Return to Chiquitania: What’s changed in the 13 years since my first, mind-blowing visit? — Duncan Green

Back in 2006, two encounters with grassroots change processes shaped a lot of what I have written ever since. The first was with the fishing communities of Tikamgarh – I went back to see them again in 2016 and made this video. The other was the Chiquitano indigenous group in Bolivia, a second inspiring story in which grassroots mobilization took them from a situation of apartheid/semi feudal servitude to winning a million hectares of land after Evo Morales became Bolivia’s first ever indigenous president in 2006. You can read that story here.

The Chiquitanos’ story brought home to me a number of key themes: among them, the importance of identity; path dependence (aka one thing leads to another); the interplay between political organization and ‘unruly’ protest; the central role of alliances (eg with highland indigenous groups) and of accidents (after the government sacked thousands of tin miners, some of them moved to Chiquitania and started to help organize).

Last month, I went back, with some trepidation, to find out what has happened since they got the land....

Oxfam Blogs — From Poverty to Power
Return to Chiquitania: What’s changed in the 13 years since my first, mind-blowing visit?
Duncan Green, strategic adviser for Oxfam GB