Charles R.

Hale
COMMENT ON ARTURO ESCOBARS
LATIN AMERICA AT A CROSSROADS:
ALTERNATIVE MODERNIZATIONS, POSTLIBERALISM, OR POST-DEVELOPMENT?

Once again, Arturo Escobar has given us an original, provocative, sweeping

programmatic analysis to think with. As was the case with each of his previous
major interventions
regarding new social movements, development, and
political ecology
this paper is both diagnostic (offering a grounded
interpretation of observed social process) and prophetic (inspiring us to join
him and others in visioning political futures that are just beginning to emerge).
This signature dual purpose raises the bar for the critical reader, and for
Escobar himself, requiring us to tack between the contradictory here-and-now
of these societies in movement, their own theoretical elaboration of the
prophesy, and the assessment of what it might take for us to get from here to
there. My queries attempt to do the same, focusing on: conditions of
possibility for this rupture with conventional politics; obstacles to the
emergence of the de-colonial current; prospects for scaling up/out; material
consequences for those who follow this path; and finally, the use and usefulness
of the proposed relational ontology for addressing such questions. This last
query is the crux, since the promise of an epistemic shift potentially calls into
question any conclusions reached using superseded Cartesian reasoning: is the
relational ontology meant to be both analytical and prophetic, or for the time
being only the latter?
Escobars paper (2010) begins with the relatively uncontroversial
observation that the neo-liberal turn in Latin America has been a dismal
failure for most, and ends with the assertion that the future lies with those in
struggle for a civilizational alternative to capitalist modernity. Although much
of the analysis has global implications, one can appreciate this crossroads most
clearly in Latin America, where neo-liberalism took the region by storm in the
1980s, and where subsequent critical praxis toward political-economic
alternatives has been equally widespread. Escobar considers various responses,
grounded empirically in three left-leaning governments of South America, with
emphasis most heavily on his own preferred variant, invoked by a series of
keywords
pluriverse, de-colonial, communal, relational ontology, etc. This
Cultural Studies Vol. 25, No. 3 May 2011, pp. 459
464
ISSN 0950-2386 print/ISSN 1466-4348 online 2011 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/09502386.2010.527154

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variant entails a sharp break with the traditional Left, a preference for
autonomy that eschews state power, an urgent emphasis on meeting
contextualized human needs through social economies rather than the spurious
promises of development. The great challenge in understanding this emergent
politics is that it comes with a radical shift in analytical lens. As the relational
ontology rises to prominence it calls forth a new analytics for all facets of
social reality, including the movements themselves. Escobar marks this shift by
amply citing de-colonial intellectuals, driving home the point that these ideas
come not from Chapel Hill but the Chapare, and highlighting the ultimate goal
of producing knowledge about these movements from within their own
integral worldview. To refuse that challenge is to risk, at best, missing the full
meaning of their emergence and, at worse, unwitting complicity in their
suppression. Yet Escobar himself does not fully embrace this challenge;
instead, he rides both horses at once. I follow his lead on this score as well, in
posing queries to his argument.
We need to know more about the conditions of possibility for the rupture.
The stories that have been told about the rise to power of Chavez (Venezuela),
Correa (Ecuador) and Morales (Bolivia) surely will benefit from further
refinement, but the basic narratives are in place. Not true for the de-colonial
current (I have chosen this descriptor for clarity sake) within these broader
processes, of which Escobar sees glimmers in the first two countries and
expansive possibilities in the third. There is a close affinity between de-colonial
and indigenous politics (indeed nearly all the illustrative statements come from
Aymara intellectuals like Patzi and Mamani, or closely aligned non-indigenous
intellectuals like Luis Tapia and Raquel Gutierrez); but in my reading the decolonial transcends what we have come to know as indigenous politics in
important ways: more about connections than roots; more about disruption of
dominant institutions than wresting concessions in the form of recognized
rights; and more about keeping the state at arms length rather transforming it
from within. This last point is central to my query. Escobar respectfully
criticizes Alvaro Garcia Linera, the activist intellectual turned politician, now
vice-president of Bolivia, for not having shaken free from the top-down,
authoritarian, statist approach to leftist politics, which stands in stark contrast
to de-colonial current. Fair enough. But this critique needs to be paired with
consideration of why the de-colonial current appears to be flourishing in
Morales Bolivia. Could it be that the Morales/Garcia Linera political project
fundamentally enables the de-colonial turn with one hand, while contradicting
it with the other? If so, then the strategic implications for those who would like
the de-colonial current to flourish become deeply paradoxical.
Two examples, taken from Escobars text, illustrate the paradox. Decolonial politics reportedly usher in an intercultural ethos, characterized by
horizontal dialogue between the subaltern and the relatively powerful (2010,
p. 40). If such horizontality is not assured, Escobar observes, then
interculturality goes the way of state multiculturalism, following a long string

