If there is one movement that symbolizes the “new” social movement ethos in Latin America it is probably the indigenous people's movement or movements. Arguably, in Bolivia and Ecuador they are the most important social movements active today, but we must be wary of generalizing, in so far as Peru – with a higher Amerindian proportion of the population – has not experienced similar movements. One argument accounting for the rise of the indigenous movements is that the shift from the corporatist state to the neoliberal model in the 1990s encouraged “ethnic” or identity demands. Nevertheless, Carmen Martínez Novo, based on her research and that of others, concludes that, in Ecuador anyway, “the desire for inclusion and social mobility are stronger motivations in indigenous cultural politics than the search for difference, which might only be a means of achieving the first objective”. In other words, the “new” indigenous movements, seen even as postmodern by some commentators, may have objectives akin to that of the very “old” labour movement and are not “new” purely identity-based movements with a cultural rather than socio-economic perspective. Their liminal position thus makes them a particularly illuminating case study.

For neoliberalism, formal political equality meant recognizing the individual and cultural rights of indigenous peoples, especially when promoted by NGOs, so long as it did not impinge on economic policy-making. Thus, decentralization (as the state retreated) and the encouragement of a depoliticized civil society enabled indigenous mobilizations, but then, in practice, their demands could not be met. This led to the emergence of powerful indigenous movements in Ecuador and Bolivia. In the first country some dubious political alliances that led them to support a military coup detracted from their democratic credentials and set them back considerably. In Bolivia, by contrast, the indigenous movement was able to craft a solid set of social and political alliances with non-indigenous sectors, the trade unions, the Church and some NGOs to create a sustainable social movement and the landslide victory of Evo Morales in 2005.