ABSTRACT
Latin America’s diverse and numerous indigenous peoples have historically had a problematic relationship with development, due to their subordination as cheap labor in market and non-market economic relations, and their marginalization from mainstream development interventions.1 For the region’s estimated 40 million indigenous peoples,2 the experience of development has been one of racism and the predominance of non-Indian priorities, as development planners and states have largely seen Indians and indigenous cultures as an obstacle to modern and Westernizing development projects (Stavenhagen 1996).3 In this context, indigenous populations contest the cultural economies of which they form an integral part in order to rework unequal relations, resist changes that worsen their position, and become resilient in the face of discrimination (Pacari 1996; Katz 2004). In the words of a report on Latin America, “indigenous people demand an equal position with other citizens and full access to the results of development . . . [but] they do not want to be developed necessarily within the framework of dominant development models” (Pirttijarvi 1999: 10-11).
