Institutionalised Indigeneity, State Formation and Crisis: Lessons From the Indio Institucionalizado in Evo Morales' Bolivia

ABSTRACT This article examines the institutionalisation of indigeneity in Bolivia under the governments of Evo Morales (2006–2019) as a central component of the MAS project of crafting state hegemony. We trace the emergence of what we call the indio institucionalizado from the social mobilisations of the 1990s and 2000s through the Constitutional Assembly and the consolidation and fall of Morales and the MAS. We argue that this state‐sanctioned form of indigeneity was crucial to the MAS's efforts to incorporate, channel and domesticate indigenous political autonomy, while also illuminating elements of the crisis that engulfed the end of Morales's presidency and the MAS as the intended political instrument of social movements. More broadly, the article demonstrates how indigeneity operates as a terrain of struggle and as a key subjectivity in processes of state transformation and hegemonic construction.