Master’s Thesis in Cultural and Social Anthropology
“It is the looking-glass world!” /
“¡Es el mundo al revés!”
Venezuelan politics and middle-class life in times of chavismo
(by Ralph Steadman from a 1972 edition of Lewis Carroll’s Alice In Wonderland)
Supervisor: Dr. A.T. Strating
Second readers:
Dr. B. Kalir
Dr. E.G. Gomez Llata Cazares
Student: Mariana Abi-Saab Arrieche
Student number: 10839658
mariana.abisaab@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Venezuela is broadly described by academics and non-academics as a polarized society. It would be out of the conceived reality of the country to talk about the current Venezuelan socio-political context and not recognize a division between those who are against the government (the opposition) and those who are in favor (the Chavistas). The present research aims to study the way politics and political identities are experienced and negotiated in the everyday life of middle-class Venezuelans. Moreover, it explores what this can tell us about the Venezuelans identified as Opositores. During almost four months of ethnographic field research in Venezuela, I observed and inquired into close relationships and family life with specific attention on those relationships composed by people with different political identities. This meant placing everyday experiences of what it implies to be a Chavista and an Opositor, in present day Venezuela, under a magnifying glass. This process enabled the study of a double movement: one related to the ways politics is present, and influent, within the private spaces of Venezuelans’ cotidiano, and another that pertains to how people negotiate the presence of politics in micro and private domains. Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital has been key to show how economic assets, race, the level of education, and other characteristics add value to a person’s, or group’s, ‘social capital’. By looking at Venezuelan middle-class’ specific understandings of status and class, it was possible to identify that the process of political identification in Venezuela is one in which people not only differentiate themselves from the others’ political choices, but also from their cultural capital. Studying Venezuela’s context has been a strategic way of shedding light on the way people make sense of their world, build chains of arguments, create discourses, deal with taken-for-granted understandings that do not fit with reality, and embrace positions and identities. Finally, this analysis adds to studies that focus on people faced with the dilemmas of crossing the divide between two different, even opposite, worlds.
PREFACE
I’m convinced I had no agency in choosing my research topic. Venezuela and its socio-political reality chose me many years ago.
Venezuela had always caused me sleepless nights. For many years, it has hurt, but also empowered me. I was born in Venezuela and lived there until I was almost 18 years old. The years of my adolescence corresponded to the first six years of Chávez’s government. During this period I engaged in political activism against the government, participating in various protests led by the student movements. In 2005, I moved with my nuclear family to Brazil. During the years of my BA studies, my academic life was also focused on the Venezuelan socio-political situation. After so many years of collecting and reflecting on data while looking for answers, I continued to defend the same arguments and critiques without finding any new response. I have felt throughout this passed years mixed feelings including frustrations, powerlessness and mostly a lack of understanding of what has happened in the country. I constantly wondered how we got to where we are and, more specifically, why chavismo (still) exists and is (still) in power. It took me several years to understand I needed to come back to Venezuela and listen to “the other side”. I needed to approach those who support the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela.
When I started to design my research project, it did not take me too long to realize how challenging it would be. For more than 16 years, which represents almost all of my conscious political life, I had criticized the Chavista government in Venezuela. All my references about the country and its political situation had been constructed under the lenses of those who were extremely disappointed by the rise of chavismo. But, I also had two things in my favor: first, I had an interesting position of an outsider and an insider, having lived many years abroad; second, I had learned a new set of tools and anthropological methods that could assist me in the process of giving faces, expressions, names and stories to that which was incomprehensible. The journey I was undertaking, ultimately, was one of ‘making the strange familiar’.
Knowing the Venezuelan ‘temperament’, I foresee that many of my informants might feel uncomfortable with the analyses I will present. However, I deeply hope they can understand that this study is not a matter of personal criticism, but an exercise of trying to raise the right questions. In any case, I would like to make explicit in advance, that my intentions have never been to cause any harm or personal judgement.
I would not be overstating this if I said that undertaking this field research was an opportunity in a lifetime to go back to my country and make peace with it. It gave me the great opportunity, after ten years, to be with my family again, celebrate my siblings’ birthday, participating in the spontaneous Sunday meetings at my grandmother’s and sharing our lives once again. Additionally, I was enabled to perceive again Venezuela’s beauty, to recognize and enjoy the richness of its people and to feel proud of where I come from. That is why this research certainly talks about and reveals me in many different ways.
AKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am profoundly grateful to each one of the Venezuelans who gave me the possibility to know and reach his/her stories, opinions, positions, feelings, intimacies, struggles, experiences and reflections. Thank you for your time and trust and for making this research much easier with your spontaneity and openness. In the case this study has a value, it is a direct result of your participants on it. All shortcomings are obviously my fault alone.
To my beautiful country, for receiving me with wide open arms through the strong rain, the majestic of the Ávila and its, the clear light, and the sublime sunsets.
To the Venezuelans, for making me learn what viscerality is, for your contagious passion and for having given me countless examples of empathy, an essential asset for this research and for anthropological endeavours in general.
To Prof. Strating, Alex, for welcoming with enthusiasm and wise criticism my ideas and for raising always the right questions. This journey was much more pleasant thanks to all your motivation, sensitivity and stimulating words.
To the University of Amsterdam for making possible this academic and personal adventure of one year and a half in Amsterdam.
I have a tremendous personal debt with the people who gave me the good fortune of having close during all this process that started many months before coming to Amsterdam, and also includes my fieldwork period. To each one of you, who helped me in Brazil, Venezuela and from elsewhere; and you who unexpectedly transformed Amsterdam in a more welcoming and warm place to be and to learn, I am extremely thankful: Mari, Gabi, Tayná, Dani, Andrés, Yonca, Natalie, Marina, Thalita, Diego, Michelita, Joam, Juanfri, Alejandro, Pichu, Ferni, Mauri, Caro, Neni, Werner, Yuli, Stephy, Mina, Carmen, Traci, Lucrezio, Cristine, Saima, Fabienne. My especial gratitude to Lu for being my cómplice and my shoulder and for fulfilling my soul of peace. To all my family in Venezuela, los Abi-Saab and los Arrieche, for making me feel at home. Profound thanks to my grandmother, Rosa, a woman with a contagious brightness. Abuelita, this work is dedicated also to you for being my best partner in the field. I feel blessed for having had the opportunity to share these months with you and being part of your daily adventures.
