Research seminar in Cultural Anthropology with Andrew Canessa

The presentation – based on forthcoming book of the same title -- argues that even as Indigenous peoples and their concern have appeared quintessentially marginal to the modern state, they are, in fact what holds the modern state system together. The modern state was defined in relation to Indigenous peoples as Europeans, such as Hobbes and Locke, theorized what a new and modern nation state would look like. This book explores Indigenous-state relations to make two main arguments: the first is that indigeneity is a political identity relational to modern nationstates, the second that Indigenous politics, although marking the boundary of the state, are co-constitutive of colonial processes of state-making. The presentation concludes with an examination of Bolivia under indigenous president Evo Morales.

Andrew Canessa is a social anthropologist and has worked for many years in highland Bolivia and has published widely on issues of indigeneity, race, gender, and sexuality. More recently he was the PI in an ESRC funded project looking at the evolution of a British Gibraltarian identity over the course of the 20th century.