Abstract:
This article investigates how the neighbourhood movement of the city of El Alto, a key social movement in contemporary Bolivia, depicted and constructed ideas of development during the protests of October 2003, the so-called “Gas War”. Their perspective was both informed by transnational ideologies -such as progress, modernisation and development- and the deeply rooted collective memory of the War of the Pacific. Differently from other nationalist experiences, this “looking back to move forwards” movement sought to re-stablish a balance of powers, instead of promoting group superiority. This emphasis on equality brings possibilities of dialogue with the emerging development paradigm of vivir bien (living well). This paper, thus, contributes to a more general discussion on the conflict between developmentalism and vivir bien in Latin America. Instead of quickly dismissing this new paradigm as being too normative and distant from the realities of poor people, it identifies the potential encounters between them.
Keywords:
Development; Living well; Neoextrativism; Bolivia; El Alto