Venezuela Reframed: Bolivarianism, Indigenous Peoples and Socialisms of the 21st Century

Venezuela has long been held up as a beacon of twenty-first-century socialism. Yet even as socialism has triumphed, proponents of capitalism and exploitative development have been gaining ground—most surprisingly, perhaps, within indigenous communities.

Venezuela Reframed unearths the hidden background of the “indigenous capitalisms” that are being promoted today within Venezuela. Luis Fernando Angosto-Ferrández illuminates the ways in which indigenous activism, aligned with Venezuela’s Bolivarian governments, has paved the way for development and modernization along classical, social-democratic lines, and how romanticized notions of cultural indigeneity have been used by developers to mask their intentions—and, ultimately, to hide signs of a growing class struggle. A powerful exploration of the challenges that indigenous autonomy poses for democracy and socialism in Venezuela and beyond, Venezuela Reframed will be essential for anyone grappling with the state of Latin American politics and its potential futures.