Lynchings and Political Conflict in the Andes

Abstract

In 2004 the mayors of two municipalities in the Aymará region of the Andes were lynched—the apparent culmination of bitter conflicts within their communities and between those communities and the central government. These two cases illustrate the recent transformation of the organization and internal dynamics of Andean communities and the conflictive articulation of local politics with wider processes and institutions. They point to the importance of recent political-institutional processes, as opposed to traditional cultural factors of alleged indigenous nationalism, for understanding the cultural and political transformation of communities and the ways in which they process their internal conflicts as well as those with the wider state.