Struggles of Voice: The Politics of Indigenous Representation in the Andes Book

Great discussion of the nature of political representation, with the title drawing on Hirschman's discussion of exit, voice and loyalty. While the scale is fairly coarse (a comparison between Bolivian and Ecuadorian movements), the theorization is great - lots of conventional political theory mixed in with Bakhtin, Foucault, etc. Lucero's analysis assumes that indigenous actors are primarily concerned with modifying their relationship to the state, and I would say that this is not necessarily the case - especially in areas where the state is pretty much absent, although ongoing negotiations with the state are obviously important. Probably the best aspect of this book is his careful tracing of the way that indigenous collectivities have been imagined historically, up to the present time, when the nation is the privileged term and imagined body in Ecuadorian indigenous politics. Would give 5 stars if not for the lame swipe at 'post-modernists' in the introduction (no citations, of course)...