitypolitics

in

LatinAmer-

ica has not received sufficient attention.

If Garcia

Canclini's assertionthat all

cultures

n

LatinAmerica arenow

"hybrid"

s meantto characterize

he diverse

4This information

comes from personal

communicationwith Stefano Varese, who attendedboth

meetings. See Varese

(1994).



578 HALE

political sensibilities of

the

contemporarymoment,

then it

surely is overstated.

Many

initiatives

consistent

with

the

first dimensionof identitypoliticsmakere-

course to unreflexive premises about"tradition"

nd "cultural ontinuityfrom

time immemorial,"not to mentionassertionsof bounded dentitiesthatobscure

internal ines of differentiationand inequity.

When assertions about the pre-

dominanceof the culturalpolitics of differenceare made across the board-es-

pecially

in relation

to indigenous movements,

(e.g. Shapiro 1994)-they

take

on the flavor

of

theoretically

drivenwishful thinking.As

Dirlik

(1996b)

has ar-

gued recently,

the

widespread

heoreticalhomage paid

to the "cultural

politics

of

difference"

and the

equally widespreadpersistence

of essentialism are not

an

awkward ncongruence o be avoided or

wished away, but rathera problem

to be confrontedand explained.

A

similar

argument

has been made in regard o

the widespreadresonance of Afrocentrismamong African American commu-

nities and the ascendancyof "culturalpolitics"theoreticalsensibilities

in

most

African American academic circles (Gordon

& Anderson1997).

Oneresponseto

this

problem nvolves the notion of "strategicessentialism"

(Spivak 1985),

which advances

he

claim that

people deploy

essentialist

political

rhetoricas conscious strategies rather han eternaltruths.Yet one wonders to

what extent this

accuratelyportrays

how

participants

n

manyforms

of

identity

politics actually

think

about

what

they

are

doing.

An

alternative

approach

might be to challengethevery dichotomybetweenessentialismand "construc-

tivism," to posit thatessentialism is inherent

n all

speech

and

action,

and

to

fo-

cus instead

on

"who

is

utilizing [essentialism],

how it is deployed,and where its

effects

are concentrated"

Fuss 1989, p. 20;

see

also,

Scott

1991,

Shohat

1992).

This

call

for greaterattention

o what

essentialism

means and does

in

spe-

cific

contexts is

nicely

illustrated

n

JoanneRappaport'swork

on the

politics

of

memory

in a

highland indigenous community

of

southern

Colombia.

Rappa-

port shows,

for

example,

how

the

term

recuperacion (repossession),

around

which

the movement of

indigenous

militancy

has

crystallized,

at times encom-

passes historical claims thatcould be considered essentialist,butattimes also

becomes

"a

gloss

for

economic

innovation...

regardless

of

whether

hese meth-

ods

actually

find theirroots

in

the

past" 1994,

p. 11).

This

does not

require

one

to

abdicate

critical

analysisbutproposessimply

to

acknowledge

that the

very

category

"essentialist"-and

its

supposedopposite "constructivist"-may

be

useful

to track heoretical

allegiances

within

the

academy,

but that it is

insuffi-

ciently

attentive

to the

range

of

ways

that

"essentialist"

precepts

are woven

into

political

consciousness and

practice,

and the highly variable

materialcon-

sequencesthatresult(see also Campbell1994, Warren1997).

Beyond noting

these

two

dimensions

in

the

contents

of

identitypolitics,

we

can also

draw

distinctions

according

o how

specific political

initiatives came

into

being.

A

first distinction

is

between

subjects

or identities

that were once



LATIN AMERICANIDENTITYPOLITICS 579

nominally included

in

national-popular olitical

visions in

name, even

if

sup-

pressed in practice, versus those that have arisen anew,

from

outrightneglect

or suppression

n

the traditionalpolitical

arena.