Finally, to my parents, Salim and Milagros, my brother, Javier, and my sister, Rosana, because with each one of you I have lived and understood what the amor infinito is. I will never be able to thank you enough for believing in me, for all the love I have received and for the sound support you represent in my life. ¡Los amo!
Content
1 INTRODUCTION ... 1
1.1. Situating the Research: the what and whys ... 1
1.2 On Operationalization & Methods ... 4
1.3 Theoretical Approach ... 9
2 POLITICAL DISCOURSES AND IDENTITIES IN TIMES OF CHAVISMO ... 14
2.1 A Brief Context of a ‘Divided Country’ ... 15
2.2 Everyday Life in Current Times of Chavismo ... 19
2.3 Making Sense and Taking Position: Political Discourses and Identities ... 22
3 VENEZUELAN FAMILY LIFE & POLITICS ... 31
3.1 When Family is First: on the Politics of Venezuelan Middle-class Families ... 31
3.2 Politics at the Dining Table vs The “We Do Not Talk About Politics” Agreement ... 34
3.3 Strategies To Be Related To a Close and Similar ‘Other’ ... 41
4 ON MIDDLE-CLASS OPPOSITION TO CHAVISMO ...47
4.1 “Are You a Chavista?!”: Lack of Understanding and What Else? ... 47
4.2 The Cultural Capital of Gente Bien vs Chusma: Class, Status and Race in Venezuela ... 49
4.3 “We Do Not Sell Our Dignity for a Misión”: On Being a Middle-class Opositor ... 56
5 CONCLUSIONS ...62
AFTERWORD ... 67
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1 INTRODUCTION
1.1. Situating the Research: the what and whys
It was just my second weekend in Venezuela. On a Saturday evening, I went with some of my family members to the Teresa Carreño Theater, the most important in the country. One of my cousins was going to be part of a flamenco spectacle with la Macarena, a very famous dancer. Tickets were very expensive. The elegant public was divided between those who were going to see their young daughters, nieces, girlfriends or granddaughters; and those who were there to see the Macarena. Yet, the group was homogenous in that everyone was from the upper-middle-class. We were seated waiting for the show to start, when the recorded masculine voice that normally announces the sponsors of the spectacle started:
“El gobierno Bolivariano de Venezuela…”
That was all I could hear.
After those five words, a completely unexpected commotion happened. A collective and very loud booing invaded, almost in unison, the whole theater. I had certainly witnessed some other booing before, but for some reason this, in particular, felt disproportionate. I was amazed by how strong it was, I felt it took ages to finish. I was so uncomfortable that I could barely move or actually see anything. Then, I made an effort to come out from my commotion and start observing what was happening. With a lot of effort, I saw a man who was also evidently uncomfortable, as well as a very welldressed grandma booing with passion…
Ufa! The recording message ended, and so did the loudjeer.
While destabilized dancers came to the scene, I could only say to myself: “So this is it, Mariana. Welcome to Venezuela with sixteen years of chavismo.”
Venezuela is broadly described by academics and non-academics as a polarized society (Eastwood & Ponniah 2011; Corrales 2011 and 2005; Corrales & Penfold 2011; Ellner 2008; Ellner & Hellinger 2003; Wilpert 2011). It would be out of the conceived reality of the country to talk about the country’s current socio-political context and not recognize a division between those who are against the government (the opposition or anti-Chavistas) and those who are in favor (the Chavistas1 or Oficialistas). On the one hand, the latter, the Chavistas, support what
they defend as the changes resulting from the government and its socialist-inspired Bolivarian Revolution, like a new level of political participation, new social policies, the increase of national pride, of knowledge of the country’s history and of civic engagement (Tinker Salas 2015: 164).
1 I use the term ‘Chavista’ being conscious of, and critical to, the misuse the opposition has given to the word as an
insult addressed to the people supporting the government. My decision to use it relies on the fact that this is the emic term people use to identify themselves, especially after Chávez’s death as a way of giving visibility to his legacy.
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On the other, the former, the Opositores are an extremely disappointed group of Venezuelans that see the government as corrupt, mismanaged, not let by meritocracy, and the cause of a significant decrease in the quality of life of the Venezuelan people.
During the Venezuelan Chavista governments,2 dating from 1998 until today, the leaders
of the opposition, as well as the leaders of the government, developed political discourses that have moved away, by othering, one group from the other. Each group has been systematically constructed, during the last sixteen years, through the use of binary representations of perpetrators versus victims, friends versus enemies, Venezuelans versus betrayers, suggesting an irreconcilable and inassimilable ‘other’ to the ‘self’. As Robert Samet put it: “there is no opposition without the ‘abomination’ of Chávez and his supporters. Likewise, without the opposition of ‘escuálidos’,3 the Chavista movement would lose all coherence” (Samet 2013: 529).
The ethnographic episode at the Teresa Carreño Theater clearly illustrates this scenario. The mere mention of the Bolivarian government (which is a reference to chavismo) can make hundreds feel more than uncomfortable. The Venezuelan anthropologist Fernando Coronil describes such a division as:
Two opposite poles dominating political life in Venezuela […] A generalized Manichean mindset tend[ing] to push and flatten every position towards the extreme ends and nuanced views [being] often dismissed or cast aside as camouflaged versions of either pole… It is as if a storm of clashing slogans had suddenly fallen upon Venezuela and split it into two. Divided by verbal fences, Chavistas and anti-Chavistas inhabit mutually hostile social worlds. Enclosed by barbed words, each world treats its reasons as Reason itself and adversaries become enemies. The ground of reasonable discussion vanishes (Coronil 2008: 3).
Studies or versions challenging this common vision on Venezuela’s socio-political context are very limited. It is worth mentioning that the production of qualitative and ethnographic studies about general subjects in urban Venezuela, as well as about its contemporary political reality, is reduced.4 Likewise, it is rare to find either quantitative or qualitative research within any of the
social sciences that look beyond the two poles of the Venezuelan political spectrum.5 The
2 The references to chavismo in this research, include both the Presidential periods of Hugo Chávez (from his
election in December 1998 until his dead in March 2013) and the current Presidential period of Nicolás Maduro (in power since April 2013).
