‘We are Always Thinking of our Community’: Bolivian Hometown Associations, Networks of Reciprocity, and Indigeneity in Washington D.C.

Abstract

Using the case of Bolivian migrants in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, this article analyses the development of hometown associations and the construction of migrant communities at multiple scales. While research has largely focused on the role of hometown associations (HTAs) in promoting local development in sending countries, HTAs also facilitate civic engagement and shape identity formation in both sending and receiving contexts. The article explores the efforts of HTAs and other migrant organisations to construct unified Bolivian communities at local, regional, national and transnational scales, while demonstrating that HTAs are simultaneously contested and highly gendered spaces. It analyses soccer fields and folkloric dance performances as sites of cultural production that seek to transfer practices and identities to the 1.5 and second generations. The article also contributes to an emerging literature on indigenous migration by examining how Bolivians have transferred and adapted organisational practices and networks of reciprocity from rural Cochabamba to suburban Washington D.C. It argues that indigenous migrants are developing new ways of being native even as they move across borders and reside away from traditional lands for long periods of time. Indigenous Migration and Bolivian HTAsHTAs are organisations composed of migrants from a single village or town whose primary function is to contribute resources and carry out public works projects in communities of origin (Lanly and Valenzuela 2004). Unlike individual and familial remittances, collective remittances organised by HTAs to build basic infrastructure, communication and recreation projects serve a public good and are designed to provide services that otherwise would be unattainable in rural communities (Goldring 2004). HTAs are based around existing ties between family members and migrants from a single community or region (Rivera-Salgado and Rabadán 2004) and also provide spaces where immigrants can maintain and renew connections in a different Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 1699 Downloaded by [Bangor University] at 08:

Webs of fiesta-related trade: Chinese imports, investment and reciprocity in La Paz, Bolivia

“…Recognition, prestige and power on the part of groups of people who organize periodic events have been central to understanding native sociopolitical organization and social dynamics amid economic transformation. Studies of internal and international labour migration in Latin America have shown the persistence of return visits to sponsor feasts in home communities (Guaygua and Hinojosa, 2015; Paerregard, 2010; Strunk, 2014).…”

“… 3 A similar perspective has been applied in order to grasp the regional and transnational dynamics of smaller saints’ festivities in the region (Goldstein, 2004; Guaygua and Hinojosa, 2015; Paerregard, 2010; Strunk, 2014). …”

La participación política de las comunidades migrantes en España. Nuevos y viejos dilemas

“…Entre otras, encontramos: Veredas, 1998; Aparicio y Tornos, 2010; Garreta y Llevot, 2013; Giró y Mata, 2013; y en referencia a la cuestión de género: Ramírez, 1998;Molina et al, 2013. Otra de las líneas más fructíferas en el análisis de la participación política de los inmigrantes es aquella que considera a las asociaciones de migrantes como un vehículo primordial del proceso de integración. Es ese caso se estudian cuestiones como las relaciones de los poderes públicos con las asociaciones de migrantes o la capacidad de estas entidades de generar recursos de apoyo para su comunidad (Veredas, 2003;Odmalm, 2004;Amelina y Faist, 2008;Strunk, 2014; Cebolla-Boado y López-Sala, 2015), partiendo bien de la perspectiva del capital social, bien de los análisis que enmarcan a estas aso-ciaciones en el paradigma de los nuevos movimientos sociales (Koff, 2005;Morales y Giugni, 2011).…”

Theorizing Reciprocity: Andean Cooperation and the Reproduction of Community in Highland Bolivia

“…Current ways of thinking are insufficient to imagine Andean reciprocity as other than a traditional artifact of a static or antiquated culture. This conceptual weakness produces a problematic understanding of Andean reciprocity, which is not supported by the rich empirical evidence that demonstrates the dynamism, negotiation, and contestation of ayni practices (Gose ; Mayer ; Walsh‐Dilley ), nor by how ayni remains central within shifting livelihood forms that are increasingly mediated through market exchange and migration (Strunk ; Tassi ; Wutich ; and other articles in this dossier). How we theorize Andean reciprocity is also significant because economic exchanges and livelihood formations are an important way through which social relations are enacted, individual and group identities are created and performed, and boundaries around communities are drawn (Angé ; Gose ; Killick ).…”