This book review symposium critically evaluates Penelope Anthias’ recent text
Limits to Decolonization: Indigeneity, Territory, and Hydrocarbon Politics in
the Bolivian Chaco (Cornell University Press 2018). Through deep ethnographic
attention, Anthias’ text evaluates Indigenous struggles for territory in the context of
“post-neoliberal” Bolivia under the Evo Morales administration, showing the variegated and
nuanced politics of autonomy in an era of hydrocarbon extraction and increasingly
contradictory state-Indigenous relations. The text examines the “limits” of rights and
state-led territorial titling processes to radically challenge the racialized extractive
geographies that shape the Bolivian Chaco region. In so doing, Anthias’ ethnography
provides a rich analysis of how Guaraní Indigenous peoples are reshaping their relations
with non-Indigenous landowners and the hydrocarbon industry to advance new forms of
territorial autonomy and self-determination with significant ramifications on Indigenous
studies in Latin America. This book review symposium draws from a session at the 2019
American Association of Geographers Conference, featuring two leading geographers who
share their critical readings of Limits to Decolonization with a
conclusion by Anthias that responds to the written reviews.