3 Chavistas call people of the opposition of escuálidos (squalid or languid).
4 Safe for Fernandez (2004); Valencia Ramírez (2005); Sánchez (2008); Samet (2013); Velasco (2011, 2015) 5 Safe for works such as: Coronil (2008); Acosta-Alzuru (2011); Duno-Gottberg (2011); Samet (2013); and to some
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reflections of Coronil are probably one of the few that illustrate the degree to which politics influences private domains in Venezuela:
… The mutual demonization and erosion of shared sociality has saturated not just the public sphere but the private domains of family and friendships… It is telling that the exacerbation of disputes among relatives and of divorces among couples has brought into being a code of conduct common during social crises but unfamiliar in the olden Venezuela charmed by the illusion of harmony: No politics allowed at home. Ironically, while the country has been heavily politicized, in many social gatherings of kin and friends politics has become a taboo subject (Coronil 2008: 3, emphasis in the original).
Coronil’s descriptions encourages us to reflect on whether it is possible to identify nuances within what, at first glance, seems to be either black or white in the country’s socio-political context; layers to what has been presented as unitary; and meeting points for what is normally described as unassimilable and mutually exclusive. Additionally, it seems relevant to further inquire into the everyday experiences of politics in micro and private spheres. What strategies do people use in close relationships with those who have a different political opinion in order to avoid conflict? How do such an interactions influence our political identities and vice-versa?
When I started to design my research and to talk about it in informal conversations with colleagues and friends, many people were interested in the idea that I would be looking at how politics takes place in private spheres, such as families. It also struck me that colleagues and teachers specifically from Latin America seemed to feel personally identified with the subject. As reactions, I ended up hearing very interesting and passionate stories of family dinners, Christmas reunions and electoral periods in countries such as Bolivia, Mexico, Ecuador and Argentina, when heated political conversations made some members of the family leave the table, go for some air outside or come to the conclusion that “we should not talk about politics again.” Episodes like those are definitively not restricted to Latin Americans, nor to families. However, they made me wonder whether there is a particular way politics is experienced in family interactions worth exploring and made me consider that the study of Venezuelan family life could be an interesting and potential fruitful approach to understand the ways the current socio-political and economic context is present and experienced in Venezuelan’s everyday life.
During almost four months of fieldwork in Venezuela, it was through the participation of everyday family life that I started to identify a deeper degree of frustration and uneasiness in dealing with supporters of the opposite site of the political spectrum from the side of the
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opposition towards chavismo, than the other way around. I wondered why it was so difficult for Opositores to understand and deal with the fact that chavismo is in power. What were the social structures behind such a difficulty?
In this vein, the objective of this research is to offer an answer to the following question: how is politics experienced and negotiated in the everyday life of middle-class Venezuelans and, more specifically, what can this tell us about the Venezuelans identified as Opositores? In doing so, it aims to contribute to anthropological studies addressing the role of politics in people’s private and everyday life. It also offers relevant ethnographic illustrations on the way people make sense of the world through categories and symbols and how they experience and negotiate taken-for-granted understandings that do not fit with reality. Moreover, Venezuela’s context is presented as a good example for illustrating the way build chains of arguments, create discourses and embrace positions and identities. This study also steps into the debate the entanglements of political identities with social structures such as class, social status, and race. Finally, this analysis adds to anthropological studies looking at people who face the dilemmas of crossing the divide and bridge the gap between two different, even opposite, worlds.
In order to find answers to these questions, the next sections of the present Chapter will introduce the methods undertaken to collect such data, as well as the theoretical assumptions that will assist in the analysis of the data collected. Subsequently, Chapter 2 will present a contextualization to the current Venezuelan socio-political and economic context, and a first discussion on the Chavistas’ and Opositores’ dominant political discourse. Chapter 3 will illustrate the way politics is experienced and takes place within everyday family life, offering a magnifying glass looking at the presence of politics in the micro level and to agency through the observation of people’s maneuvers. Lastly, Chapter 4 will focus on the way in which middle-class’ understandings of class and status id interrelated to the processes of political identification and othering of Opositores towards Chavistas, thus, highlighting the influence of macro level structures on such processes.
1.2 On Operationalization & Methods
“Make the strange familiar and the familiar strange” is one of the main aims of anthropological work. I personally consider this research pushed me to undertake both movements. On one hand, I stepped out of my personal proximity and involvement with anti-chavismo, acknowledging actions I realized I did not agree with and casting doubt into some taken for granted explanations on the context of the country. On the other hand, I stepped into chavismo
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opening up the possibility to truly listening and even accepting different versions of the same reality.
The preparation for the fieldwork started around eight months before going to Venezuela, when I began to discipline myself to access and reading both Chavistas’ and Opositores’ sources, writers and opinions. This already introduced me to the high level of complexity and opposing messages I was going to face in the field. As Robert Samet mentions:
[N]early every issue of political import in Venezuela appears in split screen. A visitor cannot help but notice that the state press and the private press seem to report from two different worlds. It is not simply that these outlets have different standards by which they define newsworthiness but that they have different beliefs about what is factual (Samet 2013: 535).
With that in mind, I arrived in Caracas the 28th of May 2015. During my three and a half months
of fieldwork, I stayed at my grandparents’ house in Macaracuay, a middle-class neighborhood in the East of Caracas.6 In Caracas I undertook the majority of my interviews, observations, and
informal conversations. I traveled several times within the country, including three trips to Barquisimeto aiming to meet with the members of the Rivero family who live in this city. They are the only participants of the research who live outside of Caracas.
Even with a preparation of around eight months, my starting point to access Chavista informants was still very different from the one to access anti-Chavistas. On one hand, by staying on my grandparents’ house, and as a consequence of my inner circle of friends and relatives in Venezuela, I was naturally inserted in an environment of the opposition to the government. The four people who live at my grandparents’ house and all the people who visited it (around nine different people per week) were open and vocal anti-Chavistas. For the first three weeks of fieldwork, I had already undertaken very relevant informal conversations, as well as interviews with informants from this political side. I actually felt I achieved the saturation point regarding their perceptions before my first month in Venezuela.
On the other hand, the process of accessing Oficialista informants was very different. As I did not have any friend or close relative who supported the government, I had to be much more proactive and it took me more time to achieve such an access. Before arriving in the field, I had already started a snowball sampling to identify potential informants who were Chavistas. From this sampling, a friend from high school introduced me to Daniel, who was the first
6 Macaracuay is an upper-middle-class neighborhood that today is not considered as good as before, because of the
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Oficialista I interviewed. Some days after our first talk, Daniel invited me to a meeting of social scientists in the ministry of Comunas, which is in charge of grassroots initiatives and organization in the country. This is considered a ‘Chavista ministry’ since it is an innovative idea of social organization proposed and created during Chávez’s government. Daniel’s invitation gave me the opportunity to get in touch with members of this group of Chavista social scientists and through knowing one person who supported the government it was easier to get to know others.
