NGOs and Geopolitics in the World System: Bolivian Highlands and the indigenous political rap scene and its relationship to NGOs and other institutions? Panel: NGOs in the World System.

KUNIN, JOHANA

Chicago

Congreso; The Future of NGO Studies Conference; 2013

DePaul University & Northern Illinois University

In 2005 Bolivia's president, Evo Morales, was elected as the first ever indigenous president in a country with a majority indigenous population. In two of the country's highland cities, musical groups mix rap and so called ancestral rhythms, to supposedly denounce discrimination, create awareness about various civic issues, and educate young people. This topic has gained a great deal of national and international media visibility, while some academic works have also analyzed the subject. However, there has been a tendency to understand Bolivian political rap in the context of what I call the "artist?s myth,? as if rap was merely a product of the musicians? inspiration, presenting the artists as "mindful teenagers," "grounded and rebellious youngsters," and "enlightened citizens." In general, rappers have been the only social actors taken into account in previous studies; NGOs, political parties, and government agencies have been excluded from the debate. It should be acknowledged that national and international politics affect the rap scene in the form of ?soft power? (Nye, 2004). Venezuelan, American, French, and German organizations as well as local institutions have all shaped the rap scene through financial backing and by providing "inspiration" for the themes elaborated in rap lyrics. Each country?s organization has its own geopolitical agenda that depends on their relationship with the Morales government and on their position in the World System. They then mediate, reinforce, or revise relationships between formal structures, individual and group agency, power, and resistance. Different rap groups using their agency power have reacted in different ways. For some, resistance has taken the form of what they call ?independency,? meaning they are not funded by any organization. The young artists that did accept the funds were able to record their music or take part in institutionally-sponsored shows. Most of them could not have done so without these funds. However, the institutions themselves could not have boasted of representing ?real youth voices? without funding these events. My ethnographically grounded research takes the form of a historically situated case[f1]  which attempts to prove that NGOs may challenge the contemporary world system by exposing or supporting emerging political policies of marginalized countries. But actions taken by NGOs are produced within this system in order to decompress social tensions in periphery contexts and may act as a ?patch? produced by the ?industry of development projects? (Rodriguez Carmona).