A Bolivarian People: Identity politics in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela

Abstract

The 1998 electoral success of Hugo Chávez brought about a dramatic shift in Venezuelan identity. While rhetorically inclusive at first glance, references to the ‘Venezuelan people’ would not speak to all Venezuelans. Rather, the ‘people’ would come to denote a previously marginalised segment of society now at the centre of Venezuelan political life. More than a simple reorientation in political focus, this shift in the politics of Venezuelan identity sends out a set of messages that acts as a symbolic boundary to frame, limit and domesticate an official ‘Bolivarian’ identity. It is the construction of this new official identity assembled, in part, from the ruins of the previous order that concerns this article.