Additionally, other contacts were gradually popping up from the sampling, while I also contacted distant relatives who supported the government to undertake informal conversations and, in some cases, participant observations and interviews. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that from my snowball sampling I could not access informants from Caracas’ lower classes, whether they were Oficialistas or Opositores. Due to this, my research population focused only on the middle-class for both Chavista and opposition supporters. This was an important definer of the course taken by the subject of my research since I experience an unexpected journey in which through the study of political identities in Venezuela, I ended up learning a lot about Venezuelan middle-class in general, and middle-class opposition to the government, in specific.
After the fieldwork, during the process of writing, the question “What do you mean by ‘middle-class’?” was posed to me many times. I thought that using the emic approach to define my informants as they define themselves was the most appropriate. This is still in part true and continues to be one of the reasons for the use of this term. Equally important are the information of socio-economic characteristics that I observed and received from my informants, which complemented their own identification.
All along this study, such characteristics describe who my informants are and why they belong to the middle-class. Examples of this are where they live; where their parents live; whether they go/went to public or private schools/universities; whether the current economic situation of the country affects them, or not; and if yes, how?; their patterns of consumption, traveling, eating in restaurants; whether they have had to adopt any restrictions recently to such patterns; whether they use any of the public services/programs offered by the government; among other characteristics. I consider that these descriptions are what better describe what is meant by ‘Venezuelan middle-class’ in this study. It is worth mentioning, however, that recent qualitative studies on Venezuelan middle-class are almost inexistent.7
7 It is worth mentioning that recent qualitative studies on Venezuelan middle-class are almost inexistent, safe for
Mora Salas (2007). The qualitative academic interest has focused the lower class in Venezuela, in specific with relation to social programs during the Chavista governments, like in the case of Fernandez (2004); Schiller (2011); Velasco (2011, 2015).
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I personally felt very comfortable when talking with people of the middle-class. I might have been perceived as a little bit alternative for my interests, my way of dressing, having lived abroad so many years and patterns of consumption (much lower than middle-class Venezuelans), but I did not feel any of these aspects created distance from my informants. I felt they recognized me as one of their own. Nothing more, nothing less.
Before going to the field, I did not know how relevant the (notions of) class, social status, and race of my informants were for the discussions of this research. This is why I did not undertake a systematic enquiry on self-identifications of race. I already foresee this might be one of the methodological weakness of the present study. This is why I preferred not to make any reference about the race of my informants, since it would have been defined only from my own observations and definitions. An implication of this could be that (self)definitions and identifications on race might have introduced a more interesting debate on potential ambivalences and contradictions.
During my months in the field, I undertook participant observation in activities such as watching television news broadcasts with informants, discussing political events, participating in family/social conversations and events (family meetings and meals; the celebration of birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, welcome and farewell parties). In particular, participant observation of groups’ activities was a very effective method to identify dominant discourses and common visions. Similarly, informal conversations were also useful to have access to less well-thought or structured opinions, such as the way people associate the level of education or racial markers with their understanding of political identities in Venezuela, as will be elaborated in Chapter 4.
With the consent of my informants, I recorded twelve informal conversations, as well as registered many others in my fieldnotes. I also observed political activities as marchas, public events, and the behavior of people in private and public places with political symbols. Furthermore I undertook semi-structured interviews, including group interviews, with nineteen informants.8 Through the semi-structured interviews, I explored, among other issues, how
people saw the Venezuelan socio-political and economic context; the way they perceived politics in their lives; what they understood about the other political side (and what they did not); the strategies people use in their everyday life to avoid conflicts in close relationships with people supporting the opposite side of the political spectrum, among other subjects.
8 I translated the quotes, interviews’ extracts, fieldnotes and observations selected for the study. I counted with the
English review of several friends fluent, and in some cases native, in English. Nevertheless, I am aware translation is imprecise at best. Many words or phrases have a unique cultural-political meaning in Venezuela that is lost even when using the most precise English equivalent. For the cases when translation do not do justice to the term or expression, I italicized the word/sentence in Spanish, except for the words chavismo, oficialismo, Chavista/s, Opositor/es and Oficialista/s, which are in Spanish but not in italic to facilitate the fluency of the reading.
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The four methods I used (semi-structured interviews, informal conversations, participant observation, and observation) offered me access to key information. Nevertheless, in the cases I was able to use two or more methods with the same informant for data triangulation, it allowed me to have a deeper overview of their opinions and experiences, as well as to compare what they say they do with what they actually do.
Before going to Venezuela, I started a personal blog9 where I wrote weekly, even after
the end of the fieldwork, aiming to share and better process subjects of my research, but also more personal feelings related to coming back to Venezuela after so many years.10 This allowed
me to feel that I offered something tangible to the participants of the research, as well as to my own family and friends. Moreover, the blog was a space in Spanish where they could understand better what I was doing, which shaped my interpretations were taking and also, as occurred in several occasions, a site for them to state their own opinions and feedbacks.
As I was interested in observing and studying people’s cotidiano, daily-life experiences, I realized the best way to access and accomplish this aim was observing and participating in family dynamics, including my own family.11 Among the several experiences on the field, I passed
through a process that started with being a visiting relative and then, progressively becoming part of the everyday life of my own family. After a lot of considerations on how to write about family members in general and about my own in specific, I started questioning, on one hand, whether changing their names and keep my informants in anonymity was enough to avoid further frictions in already sensitive family issues; and, on the other hand, if doing so represented a serious omission or not.12 After reflecting deeply on it, I decided to change the names of my
informants; and based on the acknowledgment that even among my closest siblings13 I still
played a double role of an outsider/insider, I also decided not to mention which of the participants of the research are my own siblings.
Undertaking ethnography within families and especially one’s own is quite delicate and exhausting. Politics inside families resulted in a much more sensitive topic than expected before fieldwork. In many occasions I was eager to relax after a whole day of work by having dinner with my cousins or meeting some friends and these ended up being key occasions for intense ethnographic work. I also found it was interesting to experience a difference between talking about politics with the members of my own family than with friends or people who are not very
9 The name of the blog is: Mi Querencia: de las experiencias y emociones de volver a Venezuela. See:
www.venezuelamiquerencia.com (visited on 05 December 2015).
10 As mentioned in the preface, before the fieldwork I lived ten years abroad.
11 When I refer to “my own family members” I am not considering my “nuclear family” (father, mother sister and
brother) who is currently living in Brazil, but the relatives who are still living in Venezuela.
