Waskar Ari

Waskar Ari (Assistant Professor of History, University of Nebraska-Lincoln) is an Aymara historian of nineteenth- and twentieth- century Latin America. He is the author of, Earth Politics: Coloniality, Religion and Bolivia’s AMP Indigenous Intellectuals, 1921-1971 (Duke UP, 2014). His work explores the relationship between the nation-state and indigenous peoples. His work particularly emphasizes issues of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. He is currently working on four new projects: 1) A study of indigenous women, land tenure, and civil rights in the private and public spheres from 1825 to 1971. 2) A history of Bolivian sexualities that will address homosexuality and heterosexuality between 1930-1980 by exploring specific cases in indigenous communities during a time when Bolivian patriarchy was being restructured. 3) A study of the young Evo Morales in the period from 1953 to 1979 that emphasizes the history of post-revolutionary Bolivia, global politics, and the Cold War, and 4) a comparative study of the Indian leaders Pablo Zarate Willka (1850-1905) in the Andes and Standing Bear (1834-1908) in the Great Plains. This comparative project will explore the making of alternative public spheres, ideas about citizenship, and their appropriation by North American Indians and South American indigenous peoples.