Initiatives

thatfit

the first cate-

gory most clearly are those associated with the rightsof women and racial or

ethnic "minorities."National-popular political initiatives

in

contemporary

Latin America invariablyhave made some provision for the "participation" f

women

in

its ranks,developing some notion of the specific rights of women

in

the context of

that initiative's

overallpolitical goals

and

vision. The

same is

true-if

perhaps

to

a

somewhat lesser extent-for the

relationship

with

peo-

ples of indigenousand African descent. These antecedentsare crucialbecause

they constitute

a

past involvement

that

shapes

the

subsequentcontents of the

initiative:

an

acknowledged

debt

to

the

Left for

its

role

in

propelling such

ac-

tivism, a growingfrustrationwith the lack of responsivenessto specific politi-

cal demands

grounded

n

cultural

difference,

and

an

eventual breakmotivated

by

the

perceived

need for

autonomy.

In

this

sense,

the

longstanding

debate on

the problem of "doublemilitancy"

within Latin Americanwomen's

organiza-

tions

(Sternbach

et al

1992)

runs

roughly parallel

to

the

tension-ridden

history

of indigenous organizing

within a broader

Left

coalition

(Barre 1983,

Bonfil

Batalla 1981). Growing criticism of this marginalization

has

spawned efforts

to bring to light

the

autonomy

and

agency

of

the groups

in

question

at

previous

moments of history (e.g. Campbell 1994, Franco 1989). Although generally

importantand salutarycorrective steps, these rereadings

risk

projecting

uni-

form

goals, consciousness,

and

identity

onto

people engaged

in

prior

moments

of

struggle,

rather han

viewing

each

moment

in

historical context.

Such a

history

of

entanglement

and ambivalence

does not encumber

the

second category:

dentitiesthat

received

little or no

recognition

with

priorrep-

resentationsof the national-popular.

A

prime example here

is

the emergenceof

gay

and

lesbian identity politics (Lancaster1997). Otherexamples

of

the sec-

ond

category

include

emergent

identities

and

politics revolving

aroundenvi-

ronmental degradation (Martinez-Alier 1991, Sanderson 1993) and human

rights activism (Schirmer 1997, Wilson 1997). While these arguablydo have

histories of recognitionandvalidation within national-popular rojects, they

often

are

propelledby sharply

discontinuous

deologies

and

political

sensibili-

ties. Humanrightsmovementsfocusedon the "disappeared,"orexample,of-

ten have

emerged

from

discursive

spaces

createdand validated

by

the dictator-

ships they oppose;

such

movements

often

put

"conservative"

premises-that

women are

inherentlyapolitical,

that motherhood

s

inviolable-to the service

of effortsto accountfor the missing, and to bringthose responsibletojustice

(e.g.

Perelli

1994).

A

final

categoryencompassespolitics

in

the name of people who were once

privileged signifiers

of

national-popularprojects

that

have lost their allure.



580

HALE

One

of the most ubiquitous

slogans

of the Sandinistarevolution-"only

the

peasants

and workers

will reach

the end (llegaran

hasta

elfinal)"-helps

to

makethis point,

if unintentionally.

Peasants

and

workersare still

around,

still

politically active, in some places dramaticallyso. But one would be hard

pressed

today

to find a political

initiativeof national

scope

thatmakes peasants

and workers

the

privileged

signifier,

as

the Sandinistas

did.

These identities

must

now

share the stage

with a host of

others,

at best forming

tenuous

alli-

ances,

at

worst

competing

for

scarce international

unds

in an

ideological

cli-

mate

where"Indian"

auses

are

much moreexciting

and

importanthan

"peas-

ant"ones,

where funders

avish attentionon any

initiativewith "gender"

n the

title

yet

consider workers' rights

passe or even

antisocial.

Another

prominent

facet

of

this

"decentering"

s for studies of peasant

or workerpolitics

to ad-

dresscross-cutting nequitiesof genderand race/ethnicity Alonso 1995,Edel-

man

1994, Roseberry

1995, Stamn992,

Stolcke

1988).