12 Even if, in some cases, I had only seen some of my siblings a couple of times in my life. 13 Meaning my grandparents, the sisters and brothers of my parents and my first cousins.
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close. It seems like there are more possibilities to disagree outside the family circle. For instance, only members of my own family were the only ones who found it strange the questions I raised in group discussions, or the fact that I was in contact with Chavista people. It was common to receive misleading comments like: “Have you already become a Chavista?” or even some patronizing ones like: “We need to explain you what the real situation of the country is.”
Differently than I naïvely expected, even after months of preparation, months of fieldwork, as well as months analyzing data and writing, my willingness to understand chavismo and opposition was achieved in different degrees. I was able to inquire deeper layers of complexity, ambiguities and even intimacy of the opposition’s side. This is the reason why Chapter 4 is mostly dedicated to the perceptions of Opositores toward Chavistas. Even if this journey resulted in an approach and better knowledge about chavismo (maybe even too close for some of my Opositores friends and relatives to feel comfortable), the Chavista world still kept some degree of exoticness, as an incentive for potential further research.
1.3 Theoretical Approach
Identities and social structures
In Symbols, conflict and identity, Zdzislaw Mach presents a study on contemporary issues regarding identity in social contexts of change and conflict. In the most general terms, for Mach, identity “involves a definition of an object of our perception, and thus forms and essential basis of our action in relation to this object” (Mach 1993: 5). In being so, identity is not a ‘natural’ intrinsic quality of an object prior to relations with other objects, but is actually a result of action, or rather interaction (ibid.: 5). Messages are sent, received and interpreted in processes of exchange, making of identity a dynamic, processual, and contextual phenomenon.
By ascribing certain qualities to people or groups or by including them in well-defined categories, people organize their social world and classify it and in such a way a conceptual symbolic model of the world is formed … People think and act in relation to the world according to this symbolic model… (ibid.: 6)
In accordance to Mach’s perspective, both symbolic and social structural components participate in the processes of creation, maintenance and reinforcement of identity (ibid.: ix). Considering that my research population was very much defined by its class, several concepts from Pierre Bourdieu’s theory on social class are relevant to introduce. In accordance with Bourdieu, the characteristics of a social class fundamentally come from the distinction between its condition and its position. The conditions are the several kinds of material conditions of existence, very much
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related to economic assets. The position is the place occupied by the class in relation to the other classes (Bourdieu 1969: 88-89). Moreover, social space is an important concept introduced by Bourdieu as a symbolic space in which social proximities and distances are defined, meaning that not everyone can group together (ibid.: 89).
Social groups can also be distinguished by their social status: the positive and negative privileges in a social consideration based on ways of living, formal ways of education, hereditary/professional prestige (ibid.: 88). This is the basis of Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital, which are “the distinctive forms of knowledge and ability [people] acquire […] from their training in the cultural disciplines” (Bourdieu 1984: xviii). It represents the “sum of valued knowledge, styles, social and physical characteristics and practical behavioral dispositions within a given field” (Bourdieu 1984 cited in Hage 2000: 53). To Bourdieu, the educational variable, meaning the cultural capital is as important as the economic. For Ghassan Hage, who uses Bourdieu’s theory for developing his argument about the White Nation Fantasy in Australia, this is a cumulative, rather than an either/or logic of ‘capitals’. Each one of these capitals has a specific value. Thus, there is the possibility of accumulation, continuum, of a set of qualities or capital. Hage uses Bourdieu’s cultural capital to introduce the concept of ‘whiteness’, which does not refer only to the skin color but is “an aspiration that one accumulates various capitals to try to be [white]” (Hage 2000: 60).
Through my observations and interviews, I could recognize ways in which people from the middle-class separate themselves and their groups from others by the level of education, race, economic assets and ways of living. I defend that middle-class’ specific understandings of its group play a role in the creation, re-creation and maintenance of political identities in the country. When analyzing such a role (Chapter 4) the concepts on class condition, position, social status and social space and cultural capital introduced by Bourdieu, will be of great use.
On dominant discourses
Anthropological schools have taken as one of the central discussions of the discipline the way concepts of culture, ethnic classification, and identity are easily essentialized and fixed, reducing “anybody's behavior to a symptom of an equation” (Baumann 1996: 6). This is what Baumann describes in his ethnography, Contesting Culture, which studies a multi-ethnic town on the outskirts of London. Quoting Berger and Luckmann, Baumann defines reification as “the apprehension of human phenomena as if they were things, that is, (...) the apprehension of the products of human activity as if they were something other than human products - such as facts of nature” (Berger & Luckmann 1967: 106-107, cited in Baumann 1996: 12-13). The systematic reification of
11
categories facilitates dominant discourses to take place in societies, politics, and media, as described by Baumann in Great Britain (ibid.: 20). A dominant discourse is an understanding that seems to make sense to everyone (of a specific group) by presenting ‘logic’ and ‘simple’ explanations, like equating a specific political opinion to certain patterns of behavior, socio-economic background, the level of education, race and other categories. Interestingly enough, these equations also create a hermetic symbolic order that seems not to leave any space for doubts, middle grounds, weighted positions or loose ends.
I suggest that today in Venezuela there is a reification of a discourse that presents the country as divided into two groups that seem to work as a black-and-white syntax of binary antagonism. This discourse reinforces, as well as has been reinforced by, the way political leaders of the country and the media have portrayed chavismo and opposition. This means, the way they have constructed images of selfing/othering such as: “we want the best for Venezuelans, they want the best for themselves”; “we are ethical, they are corrupted”; “we want peace, while they are violent”; “we represent el pueblo (the people), they represent the elite.” In Venezuela, people in favor of the government, as well as people against it seem, in a first sight, to be thereby frozen into unchangeable categories. 14 The taken for granted association, explanations, and
understandings that assist in making sense of the political side people embrace are, thus, the dominant discourses.
Classification is the basis of human knowledge and of cultural construction through which people make order of the world (Jenkins 1997). “From the most general point of view, identity is a result of classification of the world” (Mach 1993: 5). In the ethnographic research of Milena Veenis in former East Germany, the author affirms “people simply need to categorize, classify and draw boundaries in order to discriminate (between just and unjust, dirt and cleanliness, us and them)” (Veenis 2012: 28). In his same vein, the automatic associations that take place when someone identifies him/herself as an Oficialista and is equated to ‘an ignorant’, to a ‘resentido social’ (social resentful) or to an ‘enchufado’,15 as will be seen in the next Chapters, are
examples of the process of reification of such categories, classifications and boundaries. The same happens when a Venezuelan identifies him/herself as an opponent of the government and is automatically equated to a person who is ‘rich’, ‘right-wing’ and ‘against el pueblo’.