COMMENT ON ARTURO ESCOBAR

of progressive ideas hijacked by the intelligent right. But is it even remotely

possible to imagine progress toward this level playing field, without the
intervention of the state, or some state-like entity, to rein in the naturalized
advantages of the relatively powerful? A more pointed version of this paradox
emerges from Escobars intriguing notion of epistemic declassing (2010,
p. 34). For the de-colonial current to prosper, the relatively powerful (of the
Left, and perhaps more generally) must divest unearned privilege, bracket
epistemologies that rest on such hierarchy, and engage de-colonial politics as
de-classed equals. I find this image inspiring but improbable. There are sure
to be a few admirable volunteers, but as pathway to broader social
transformation, I would look for some political heft behind the effort. The
paradox can be summarized as a dialectic (which no doubt would acquire a
different descriptor within the relational ontology): existing power relations
have to be dismantled, to open space for new political forms to emerge; yet
this requires institutionalized political mobilization that is the antithesis of the
de-colonial ethos. I cannot help but turn to this paradox to explain why
Escobar finds such hope in Bolivia, while referring to the Zapatistas with a
respectful, but sparse and distanced gesture.
This line of inquiry grows more pressing still when directed toward
obstacles, especially the forces of reaction against the de-colonial current. With
regard to the established Left, Escobar makes the divergences from the decolonial current
philosophical, strategic, practical
very clear; it is less clear
whether and in what ways the established Left poses an active threat. One
could imagine the full range of possibilities: from synergies, to tense
coexistence, to hegemonic or coercive suppression. Whatever the particulars,
which certainly will vary among the three countries under consideration and
beyond, we need this assessment of threats in order to gauge the prospects for
the de-colonial currents survival, defense, and expansion. Regarding
the Right, Escobar makes passing reference but avoids sustained engagement.
He does insist, however, that a crucial feature of the de-colonial current is to
have abandoned counter-hegemony as political strategy: too often, Escobar
observes, progressive movements have reproduced the authoritarian and antidemocratic practices of their adversaries, justified by the imperatives of
counter-hegemonic politics. Agreed. But rather than abandon counterhegemony, one might instead seek to hold Gramscians to the highest standards
of their own democratic and anti-authoritarian ideals. In any case, before
endorsing wholesale abandonment, I would want to make sure that a reliable
alternative strategy is well in place. The analytical/political rupture that
Escobar favors carries a dual burden, which in this paper he does not fully
discharge. How to assess the obstacles, from both Left and Right? Having
abandoned counter-hegemony as defensive strategy in the face of these
obstacles, how do de-colonial movements cope?
Coping, in my view, requires some vision for scaling up (or out?),
gathering adherents, strengthening collective voice, a vision for growth

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(however rhizomic and decentralized). Escobar asks a similar question in a