It

is

striking

hen

that a

fine

illustrationof

this new analysis-Michael

Kearney's

Reconceptualizing

the

Peasantry-would

conclude

that "class differences

and

differentiation e-

main the

basic theoretical

and

political

issue"

(1996,

p.

173).

Not

long ago

such

an assertion would

have

triggered

accusations

of

complicity

with

ho-

mogenizing

Marxist

suppression

of difference,yet

in this context the

phrase

reads

as a fresh insight,

a touchstone

n

an effort

that receives high praise

even

from"archpostmodernists"ike GeorgeMarcus.Hereis anothersign of theo-

reticalclearing,

an

opening

for research

on

peasant

politics

finally

freed

from

the

twin orthodoxies

that forced us

to choose between

class

as the last-instance

answer

to

all

analytical questions,

and class

as the

analytical

question

that

never

even

gets

asked.

OUTCOMES

AND

CONSEQUENCES

The

prospects

for

a

theoretical clearing

seem least

encouraging

in

regard

to

the questionof consequences.It is one thingto approacharoughconsensuson

the emergence

of

a

shift,

its

explanation,

and

characterization,

nd

quite

an-

other

to do so on assessments

of

the

consequences:

what

people

engaged

in

various forms

of

identitypolitics

have

achieved,

and

can

hope

to

achieve,

with

what

impact

on their

daily

lives.

Here,

major

divergences

on

key

concepts

of

power,

resistance,

hegemony,

and structural

ransformation

end

to

surface,

producing

a chasm thatwould

seem difficult

to

bridge.

The

strongestargument

for the "creative

renewal"

potential

of

identity

politics

resides

in

the

intrin-

sic value of decentralizedandmultifacetedpolitical activity,a rejuvenationof

the

political engendered

by

transformations

n

the

very

meaning

of

"doing

politics."

This involves not

only

expanding

and

diversifying

what counts as

political-calling

into

question

the

dichotomy

between

public

and

(allegedly



LATIN AMERICAN

IDENTITYPOLITICS 581

nonpolitical)private spheres,forexample-but also innovation

n

the

realm of

strategy

and tactics. The term

"subversion"

heds its

former

meaning

of "con-

spiringagainst

the

system"

and

refers instead to the

art

of

working

at the inter-

stices, findingthe inevitable cracksandcontradictionsn the oppressor's den-

tity,

discourse,

or

institutionalpractice,

and

using them to the

subaltern's

ad-

vantage.

Even the "fragmentation f identity"and the

"alienationof the self'

thatoftencome with living on

the margins

can

be

reinterpreted

n

this light:No

longersymptoms of oppression,

they can become key

resources n moving to-

ward a "third

space" of "multidimensionalpolitical

subjectivity"beyond the

Manichean

contra

position

of

oppressor

and

oppressed(Bhabha 1990,

de Lau-

retis 1990).

Yet it is not

necessary to go to the extreme of

celebrating ragmentation

nd

alienationto make the case. In his critiqueof development,for example,Esco-

bar

(1995)

offers an

intriguing

hypothesis

that

fits

nicely

with the "interstices"

argument.

Groups

with

greater

nsertion

n

the

market,

Escobar

suggests,

have

better

chances of "affirming heir

ways of life" (presumablyby exploiting

op-

portunities

from

within)

than those

"clinging"

to

conventional

identities and

strategies

predicated

on resistancefrom outside

the

political

economic

system.

Anotherexample is the

much-neededrevisionist

work

on the

politics

of

con-

version from Catholicism

to

evangelical

Protestantism Brusco 1995,

Burdick

1993, Stoll 1990). Dispelling simplisticrecourse to the ideological thralldom

of

these

new

religions,

these

analyses point

to

the

spaces opened-for

women s assertionagainst

abusive men,

for

more

participatory eligious prac-

tice-to

explain

the

shift.