Furthermore, Veenis also highlighted the need of inquiry by anthropologists on how people manage to convince themselves that their constructions – for instance who they are – are
14 For studies on Hugo Chávez’s discourse analysis see: Romero (2005); Aponte Moreno (2008); Abi-Saab (2012). 15 Enchufado is the term given by Opositores o anyone getting benefits by working along or doing business with the
government. This person is normally not a vocal Chavista supporter (would not go to the marchas, dress in red, or defend the government in social meetings), but s/he might vote for chavismo based on (economic) convenience. This term suggests corruption behind the association or filiation with the government.
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real and whether and how everyday life confronts such categories and classifications with the inadequacy of this undertaking (ibid.: 27-28). Aiming to identify relationships and dynamics in which such automatic associations are challenged, several of the people who participated on the research actually do not fit within the dominant discourse that characterizes Chavistas or Opositores in Venezuela. Some of my informants were middle-class and well-educated Oficialistas; as well as some were left-wing Opositores. Even more relevant, many of the participants of the study have close relationships with people supporting the opposite side of the political spectrum, in some cases they went to the same schools, belonged to the same social class, or even to the same family. In consideration of this, it seems relevant to enquire on how people experience and negotiate when the categories with which they make sense of the world and justify their positions in it do not fit.
One of the few couples in Venezuela composed by public figures with opposing views, from which one is a Chavista and the other an Opositor, is the case of Isabel González and Andrés Izarra. González was a public journalist of the TV news program Aló Ciudadano in Globovision, a program transmitted every day that openly criticized government’s policies.16 Plus
she was the step-daughter of one of the main political leaders of the opposition, Antonio Ledezma. Izarra was a recent Minister of Communication, as well as of Tourism, and is a vocal supporter of the Chavista governments. When their union came to be publically known there was an uproar in social media and González complained about having being insulted in a café and having had the tires of her car cut.17 The constructions of a polarized society make difficult
the understanding of a marriage composed by a Chavista and an Opositor. Thus, the González and Izarra’s couple challenge the process of reification and dominant discourse with which people make sense of the political scenario of Venezuela. Being faced with logics and categories that do not fit is in some occasions, as will be presented in the following Chapters, maneuvered and negotiated by people, while in others experienced with frustration and lack of understanding.
Rethinking identity constructions
The specifications of similarities and of differences are two interdependent processes of identification. One does not make sense without the other (Jenkins 1997: 7). Classification into who ‘we’ are and who ‘they’ are, although universal, does not happen always with the same intensity (Mach 1993: 10). In the process of identifying others, people create distance. This
16 After the closure in 2007 of RCTV, the Venezuelan most popular TV channel, Globovisión became be the only
channel openly critical to the government. This was until 2013 when the channel’s owners changed and its political approach became less critical.
17 See
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separation does not necessarily mean antagonism or hostility. In accordance with Mach perspective, groups usually adapt to each other, establishing norms of contact. Nevertheless, “when one of the groups regards its position as unsatisfactory and its interests as threatened, then a relatively well-balanced accommodation may easily be transformed into conflict” (ibid.: 15). Interestingly enough, among the characteristics selected to define the other only certain traits and features are chosen and used in this construction of othering (ibid.: 7). Mach’s work encourages anthropological research to address part of our work in identifying which traits are chosen, why and with which implications.
Baumann’s book, Grammars of identity/alterity (2004), offers a relevant discussion aiming to differentiate and present layers to the notion of ‘othering’, which has been used as a blanket term to define alterity and excluding difference. The author recognizes that even if the structures/grammars look, at the first sight, binary, responding to logics of ‘good versus bad’, ‘friends versus enemies’, ‘victims versus perpetrators’, when looking deeply:
[B]inary divisions of the world had little chance of capturing the richness and sophistication of ‘other’ people’s taxonomies… A division-in-two will intrinsically raise the awkward question of what may be in the middle. Binarisms inevitably raise the possibility of tripartition, and anthropologists have a long tradition of recognizing this (Baumann 2004: 35).
In each one of the grammars studied by Baumann, the author identified ternary structures that challenged binary opposition of mutually exclusive poles, by recognizing a third representation besides the ‘self’ and the ‘other’. Ternary structures and layers in the process of selfing/othering are key for rethinking and broadening the dominant discourse of a Venezuela that is politically divided into two incommensurable groups. The speeches of political leaders and media in Venezuela are constantly pointing at binary notions that often present extreme logics of perpetrators and victims. Under these scenarios, it is worth asking whether Venezuelans have internalized what Baumann calls “anti-grammar” or “non-grammar” expressed in logics such as: “they are a threat for our existence.” Is it possible to identify ternary structures in people’s experiences and references to those supporting the opposite side of the political spectrum?
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2 POLITICAL DISCOURSES AND IDENTITIES IN TIMES OF CHAVISMO
Fieldnote: After three months of fieldwork, I thought I was ready to pack my bags with a sense of mission accomplished. I made my interviews, registered my observations, organized my fieldnotes and felt I had achieved some understandings about Venezuela’s context and the way people experience it. But today's Venezuela is so irreverent and volatile, that when I thought I had achieved some degree of understanding about her, she shook herself, mocked all my certainties and made me feel as if I had to start from scratch.
Venezuelan government’s decision, at the end of August 2015, to declare a state of emergency, the closure of part of the border with Colombia and the deportation of hundreds of Colombians, coincided with the final phase of my fieldwork.18 It left me speechless. I thought I had
understood some initiatives from el processo.19 But when I wrote the fieldnote above I had the
feeling as if I lacked understanding and needed to come back to earth and revisit the complexity of the current Venezuelan socio-political context.
During the three previous months of my stay, I had seen the denouement (or not) of several major political events in the country.20 It would be inaccurate to say events and
happenings in Venezuela change quickly. This could give the impression that conjunctures are quickly overcome and that lessons are quickly learned. However, my perception is that what happens in Venezuela is been accumulated constantly – piled up on each other – without a proper closure. The ease with which new conjunctures take the spotlight and many important, even urgent, happenings (like the diplomatic dispute with Colombia) are constantly emerging is overwhelming. This is why I found important to dedicate some words to set up the tone and recognize the complex phenomenon that represents the Venezuelan context today.
