Evo's jumper: identity and the used clothes trade in ‘post-neoliberal’ and ‘pluri-cultural’ Bolivia

Since the election of Latin America's first indigenous president, Evo Morales, in 2005, Bolivia's ruling party, the ‘Movement Towards Socialism’, has nationalised resources and instituted a ‘post-neoliberal’ and ‘pluri-cultural’ constitution that emphasises the importance of recognising cultural, linguistic and economic plurality. This article explores gendered economic identities in this context via the case study of an informal trade that is explicitly excluded from this vision of development: the globally controversial used clothes trade (UCT). In Bolivia, political debate on the trade demonstrates gendered tensions inherent in the government's ‘post-neoliberal’ agenda of nationalisation, protection of cultural identity and the well-being of the poor in an increasingly liberalised and globalised market place. Working with women in the city of El Alto, this article examines how women's involvement in the UCT challenges understandings of identity and development in post-neoliberal Latin America and the dynamics involved in women's continued marginalisation from global economic and political processes.