Similarly,

Diane Nelson's

(1996) phrase "Maya

hacker"refers

(among

other

things)

to how

Maya

culturalactivists

in

Guate-

mala

have found

ways

to hack out

a

space

within

the national

political arena,

subverting

the traditional-modern

dichotomy

that has

always

been used

against

them,

and

at the same time

helping

to

dispel

the

impression

that

they

are

engaged

in

radical, frontaloppositionto "thesystem."

Fromone standpoint, he "material onsequences"of such political initia-

tives are

self-evident and extensive.

Merely

to

name forms of inequality that

previously

had no

place

in

the realm

of

politics

is in

itself

highly significant.

The

vibrancy,

and in

some cases substantial

gains,

of

indigenous

and women's

movements

throughout

Latin America

speak

volumes on the benefits

that ac-

crue when

particular dentities

become

politicized

and

break out from under

the

tutelage

of

the

national-popular.

It is

especially

clear that the Pan-

American

indigenous movement

is

"gaining ground"as

the title

to a

recent

special issue of NACLAannounces(see also, for example, Van Cott 1994).

Even

references

o

the "revitalization f civil

society,"

though

often

vague

and

difficult

to assess in a rigorousmanner,point to

processes that must be

taken

seriously.

Yet it

is

striking

that

analyses

in

this

vein are so

circumspect

on the



582

HALE

question of consequences, especially in the

relation

to

enduring

political and

economic

inequities.

In

regard

to new social

movements,

the

unmediateden-

thusiasm

has

passed, replacedby more soberassessments of advances

and set-

backs, more carefully worded provisos that their political character"is not

given in

advance"but rather"restson the

articulations hey may establishwith

other social

struggles

and

discourses" Escobar1995, p. 221). Kay

Warren,

n

a

cogent

and

comprehensiveanalysis of

the

Maya movement and its challenge

to

the

"unified

social movement"

paradigm,similarly concludes that

"it

is too

early

to know what sort

of impact the

Pan-Mayan movement...will

have"

(Warren1997,

p. 45). While

in

many ways it surelyis too early, this

conclusion

also highlights a broaderdilemma:

discarding he "unified social movement"

paradigmalso means

discardingunified

criteria hroughwhich "impact"used

to be assessed. Developing new criteria,which neither suppress nor uncriti-

cally defer to the claims of the

movement

itself, is

a task that

researchon iden-

tity politics

is

just now

beginning

to confront.

In

the context of thistask,hardquestions

posed

from

the otherside of the di-

vide

remain

useful. Teresa Ebert (1993), for

example, obliges us

to think

through he

conditions

underwhich

a

privileging

of the

culturalpolitics of

dif-

ference might turn

"ludic,"

concerned

mostly

with the

aesthetic

pleasures

of

theoretical

elegance, unengaged

with what

Scheper-Hughes 1995)

has

aptly

called the "politicaleconomy of suffering."Echoing general theoreticalcon-

cerns

(Shohat 1992, Young 1995),

I

have

investigated

the

dilemmas and con-

tradictions hat result when the

ostensiblyprogressivetheories of

"hybridity"

and

"mestizaje"

travel to

Guatemala

and

are used by elites to delegitimate

Maya

cultural

activism

(Hale 1996).

Mindful

of

Foucault-influenced

ritiques

of

resistance

(e.g. Abu-Lughod 1990,

Brown

1996),

Edmund T Gordon

(1 998a) has

suggested that we work harder

o draw analyticaldistinctionsbe-

tween different

forms

of resistance rather han

jettisoning

the entire

concept.

Finally, manyscholars have arguedfor a

more fully dialectical analysis

of the

global contextof local resistancemovements. They acknowledgethecontesta-

tory potential of

movements that emerge from the interstices of

the capitalist

system,

while at

the

same time

pointing

to

the formidable imits set

by

that

sys-

tem,

not

so much

as

externalconstraints

but

as

forces

that

constitute

the very

preceptson

which

the

local

itself

has

been

predicated Dirlik 1996a, Friedman

1990, Miyoshi

1993).