The next sections of this Chapter will focus on the current socio-political and economic scenario in Venezuela. I have selected key descriptions for general understanding of such context, as well as of the present study. Nonetheless, the next sections do not intend to simulate or substitute the richness of information received in a normal day in Caracas by walking in the streets, taking the camionetica or the metro, talking with random people or just listening to other people’s conversations. This by no means substitutes what the Venezuelan people would say for themselves. The next pages are small windows into a huge world.
18 The Venezuelan closure of the border with Colombia started the 19th of August, 2015 and lasted more than 30
days, when the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of both Venezuela and Colombia finally agreed to normalize the border. As will be explained further on, the official reasons given by the Venezuelan government were they were fighting against para-militarism and the high rates of smuggling in the region. See Cronología: Por una frontera de paz entre Venezuela y Colombia, Telesur Noticias, 16 September 2015. http://www.telesurtv.net/news/Cronologia-Por-una-frontera-de-paz-entre-Venezuela-y-Colombia-20150908-0047.html (visited on 05 December 2015).
19 Referring to the socialist-inspired Bolivarian Revolution designed and inaugurated by Hugo Chávez.
20 For example, some events were the government’s preliminary elections of the National Assembly; a diplomatic
controversy due to border disputes with another neighboring country, Guyana, and a mediatic campaign to raise awareness on this issue; I also saw the critiques received by the opposing coalition regarding the lack of gender balance and representation among their candidates for the National Assembly.
15 2.1 A Brief Context of a ‘Divided Country’
The Socio-political divisions within Venezuela are not something new. Like in many other societies, the historical process of its construction has been characterized by divided groups. The civil wars after Venezuela’s independence from Spain, in 1810, were consequences of the struggle between liberales and conservadores. Similarly, even nowadays, there are still many references made by politicians and common people to the way the country was “divided” less than two decades ago, during the democratic period that started after the Pacto de Punto Fijo21
agreement, in 1958. This Pact is also known as the start of the Cuarta República (the Forth Republic), when two leading political parties, Acción Democrática (AD) and Comité de Organización
Política Electoral (COPEI), ran the country. AD and COPEI alternated control of the government
for the next forty years. This politically separated Venezuelans between adecos and copeyanos (Boudin et al. 2006). Since 1998, when Hugo Chávez was elected President of Venezuela, the country started a new political process that today, sixteen years later, continues to divide Venezuelans between those who support the government and its socialist-inspired Bolivarian Revolution; and those who contest the government and its initiatives.
Chávez was a Lieutenant-Colonel who became nationally known for a brief television appearance in which he took responsibility for an unsuccessful military coup attempt in 1992, against the President Carlos Andrés Pérez, from the AD party. The coup aimed to support constant protests against the neo-liberal economic policies implemented by the Pérez’ government. It was carried out by organized movements of the political left. Chávez was sent to jail but was acknowledged as a national hero because of the way he accepted his defeat. In a famous speech, he used the phrase “por ahora” (for now), that later would become a popular motto in political campaigns.
Chávez was released after the impeachment of President Pérez, and in December 1998 was elected the new President with 62% of the votes. He immediately called for a referendum to reform the constitution, introducing key changes such as the name of the country; the centralization of important executive government roles; the abolishment of the bicameral legislative, creating instead a unicameral national assembly; the extension of the presidential term to six years, allowing for one consecutive reelection. After one year, a new constitution came into effect in the now called Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. 22 In April 2002, President Chávez was
21 The Punto Fijo agreement was a formal arrangement for the preservation of the rising democratic regime among
three main political parties: AD, COPEI and Unión Republicana Democrática (all non-communists parties).
22 The Bolivarian political ideology is part of the legacy and tribute to Simón Bolívar (1783-1830), known as El
Libertador. In Venezuela’s cultural history, Bolívar was the leader of South American liberation of the Spanish
colonial rule (specifically, of present-day territory of Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador). For a deeper analysis see The cult to Bolívar (Carrera Damas 2013) and also The Politics of Identity: Bolívar and Beyond (Capriles 2008).
16
briefly removed from office after massive protests against his government. This episode is called by the oficialismo as a coup d’état while the opposition called it “a vacuum of power.” Two days later, Chávez returned to power, thanks to widespread popular protests and the support of members of the military. After this episode, the President developed a stronger posture against the opposition, especially in his speeches, and the Bolivarian Revolution’s process of implementation was intensified. Social programs, known as misiones, were founded in 2003, aiming to address the citizen’s most pressing needs, including free primary health care, literacy, housing, food, redistribution of land, and other additional benefits (Boudin et al. 2006).23
The Chavismo Divide
“To say that Venezuela today is polarized is tantamount to a cliché”, says Miguel Tinker Salas at the beginning of his book, Venezuela: What everyone needs to know (Tinker Salas 2015: 7). This is because a lot has been said by academics and nonacademics regarding the so-called Venezuelan polarization (Al Jazeera 2014; Eastwood & Ponniah 2011; Coronil 2008; Corrales & Penfold 2011; Ellner 2008; Ellner & Hellinger 2003; Wilpert 2011).24 In contrast, it was very common in
my interviews with Chavista supporters to hear that the notion of a polarized country is a projection of the international media and the opposition. From their perspective, the aim of such projections is to call for an international intervention in the country. Additionally, they claim that it is part of Venezuela’s culture cultural in to “fight like dogs”, then “pretend like nothing happened, play dominoes and have a beer together.” On the other hand, it was also interesting to note that some Opositores also see a potential decrease in the socio-political polarization due to the fact that “nowadays many Chavistas (Chávez’s supporters) are not maduristas (supporters of Nicolás Maduro).”
Before his death, in March 2013, Chávez named Nicolás Maduro as his successor in the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV, for its acronym in Spanish). One month after Chávez’s death, Maduro won the Presidential elections against the opposition’s candidate, Henrique Capriles Radonski by only 1.5 points. In terms of political opinion, the population was equally divided between those who were against and those who were in favor of the government, both at a national level, and, in specific cities, such as Caracas (where I undertook the majority of
23 In 2006 sixteen misiones were functioning.
24 There are many studies on Venezuelan socio-political polarization, especially offered by Political Scientists. They
are also divided between scholars who support the government and scholars who criticize it. Authors such as Javier Corrales (2011), who is mostly opposed to the Chavista government, defends that this polarization has been the government’s deliberated effort to create divisiveness as an electoral strategy. For authors that are sympathetic to the government, such as Gregory Wilpert (2011), explanations point for instance the intransigence of the opposition as an explanation for the government’s radicalization.
