A POSTCAPITALIST PARADIGM: THE COMMON GOOD OF ...

ples. Those whose names are not included on these maps - which turn
subjects into minorities and diminish them - remain strong. “I believe
that the essentialist and compartmentalized approach to ethnicity forms
part of the strategies of the elites to reinforce their power, and that in
this fragmented world, without any doubt, those whose names are left
off the map - the people of mixed race - are those who command and
organize the political society” (Rivera Cusicanqui, 2008:4).
The spatial demarcation of populations into specific cultures, as an exercise
in power, can have perverse effects in two practical respects:
1) Linking authenticity to a specific place hinders the perception of cultures
as living social processes that are subject to constant changes -
including those of place. 2) It also hinders perception of the way violence
results from the exercising of power of one culture over another - in
other words the social relationships that are constantly making themselves
felt in all the interstices of coexistence between different cultures:
in the streets of the cities, the schools, the airports, the transport
systems, etc. But at the same time it magnifies violence inside the various
cultural groups by focusing on territory. Spatial demarcation also
leads to the notion that the best way of coexisting is by setting up ghettos.
However, ghettos not only deny the right to make use of space as
something inherent in humanity; they also negate the possibility of coexisting
- in the sense of learning from others. 121
The thinking that had been putting forward interculturalism as a possibility
by imagining a different economic, social and political order, has in
fact been undermined by these maps which claim to identify and locate
121 The idea of Indigenous Territorial Districts, which was accepted by the new
Ecuadorian Constitution in 2007 aimed at reducing the socio-political conflicts that
were the result of the political demands being made by the indigenous organizations,
based on their questioning of the reigning development model. When the State gave
these territories to the indigenous peoples, it did not take into account the different
political currents within the indigenous movement. It was only a recog nition of cultural
diversity, but it hindered the cultures from developing a real political option for
the whole country. In Bolivia the same thing is happening.
See Rivera Cusicanqui, 2008
244