Such

questionings

are

especially constructivewhenthey

have

been

influenced,

even

partly

constitutedby, theoretical nsights implicit

in

the phrase

"culturalpolitics of difference."Then their nsistence on

analysis

of materialconsequences ringstrue.In partreflections of theory-war atigue,

such

convergences

also

arise

from a

novel set of material

settings

that form the

underpinnings

of intellectual

production

itself.

It is

therefore

fitting

to con-

clude

by

once more

making

intellectuals themselves

the focus

of

analysis.



LATIN

AMERICANIDENTITYPOLITICS 583

Following

Yuidice

1996), Franco

(1994),

and

others,

I

have

suggested

that

the erosionof the national-popular as also entailed

a

crisis

among

Latin

Ameri-

can intellectuals.

A

majortask

that this

points to,

but does not

complete,

is

the

systematiccomparativeanalysisof US

and Latin

America-based intellectuals'

responses to this crisis. I do argue

that past theoretical polarities-between

materialist nd discursiveanalysis,between emphasison social totalityandpar-

ticularity-have declining utility

as

organizing principles

of such

responses.

This would seem to be the

perspective

of

a third

"criticalmodernist"

position,

exemplified

in

the

work of

Argentineliterary

critic

Beatriz Sarlo

(1993).

The

age of postmodern dentity politics, for

Sarlo,

far

from

providing

the

basis for

celebratory enewal,mostaccuratelyreflects the combined effects of commer-

cialism and media-saturated

uperficiality,

a

politics that, having

lost

a

sense

of "scaleanddistance,"hasbeen reduced o "icon, image,orsimulacrum."Yet

her stance towardMarxistanalysis,

socialist politics, and the formerrole of the

national-popular ntellectual is equally

critical: Gone are

the days when these

intellectualscould present

themselves as a

vanguard

with

a

"special

role of ex-

plaining the big picture"(vocacion generalizadora)derived

from the combi-

nation of broader

vision and

organic

inks to the social.

In

Sarlo's

appraisal,

n-

tellectuals

with

political

ambitions have nowhere to turn:

They

either

resign

themselves

to

obscurity

and

irrelevance, oin

the

wave of

privatization

and be-

come "experts," rparlay heir skills in social analysisinto culturalcapitalthat

wins them

positions

in

neoliberal

governments(e.g.

Arturo

Warmanof

Mex-

ico,

FH

Cardosoof Brazil,

JJ

Brunnerof

Chile).

Sarlo finds a limited defense

againsthopelessness

in

cultural

criticism,

which rests on

the reassertion

of aes-

thetic and ethical values,

if

not political or theoreticalsolutions.

Compelling

in

analytical acuity

and

in

the

ability

to

place

intellectual

pro-

duction (including

her

own)

in

historical

context,

Sarlo's

restingplace,

as Jean

Franco

(1994, p. 21) notes,

"cannot

be

disentangled

as

easily

as

she

would

wish

from the

exclusionary

and

elitist culture of modernism."What would

happen,though,if the implicationsof Sarlo's analysis were carried n a differ-

ent

direction, instead of withdrawal

nto

the

rarefied space

of

cultural criti-

cism,

toward direct

engagement

with

political

actors who confrontthe "crisis

of

modernity"

n all

its

mundane,contradictory,oppressive daily

manifesta-

tions? This

would entail

a

modest form of

political engagement,

as

skeptical

as

the actors themselves are

apt to be

of grand ideologies, political visions, or

theoretical statements

that

neatly

link local

struggles to "broader

realities."

Within Latin

America,

intellectual

production

positioned

in

this

way

is

espe-

cially apt to go unnoticedbeyond the local context, precisely because the fa-

cilitating

material conditions for communication of the

resulting

ideas are

largely

absent.

US-based

anthropologists enjoy advantages

on this

score,

though

economic

privilege

and

northern

provenance

make

engagement

more



584

HALE

difficult

and

perhaps nherentlycontradictory.Despite such problems,

this lo-

cally engaged

"criticalmodernist"

approach

s

a

useful place

to start n build-

ing a broaderanalysis of identity politics, beyond the theoretical

polarization

of the previous moment.

