Articles by Matthew Doyle
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2024
Vivir bien is widely used by academics, activists, and governments of the Latin American 'Pink Ti... more Vivir bien is widely used by academics, activists, and governments of the Latin American 'Pink Tide' to refer to alternatives to conventional economic development based on indigenous worldviews claimed to oppose capitalist modernity. Through ethnography of local politics within a Bolivian Quechua community, this article explores how the term has been vernacularized and contested among local leaders, illustrating that their understandings of development and 'living well' do not reflect a binary opposition between 'Western' and 'indigenous' ways of being. Debates concerning vivir bien instead express varied notions of self-government and aspirations for autonomy informed by centuries of struggle as colonized peoples.
The Journal of Peasant Studies, 2023
This article critically examines the project of transformative constitutionalism implemented by t... more This article critically examines the project of transformative constitutionalism implemented by the Movement for Socialism (MAS) government which aims to decolonize Bolivian society through constructing a 'plurinational' state. Based on ethnography of the political institutions of a rural indigenous community and their interaction with this new state, it argues that programs of constitutional reform are limited in their capacity to address colonial legacies. This is due to the incompatibility of the polyvalent character of postcolonial indigenous societies with the disposition of states and legal systems to bureaucratically reorder and simplify social life, even when ostensibly providing rights and recognitions to marginalized groups.
Political and Legal Anthropology Review: PoLAR, 2021
The 2009 Bolivian constitution included provisions that establish a radical form of de jure legal... more The 2009 Bolivian constitution included provisions that establish a radical form of de jure legal pluralism by creating a parallel legal system that gives full recognition to the nonstate legal orders and forms of conflict resolution of Indigenous communities. This article examines how a land dispute within a Bolivian highland Indigenous community resulted in a disagreement between different local forms of political and judicial authority. This turned on the question of which authorities had the right to judge the case, the nature of justice and indigeneity, and the legal pluralism enshrined in the constitution. Analysis of this situation illustrates not only the internal tensions and paradoxical effects of this juridical project but also the potential limitations of any attempt to formally recognize legal plurality.
Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, 2021
In Bolivia, national reforms of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) government, which purport to... more In Bolivia, national reforms of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) government, which purport to devolve power to indigenous communities, generated disagreement among the local authorities of the highland indigenous community of Bolívar province. This paper examines why this conflict occurred and how it illustrates some of the paradoxical consequences of the MAS' project of 'plurinational' reform. This situation can be explained through understanding the legacy of administrative and territorial reforms of Bolivia's 'neoliberal' period and how these have shaped the local system of government and the perspectives of its leaders.
Anthropology of Economy Network Newsletter, 2022
Various Latin American governments have founded or endorsed indigenous universities as part of pr... more Various Latin American governments have founded or endorsed indigenous universities as part of projects to decolonise their societies through establishing institutions that represent the needs and perspectives of indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples. Yet they also exemplify the tensions inherent to such progressive state-building projects, which seek to empower indigenous communities and respect their ways of life and environmental needs, while strengthening extractive economies to support the transformation of state institutions.
Sentio, 2020
This paper examines how the growing field of descriptive ethics (the empirical study of ethical b... more This paper examines how the growing field of descriptive ethics (the empirical study of ethical beliefs and behaviours) can inform the design of formal research ethics procedures. While social science, particularly in the United Kingdom, has increasingly adopted formalised procedures of ethical review, little attention has been paid to what researchers across different disciplines understand ethical practices and standards to mean, and how social scientists arrive at moral judgements about their work, negotiate dilemmas and resolve competing ethical demands. This paper considers how turning the lens of descriptive ethics onto the practice of social science may interrogate some of these issues. Potential areas for study include how particular disciplines conceive of what it means to be ethical and the negotiation of moral dilemmas when performing research in real-world contexts.
Sentio, 2020
Questions of the right and the good have been variously recognised by anthropologists as key to u... more Questions of the right and the good have been variously recognised by anthropologists as key to understanding human action and behaviour since the early days of the discipline, with the influential recent ‘ethical turn’ perhaps the most obvious example (Mattingly and Throop, 2018). Here, the authors – who together founded the Social Science and Ethics Group at the University of Sussex – reflect on how their own fieldwork led them to engage with metaethics, and how doing so advanced their understanding of their ethnographic material, anthropological theory, and their own professional ethics. The three cases draw on fieldwork in Nicaragua, Bolivia, and China.