slightly different register: How do such movements stabilize in time? (2010,
p. 31). This turns out to be very challenging, given the pervasive ethos within
the de-colonial current against any form of institutionalization. The question
grows more challenging still if we turn away from the three national spaces
where progressive (albeit statist) forces are currently in power. The answer
must be plausible not just for these spaces, but for Peru, Colombia and Mexico
as well. The query is especially pointed for Mexico, where the state has
contained the Zapatistas and acted to brutally suppress the Oaxaca commune.
But even in the absence of outright suppression or quarantine, given that the
de-colonial current seems averse to aggregation in any form, what strategies
can the protagonists draw on to gather strength? Is autonomous propagation,
loose mutual recognition, and ephemeral alliance enough? In order for the
prophesy to inspire, it needs to engage more directly the counter-image that
comes to my mind: small islands of decolonized practice amid a sea of
modernist, developmentalist, capitalist business as usual. We already have
learned that the political project of neo-liberalism is highly adaptable, in its
embrace of multiculturalism, for example; can we be so sure that making space
for these small islands of de-colonial practice lies definitively outside the neoliberal repertoire?
Crucial to the twin challenges of coping with adversity and gathering
strength is the basic question of material rewards and sustainability, while the
broader vision remains under construction. After all the well-founded critiques
of development are registered, and the Western notion of poverty is fully
deconstructed, there is still a harsh reality of material deprivation, of intense
and immediate desires for a decent standard of material wellbeing.
Presumably, those who are most inclined to embrace the de-colonial current
are precisely those for whom these needs and desires are most intense. What
does de-colonial politics deliver to them in the short term? Escobar addresses
this question obliquely, even if the primary focus of his attention is more
political philosophy than economy. He makes references to communal
economic relations, and emits a tantalizing call for articulation between
theorists of social economy and de-colonial politics. The picture that takes
shape is localized production, according to an ethos of egalitarian community
welfare, combined with strategic links to the global economy to guarantee
sustained economic dynamism. But the picture is hazy, and implementation is
sure to be fraught with contradictions, all of which Escobar leaves to others to
clarify and think through. I am left worrying about this consistent preference,
ever since the rise of post-colonial theory, for the political over the economic;
to a point, this is a salutary corrective to the economic reductionism of times
past; but it would be an equally fateful mistake to assume that once we get the
politics right, mundane questions of materiality will dutifully follow.
Advocates of the de-colonial current must engage more fully with the sobering
caveat, encapsulated by recent ethnographic reports from the caracoles: a

COMMENT ON ARTURO ESCOBAR

disturbingly large flow of out-migration, on the part of Zapatista stalwarts,

northward in search of work.
All four queries converge on a call for close scrutiny of Escobars argument
regarding the relational ontology. The claim, as I understand it, is that the
de-colonial current has engendered a substantively new analytic lens, which
will (or at least should) gradually substitute our modernist bearings, as
interpretive frame for studying politics. Whether the specific topic is
conditions of possibility, obstacles, scaling up/out, or material welfare, a
relational ontology would transform both the query itself, and the response.
Escobar offers glimpses of this new ontology
nature imbued with rights,
defiance of familiar dualisms, rejection of modernist teleologies, and the like

which fall significantly short, perhaps purposively so, of constituting an
alternative episteme. A further complication in grasping his proposal is its
hybrid character. I am reminded of the prophetic phase of the new social
movements literature in Latin America, when proponents made a similar
epistemic claim: not just a new political phenomenon, but an entirely new way
of seeing and doing politics. With time, this claim for radical novelty gave way
to a fusion between the new and politics as usual. To some extent, Escobar
anticipates this fusion from the start, portraying the relational ontology as
fundamentally open and pluralist, borrowing what is useful from the modernist
paradigm it will gradually displace; hybrid all the way down. This makes it
very difficult to pin down
which is good for evading hostile acts, but
frustratingly elusive for friendly critics.
My concluding inclination is to heartily agree, in the spirit of politicized
prophesy, that Escobar is onto something very important, and to ask for more.
In part his theoretical elaboration of the relational ontology is an empirical
echo of what already exists, in the ayllus of Bolivia and the canadas of Chiapas;
and in part an extrapolation, an audacious proposal for future political change.
Given the frighteningly numerous and proximate signs of Western civilizational crisis, any such proposals are welcome, especially when, like this one,
they embody people-centered, environment-friendly, egalitarian values. This
promise alone is sufficient rationale for opening ample space in our intellectual
and political agendas for work in the spirit of relational ontologies. At the same
time, it seems both appropriate and necessary to ask for more, in the form of
queries like those posed earlier, and perhaps even more pointedly, rigorous
critical scrutiny of the de-colonial current from the inside. It is salutary, for
example, that Escobar offers a cautionary note on gender hierarchies within
de-colonial politics. In keeping with a well-established gendered critique from
indigenous-centered voices across the Americas, he concedes that communalism, even at its best, may conceal stubborn gender inequity behind (relational
ontology-sounding?) discourses of gender complementarity. To articulate
this cautionary note, Escobar draws on what for me sounds like a strikingly
modernist analytics. This, in turn, raises a concluding query. Is the relational
ontology primarily prophetic, or does it also embody ample capacity for

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self-reflexive critique? Curiously enough, its potential to displace modernist

politics could well hinge on its ability to deploy this quintessentially modernist
capacity for self-critique as a means to engage rather than disavow, its own
inevitable contradictions.

Reference
Escobar, A. (2010) Latin America at a crossroads. Alternative modernizations,
post-liberalism, or post-development?, Cultural Studies, vol. 24, no. 1,
pp. 1
65.

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