One

way

to trackthis

emergent

trend s

to

look not

only

at

theoreticalalle-

giances but also at how the research tself is carriedout. This brings

into focus,

for example,

new forms of

experimentation

with

collaboration

and

dialogue

with the

subjects

of

research,

and

with

local

organic

ntellectuals

Escobar

et al

1997, Field 1997, Scheper-Hughes 1992), the

rise

in

critical human rights

scholarship,

which in

turn

is

grounded

n

human

rights

activism (Falla 1994,

Montejo 1993,

Turner

1995);

a

growing

nterest

of

ethnography

f

the

powerful,

with an intent to use

resultingknowledge

in

empoweringways (e.g.

Schirmer

1996); efforts to place Latin American studies in hemisphericperspective,

which

highlights

connections between

distant

and

nearby struggles,

challeng-

ing the divide betweenhomeworkand fieldwork(Hemispheric nitiativeof the

Americas 1993, Kearney 1990); and experimentation

with the medium of pres-

entationof

the

research

results

with

hopes

of

moving anthropology

owardef-

fective

communication

beyond

academia

proper(Stamn 994,

Turner

1992).

This

empirically driven, theoretically seasoned,

and

politically

engaged

work

on identity politics

in

Latin America offers

a potential

source

of

rejuve-

nationfor anthropologymore generally.The crisis of oppositionalintellectu-

als

in Latin America and

the

crisis of

"ethnographicauthority"among

US-

based

anthropologists

un

parallel

to each

other.

Among

both

groups,

the role

of intellectuals

as intermediarieswho

provide

data

on, interpret,

and

theorize

aboutthe subjects

of

identitypolitics,

is

confronting

an

ever

more serious

chal-

lenge. How intellectuals respond

to

this

challenge becomes

an

analytical

and

political question

in

its own

right. Deprived

of

easy

claims to

"organic

ties"

with

political actors

"on the

ground,"deprived

of

fieldwork sites

with docile,

cooperative subjects,

one common

recourse

in

both cases

is to withdraw.Yet

the challenge also createsa mandatefor reinvention:a call for intellectualsto

develop

methods

and

analytical categories

that

engender

more constructive

engagement

with

the

multiple inequalities

that

organize

the worlds we live

in

and

study.

This

may

at

least

help

to

prevent

scenarios

in

which theoreticalde-

bate, though presenting

itself

as a

few

steps

ahead of

political

practice,

de-

scends

into

self-referentiality.

t

will

at

leastkeep theory

and activism

engaged

with each

other,

and

in

the best of cases could even

produce

ethnography

hat

casts some

light

on the

problems

and

opportunities

hat

lie

ahead.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This review

has

grown

out of

a

long period

of collective work

and

discussion,

although

the

final

responsibility

for

its

contents

belongs

to

me

alone.

The

ini-



LATIN AMERICANIDENTITY

POLITICS

585

tial impetus formany of the

ideas and the bibliography

came from the efforts

of the UC Davis

GroupStudy on

the Politics of Identity

n Latin

America.

That

experience

had a

great

formative nfluence

on

my

thinking

and

yielded

an

im-

portantunpublishedessay to which I refer continually.

I also benefited from

discussion

with

an

excellent

group

of

graduate

students

in

my seminar

on

"IdentityPolitics

in

Contemporary

LatinAmerica"at theUniversity of Texas.

Carol Smith,

OrinStamn, ed Gordon,

CharlesA

Hale,

and

Faye

Harrisonpro-

vided useful comments

on the

written text.

Finally,

Rodrigo

Herrera

worked

with me extensively

on the review

and

deserves

major

credit.

Visit

the Annual

Reviews

homepage

at

http://www.AnnualReviews.org.

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Documents

Charles Hale "Cultural politics of identity"