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

The 1998 electoral success of Hugo Ch�vez 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