Trespassing nation-states borders was a common practice, inherent in libertarian subjectivity, derived from concrete economic or political causes, but also congruent with the anti-statism and internationalism defended in ideas.
The theoretical and historical approach to anarchism also requires breaking down the epistemological frontiers imposed by methodological nationalism.
Precisely, this has been the ...
(Show more)Trespassing nation-states borders was a common practice, inherent in libertarian subjectivity, derived from concrete economic or political causes, but also congruent with the anti-statism and internationalism defended in ideas.
The theoretical and historical approach to anarchism also requires breaking down the epistemological frontiers imposed by methodological nationalism.
Precisely, this has been the exercise proposed by the transnational approach, which through the rethinking of the traditional analytical units and the dialogue of these different levels (the individual and the local, the national, the regional and the transnational), has introduced new themes and problems within the field of anarchist studies.
In the case of Latin American anarchism, the "transnational turn" operated during the last decade has made significant contributions in terms of describing and analyzing the regional dynamics of the libertarian movement. The application of this approach favored the emergence of new issues and problems, as well as the rethinking of old questions. In spite of the "Atlantic bias" present in many of the researches that use this approach regionally, we can affirm that the Andean area was also characterized by the development of transnational links, through which a wide variety of propaganda materials circulated, as well as libertarian militants.
In previous works, we have argued that these networks of circulation and exchange, spread from Chile and Argentina between 1900 and 1930, were decisive for the emergence and development of anarchism in Bolivia. However, in this paper, we will support the hypothesis that, despite the relevance of these links and the strongly internationalist character of the Bolivian anarchist movement, he could not stop being traversed by certain problems linked to the local and national dimension.
Thus, we propose to explore here the decades of 1920 and 1930, in order to analyze the concrete ways in which the Bolivian anarchists contributed -perhaps unwittingly- to the contemporary debate on the definition of the "Bolivian nation", trying to make visible the notions they elaborated as opposed to those proposed by the dominant classes. Likewise, we will stop in the reading that local libertarians made -during and after- of the Chaco War (1932-1935), episode around which internationalism and antimilitarism converged in praxis and discourse with what, a priori, we could define as a "plebeian nationalism".
The objective of this work is, then, to be able to account for the complex and sometimes contradictory articulation developed by the anarchist movement of Bolivia, between its internationalist roots and convictions and the debate on the nation, from which in a quite particular conjuncture, he could not escape.
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