How can we understand the regional “appeal” that the Chavista project had for years, and its more recent deceleration? In our paper [here], we focused on the legitimation strategies of Hugo Chávez and Chavismo, the political project, movement and regime led by Chávez, his regional allies and successors, carrying out a detailed analysis of its initiatives. Beyond the specifics, we suggested that while legitimizing his political project, Chávez claimed to address the expectations of wide sectors in the Americas, whose voice he was interpreting and expressing.
Our main aim was to understand how Chavismo changed the terms of reference of millions of people in the Americas, and what strategies of legitimation it launched and performed. Chavismo stressed at once nationalism, transnational identities and global realignments. That strategy did not suggest to choose among these goals in an either/or manner but rather combined them in a calibrated effort to redo regional commitments and position itself on the global stage.

Focusing on the case of Chavismo, we can reconstruct the rise and partial erosion of an encompassing narrative of ‘Nuestramerican’ (‘Our-American’) solidarity and its political implications for regional dynamics. The meta-narrative of Nuestramérica is not new. Without necessarily using the exact wording, the idea of creating solidary ties in the region has long historic roots and can be traced back to Simón Bolívar and his ideal of attaining Spanish American unity and to many leading voices of our region, such as among others, in the famous essay on Nuestra América by José Martí in 1891 or the essays in Temas de nuestra América by José Carlos Mariátegui, or the leaders of the Unionist Movement in Central America in the 1920s. These figures, among many others, wanted to strengthen transnational Latin American solidarity, opposing Nuestra América to the other America, the United States, with which it was potentially in conflict, while making a call to recognize the common paths of sister-nations and begin a process of joint identity formation toward political integration.
Hence, for over more than a century, the notion of Nuestramérica was understood as a call to encourage anti-imperialist resistance and strengthen a specific Latin American cultural and political path. Aiming to legitimize regionalist political projects, on multiple occasions the notion was summoned to vindicate various transnational projects, though not necessarily in converging lines, as the variegated ideas of Panamericanism, Latin Americanism, Iberoamericanism, Indoamericanism or Afro Americanism indicate. Other projects also made use discursively of the notion of 'we the [xxx] Americans' to legitimize their messages, ranging from the classic populist leaders to the authoritarian rulers of the Cold War dictatorships, and more recently, the sub-regional projects of the Common Market of the South (MERCOSUR), the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), the Central American Integration System (SICA) and the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). However, it was only with the advancement of the political project of Chavismo that the massive and systematic use of the concept of Nuestramérica as a legitimation strategy appeared to be foundational.

However, Chavismo’s regionalist political project never succeeded to fulfill complete regional hegemony, while symptoms of the decline of its discursive narrative and activist solidarity based on the Nuestramerican identity began to strengthen. The end of unlimited resources resulting of the Venezuelan oil crisis, the "identitarian boomerang" from indigenous and other empowered minorities, the emergence of a regionalist fatigue and the return of the neo-liberal appeal, would seem to indicate that this strategy of identity legitimation may have entered a deceleration stage. When Chávez was still alive, symptoms began to appear that the strategy of Chavista legitimization through the political imaginary of transnational solidarity began to suffer setbacks, decelerating so much that many forecasted a collapse. In any case, the struggle over claims to represent the region is still under way.
Does the erosion in the regional appeal of Chavismo as Venezuela entered into deep crisis mean that the transnational dimension of regional mass politics has given way to the pole of more nationalistic and individualistic interests? Our claim, based on the analysis of both the material and symbolic underpinnings of Chavismo, is that two centuries after political independence, transnational themes, grievances and expectations have continued to reverberate in the minds of people, and still play a key role in Latin American politics and international relations. Towards the end of our article, we mention the fabled conspiracy story of URSAL and its impact on the last Brazilian presidential debates and campaign as further proof of the lasting presence of transnationalism in the imagery and (de)legitimation strategies of Latin America.
LARR Article:
How to Cite: Wajner, D. F., & Roniger, L. (2019). Transnational Identity Politics in the Americas: Reshaping “Nuestramérica” as Chavismo’s Regional Legitimation Strategy. Latin American Research Review, 54(2), 458–475. DOI:http://doi.org/10.25222/larr.43