Harnessing the Storm: Searching for Constitutive Moments and a Politics of Ch’ixi after the Pink Tide

Abstract

Following the end of the progressive cycle in Latin America, new social movements and transformative social forces have emerged. This article develops a decolonial reading of the work of Bolivian Marxist René Zavaleta Mercardo (1937–1984) through the work of his most significant student, Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui (1949–), in order to offer a way to search for forward forwards future transformative projects. I argue the concept of ‘constitutive moments’ gives us pointers as to which historical threads to pick up and trace forwards and backwards through the contours of history to better grasp what is going on and what is at stake. Moreover, Lo abigarrado and ch’ixi, concepts elaborated by Zavaleta and Rivera Cusicanqui to theorise the heterogeneous character of Latin American social formations, create space for thinking through futures drawn from both beyond and outside capitalism and within its contradictions.