17
my field research) and Barquisimeto (where some of my informants live). This is evident in the last results of the presidential elections of April 2013:
Voted for Maduro (in favor of the Chavista government)
Voted for Capriles Radonski (against the Chavista government)
National Results 50.61% 49.12%
Caracas (Capital District) 51.32% 48.19%
Lara State (where
Barquisimeto is the capital) 47.71% 52.02%
Table 1
Table Own Elaboration. Source: National Electoral Council (CNE Poder Electoral) official website.25
Supporters of the government call the political context of the last sixteen years “the (Bolivarian) Revolution” or “el proceso” (the process). The opposition calls it “la situación del país” (the country’s situation). These linguistic dichotomies already say something about the way people perceive and make reflections on the Venezuelan context. In the case of the opposition, “la situación” gives the idea of something not very defined and very general. Meanwhile, “el proceso” allows space to underplay problems and/or delay changes proposed by the Revolution.
To offer a detailed description of the supporters of each side is not a simple task. The conventional understanding is that the lower classes support chavismo while the upper and middle-classes oppose it (Lupu 2010; Castañeda 2006; Cannon 2008). Therefore, Chavista adherents have been in many occasions treated in relation to class and the level of education. “When ‘the poor’ are mentioned [by the opposition], they are often represented as an uncritical mass whose connection to chavismo is largely emotive” (Wilde 2014). More critical and comprehensive studies have pointed out an interesting diversity of social backgrounds, historical experiences, and political orientations among those identified as Oficialistas.
Nevertheless, not much has been written or said about the heterogeneity of chavismo, including middle-class Chavista supporters.26 One of the few studies on this regard was done by
Cristobal Valencia Ramírez, who considers that there has been a mis-characterization of the Chavistas as by being “typically depicted by the opposition, media, and some academics as young, poor, politically unsophisticated, antidemocratic masses that prefer political violence to democratic and constitutional processes” (Valencia Ramírez 2005: 81). In his qualitative research,
25 See CNE’s official website: http://www.cne.gob.ve/web/index.php (visited on 05 December 2015). 26 Safe for works: López Maya (2002); Valencia Ramírez (2005) and Tinker Salas (2014).
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the author explored the origins, aims, and experiences of Chavista organizations and individuals. Valencia defends that Chavistas are organized in various social and economic levels, with diverse reasons for personal involvement with the Bolivarian Revolution (ibid.: 95).
Similarly, Tinker Salas lists among others, left-wing and nationalist groups; intellectuals; indigenous and Afro-Venezuelans communities; people who had lost faith in the political process during the Fourth Republic; the military; those who have participated in the political and social mobilizations that occurred during the Chavista governments such as the consejos comunales (community councils); and those who participate directly in and benefit directly from social programs like the misiones (2015: 164-168). It is especially interesting to note Tinker Salas’ comment regarding the support of some middle-class segments to the government:
[W]ho are motivated by a moral commitment to improve people’s conditions and a basic nationalist pride that seeks to advance the nation as a whole. This support within the middle-class is an important factor beyond just the number of people involved, for these sympathizers include intellectuals, professionals, trained artists, and others whose talents have greatly aided the overall movement (ibid.: 168).
What seems apparent, as Tinker Salas put it, is that Chavistas: “are not simply anonymous uneducated masses drawn by the rhetorical persuasion of a charismatic leader. They are also not merely supporting the government because they are recipients of state-funded social programs” (Tinker Salas 2015: 163-164), as has been stated by so many authors and opinions, especially those describing chavismo as a populist government.27
As for the opposition, it is worth noting that this is also not a monolithic group. Even though the upper and middle-class and business elites are the most visible Opositores, the Chavista governments have also received critiques from both the right and the left-wing. Unlike chavismo, the opposition is not associated with any single person or political proposition but, rather, with a heterogeneous and complex range of interests from owners of capital, such as the private press, the Catholic Church, the two parties that ruled Venezuela during the Fourth Republic (AD and COPEI) and almost half a dozen newer parties, and also a large range of political ideologies —neoliberal, social democratic, even dissident Marxist (Samet 2013: 529). All of them converge in the strident rejection of the governments led by Chávez and Maduro.
There is also a sector of the population that belongs neither to one side nor to the other. They do not have much visibility at the political arena and are not politically organized. The composition of this group is heterogeneous; it can include actors who do not feel represented,
19
who are conflicted, or simply apolitical. They could also be ex-Chavistas or ex-Opositores who have been disappointed with their political leaders. This group is known as the ni-nis.28
It is worth mentioning that during my fieldwork there were very few occasions in which I met a person not identified as a supporter of either chavismo or the opposition. The only time this occurred was during a day-trip with a group of traditional Venezuelan dancers. Two out of six said they were from “the middle.” It is interesting that only in exceptional occasions someone would self-identify as a ni-ni or from “the middle.” As mentioned in the introduction, when quoting Coronil (2008), in Venezuela there is a difficulty in accepting middle-like positions. This is related to the polarization of the country, but also to a cultural rejection to being apathetic. Such a political position would be potentially considered in Venezuela a lack of care or affection towards one’s own country.
2.2 Everyday Life in Current Times of Chavismo
This section will introduce four conjunctures of the country identified as the main socio-political and economic concerns of Venezuelans nowadays.
Two main economic situations currently affect the inhabitants of the country, independently of their political tendency or social class. These are, the shortage of essential products and food (like personal hygiene products, rice, milk, meat, corn flour, sugar, beans, oil, among others) and price inflation. Everyday discussions on how to find basic food products, as well as on the high costs of living can be heard in both political and common arenas of society.
Because of these shortages, there are constant colas (long lines) that go around blocks outside of (public or private) supermarkets and people can spend many hours a day just doing groceries. Some of them are trying to buy what they need; others have used this situation as an opportunity to resell items at considerably higher prices. The latter are the so called bachaqueros, in reference to the idea of bachacos, insects, that load a lot of food on their backs.
Given this situation, the government has implemented restrictions to rationalize distribution and consumption of essential goods, aiming to restrict people from buying more than they need. If the product happens to be available in the supermarket, people can buy a restricted quantity of it per week and only during one of the corresponding days according to the last number of their ID. Moreover, the practice of bachaqueo was made illegal; this allowed for imprisoning anyone caught reselling any product in Venezuela. Hereof, the closure of the border with Colombia was the government’s answer to the high rates of smuggling of subsidized products by the Venezuelan government, especially gasoline, in the region. The bachaqueros there,