Book Chapters by Matthew Doyle
Morality, Crisis and Capitalism Anthropology for Troubled Times, 2022
This chapter draws on ethnographic data to analyse how transformations to the political economy o... more This chapter draws on ethnographic data to analyse how transformations to the political economy of higher education in the United Kingdom have produced contradictions in the operation of British universities. These contradictions are experienced as a situation of personal moral conflict by many teaching and research staff, as they attempt to embody notions of academic personhood that are increasingly incompatible with the modern neoliberal university. This moral conflict is experienced particularly keenly by staff in temporary and precarious employment. Precarious staff therefore perform not only various forms of hidden labour but also a particular type of emotional labour, through being obliged to negotiate conflicts between their personal ethics and the logics of neoliberal academia.
A Handbook of Economic Anthropology, 2022
This chapter examines how individuals make economic decisions and carry out economic activities i... more This chapter examines how individuals make economic decisions and carry out economic activities in terms of an understanding of what it means to live a good life. While this may seem uncontroversial, to suggest that economic behaviour can be explained in this way challenges important assumptions about human nature and society that have influenced both economics and much of economic anthropology.
Ethnographic Insights on Latin America and the Caribbean, 2023
In this chapter I describe how different forms of local authority within an Indigenous community ... more In this chapter I describe how different forms of local authority within an Indigenous community in the highlands of Bolivia entered into conflict with each other over a legal case and what this tells us about de jure legal pluralism: the formal recognition within the state of multiple legal systems.
Conference Presentations by Matthew Doyle
Presented at the Society for Latin American Studies Annual Conference, 2022
This paper discusses emerging political struggles over the definition of knowledge and the possib... more This paper discusses emerging political struggles over the definition of knowledge and the possibilities these afford for building a transformative global project of educational decolonisation, focusing on how indigenous social movements throughout Latin America have established universities which pursue alternatives to conventional higher education and integrate indigenous epistemologies into teaching, curricula and research. It examines the political struggles which are likely to emerge in the coming years over the definition of knowledge in Latin America and elsewhere, and how scholars and activists in the Global North and Global South might work together to transform the colonial character of systems of knowledge production.
Presented at the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK Annual Conference, 2021
In previous debates, it has been suggested that anthropology can either aim for objectivity or pu... more In previous debates, it has been suggested that anthropology can either aim for objectivity or pursue moral motives as a form of activism. Since the 1980s, the idea of objectivity itself has been subject to a critique which has had a lasting impact on the practice and orientation of the discipline. In contrast, this paper argues that the pursuit of objective truths about the world through anthropological research is not only compatible with transformative politics but is an inherently radical enterprise.
Book Reviews by Matthew Doyle
Journal of Latin American Studies, 2024
Gabriel Hetland's timely book seeks to analyse the factors which explain the success and failure ... more Gabriel Hetland's timely book seeks to analyse the factors which explain the success and failure to implement forms of local participatory direct democracy among two of the more radical Latin American 'Pink Tide' Left reformist administrations: Venezuela and Bolivia. This important intervention arrives at a point in which Latin America's Left turn has reached a series of impasses and faced a counter-movement of authoritarian conservativism, while nations worldwide are witnessing democratic backsliding, rising illiberal populism and a loss of faith in liberal-democratic political institutions. In this context, Hetland's book is a well-researched and methodologically novel examination of the conditions under which it is possible to extend and deepen democracy.
Thesis by Matthew Doyle
PhD Thesis, University of Sussex, 2019
This thesis examines a local political conflict in contemporary Bolivia. Within the Quechua-speak... more This thesis examines a local political conflict in contemporary Bolivia. Within the Quechua-speaking highland indigenous community of Bolívar province there exist multiple overlapping forms of political authority, including the municipal government, peasant union and the ayllu authorities who claim to pre-date the Spanish conquest. Ironically, the national project of the governing ‘Movement Towards Socialism’ (MAS) party to reform the Bolivian state and provide inclusion to the country’s ‘indigenous majority’ has coincided with an intensification of conflict between them. While examining the substantive content of their disagreements, this thesis also explores how legal and institutional changes which purport to advance the decolonisation of Bolivian society have served to further conflict among local leaders.
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Articles by Matthew Doyle
Book Chapters by Matthew Doyle
Conference Presentations by Matthew Doyle
Book Reviews by Matthew Doyle
Thesis by Matthew Doyle