Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Urban Morphology and Development
2. Consent of the Governed: Public Space, Private Failings
3. The Work Race Does: Government Discrimination and Discourse
4. Alternative Identities: Class and National Identities as Political Projects
5. Indígenas and Citizens: Popular Understandings of Race and Nation
6. The Indigenous Neighborhoods: Popular Political Activism
7. Urban Revolution: The Indigenous Neighborhoods’ Roles in the MNR Revolution
8. Indigeneity: Obstacle for Revolution and Reform
Bibliography
Index

Promotional Information

Explores the influence of indigenous migration and subsequent political activism of La Paz’s urban inhabitants upon the spatial, racial and political transformation of Bolivia in the first half of the 20th century.

About the Author

Luis M. Sierra is Assistant Professor of History and Director of the Global Initiatives Office at Thomas More College, USA, where he teaches World Civilizations and US History as well as graduate classes in Environmental History, US and Latin American Relations, The History of Modern Sports and Piracy and Black Markets. His research focuses on urbanization and indigenous politics in La Paz, Bolivia.

Reviews

La Paz’s Colonial Specters will be important to Bolivianists of many disciplines and to scholars of urbanization generally. It is also a significant contribution to the literature on the various ways that Latin American politicians and intellectuals ... conceptualized and integrated their Indigenous populations.
*Hispanic American Historical Review*

In La Paz’s Colonial Specters, Luis Sierra offers us a bold reimagining of how Bolivia’s indigenous advocated and advanced their community interests in the decades before the Chaco War. They pushed back against racism, residential segregation, and other forms of exclusion, and in the process helped paved the way for deeper social transformations that occurred after 1952.
*Jonathan D. Ablard, Associate Professor of History and Co-director of Latin American Studies, Ithaca College, USA*

Sierra's analysis is astute, his research is meticulous, and he uses a comparative lens to contextualize the lived experience of race in La Paz. Providing new insights into the popular basis of Bolivia’s 1952 revolution, his rich depiction of contestations over urban space shows how a mobilized populace profoundly shaped their society
*Elizabeth Shesko, Associate Professor of History, Oakland University, USA*

‘Using a blend of urban geography and governmental documentation, Luis Sierra offers an innovative interpretation of La Paz’s neighborhoods and the fragile concept of the city as a whole. With an emphasis on the role of urban space, Sierra invites us to rethink dichotomies prevalent in Latin American historiography, such as: rural vs urban, indigenous vs Creole, and state politics vs local political initiatives.’
*E. Gabrielle Kuenzli, Associate Professor of History, University of South Carolina, USA*