Inside Venezuela's "Proceso"
Book Review

http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/4205
Date Written:  2014-07-01
Publisher:  Against the Current
Year Published:  2014
Resource Type:  Article

A book review of "Who Can Stop the Drums?: Urban Social Movements in Chávez's Venezuela" by Sujatha Fernandes.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Borrowing terminology from Antonio Gramsci and recent scholars of popular resistance, Fernandes focuses on the "everyday wars of position" being fought "in sites of civil society, culture, and media." (25) She devotes special attention to popular art, radio, and festivals in the Caracas parishes (zones) of San Agustín, La Vega, and 23 de Enero.

These activities play a vital role in constructing collective identities in the barrios, often in opposition to other sectors of society and dominant discourses of national identity. Fernandes describes how organizers have used street murals, drumming and other musical forms, and popular fiestas to celebrate Venezuela's indigenous, African, and working-class heritage. Community radio stations have also been particularly important sites of popular expression.

Historical memory is central to popular identity. For instance, activists have reinterpreted the life of independence leader and nationalist icon Simón Bolívar. While Bolívar himself was a slave-owning aristocrat who pursued abolition only reluctantly, in popular retellings he often appears as a champion of radical redistribution and racial equality. Independence-era leaders of mixed descent who defied Bolívar, such as José Tomás Boves and Manuel Piar, are also lauded.

These historical recastings have helped to foster and valorize barrio residents' sense of collective identity in the face of racism and disdain from middle- and upper-class Venezuelans, who have long tried to cast themselves as the authentic representatives of "civil society" and the nation.

Popular celebration of non-white and working-class identity is distinctly non-essentialist, however. Unlike in some forms of identity politics, "notions of identity function more as a means of articulating a sense of shared marginality." (158) For many activists, blackness and indigeneity are sociopolitical identities as well as biological ones.

These "everyday wars of position" do not necessarily fit mainstream sociological definitions of "social movements," for they often lack clear demands and targets. They focus primarily on educational and cultural work rather than mass mobilization.