Cover: © 2019 Gobierno Autónomo Municipal de Cochabamba
IDENTITIES
The 2012 census revealed that 41 percent of Bolivians self-identified as belonging to an indigenous group, a figure that caused controversy and confusion when compared with the 2001 census in which 58 percent of the population identified as such. The figure from the 2012 census was a surprise because the creation of the plurinational state in 2009 and the government’s official recognition of 36 indigenous groups seemed to mark a new beginning where Bolivia embraced its diversity after centuries of colonial domination and assimilation. Reasons for the drop in indigenous self-identification could be attributed to the way the census was framed, the lack of a mestizo category, a resurgence of racism, social changes, or some combination of all of these factors. Indeed, identity is an incredibly complex concept, and a census wouldn’t be able to reflect that accurately – especially in Bolivia, where identities are shifting and are constantly being reinvented and imposed by a dominant group.
The word itself, ‘indigenous’, may seem harmless enough and has been used by the United Nations since the 1970s to help identify and protect the rights of Bolivia’s indigenous peoples. But for Carlos Macusaya, an indianista-katarista thinker and member of the Jiccha collective, the use of the word ‘indigenous’ comes with a price. According to Macusaya, the word represents ‘a colonial category used to name an undifferentiated population subject to colonisation.’ Macusaya also points out that South American countries only started to recognise and adopt indigenous policies in the 1990s, when they started to come with international funding.
If you ask Macusaya, he will say that he is not indigenous; rather, he is Aymara. To him, the indigenous identity is imposed and represents the interests of other groups. Macusaya also considers the notion that in Bolivia everyone is mestizo to be a colonial concept. ‘We must think of a country not of "indigenous" and not of "mestizos", because these are colonial identities with which the population is racialised to justify exclusions,’ he says. ‘It is useless and even dangerous to be trapped in ideas like "all Bolivians are mestizos because there are no pure races," because it is a mixture of something that does not exist: races.’
The current Bolivian Constitution refers to and recognised the rights and autonomy of inhabitants of rural areas as ‘indígenas originarios campesinos’ (native indigenous peasants). For Macusaya, the ‘native indigenous peasants’ evoke people who live in the countryside and are reluctant to change. Meanwhile, mestizos live in the city. The social changes that indigenous groups experience, moving to new economic spaces, are assumed as biological changes (miscegenation) and are read in racialised terms, Macusaya points out.
A census may need to categorise individuals for practical purposes, but one’s identity is personal and even private. Identities shift over time, and they can’t be reduced to one word and can’t be imposed by anyone else. The next Bolivian census will take place in 2021, and its results will surely be analysed and discussed extensively. As the country goes through a period of political and social change while questioning and trying to assess the legacy of Morales’s presidency, maybe it is time to start rethinking and reflecting on these words we take for granted – mestizo, indigenous, native – in order to avoid repeating the failures of history and create a true and durable ‘plurinational’ state.
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RESTAURANT
Description: A social Restaurant that celebrates, values and highlights the products of the bolivian countryside. It is a space that enhances traditional cuisine and transforms local products, valuing the work of the country's farmers and ensuring a healthy and creative proposal for consumers.
Contact: +591 62570000
Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 9:00 to 21:00, Saturday from 11:30 to 15:00
Address: La Paz. Sopocachi, Av. Sanchez Lima #2557
Photo: Manq’a
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BAR
Description: Located in the heart of the vibrant Sopocachi neighborhood, La Obertura is a renewed space that promotes bibliographic and artistic presentations. Within its menu, it has an offer of bolivian cocktails that you can't miss.
Contact: +591 76571859
Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday from 17:00 to 2:00
Address: La Paz. Sopocachi, Pasaje Medinacelli esq. Calle Boyaca #2286
Photo: Centro Cultural La Obertura
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CULTURE
MUSEO DE TEXTILES ANDINOS BOLIVIANOS
Description: MUTAB is an institution dedicated to rescue, preserve, study, research and promote the Bolivian Andean textile art. The space offers an immense learning, which transmits all the wisdom and history of Bolivian Andean communities. Here you can also find a fair trade store where you can buy handmade textiles and handicrafts from the same communities seen in the museum's permanent exhibition.
Opening hours: Monday to Friday from 9:30 to 12:00 and 15:00 to 18:30
Tickets: Bs. 15
Website: www.museodetextiles.org
Address: La Paz. Miraflores, Plaza Benito Juarez 488
Photo: Museo de Textiles Andinos Bolivianos
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SKINCARE
Description: Nanai use organic, non-toxic, plant based oils and butters, hydrosols and essential oils, and extracts. Theyf create bug repellents, deodorants, tooth powders, shampoo bars, sunscreens, and balms to pamper and protect your skin and body.
Opening hours: Monday to Saturday from 15:00 to 19:00
Facebook: @Nanaicosméticaorgánica
Address: Cochabamba. Calle Aniceto Padilla #406
Photo: Bug repellent by Andrea Peralta
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SHOPPING
Description: Proud to promote the transition towards a circular economy, Sara and Andrea created Casamercado in Cochabamba; gathering creators and entrepreneurs under the same roof. There’s coffee in the air, art, design, accessories, health, and natural body care products; creations made in and inspired by Bolivia and the world. Local ingenuity, craftsmanship and raw materials.
Opening hours: Monday to Saturday from 9:30 to 12:45 and 15:00 to 19:00
Address: Cochabamba. Calle Aniceto Padilla #406
Photo: Local products by Andrea Peralta
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CULTURAL CENTER
Description: La Federal is a historical house that was recovered and presented to the public as a collaborative space offering art, culture, conscious consumption and cuisine, knowledge exchange, music and other activities to promote social and environmental education. They have different entrepreneurship projects: Buddha Bowls, Be Coffee, Ganesha, Varieté Espacio and Nómada Urbana.
Opening hours: 8:00 to 23:00
Address: Santa Cruz. Calle Ballivián #66
Photo: La Federal
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COFFEE
Description: Opened in 2015, Café Patrimonio is the first cafeteria of specialty coffee in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. A jewel only a half block from the Cathedral offers a very rich experience both sensory and cultural, since it exhibits works of art around the iconic house of Melchor Pinto.
Address: Santa Cruz. Calle Sucre #50
Contact: +591 70007000
Opening hours: 8:00 to 00:00
Photo: Café Patrimonio
Photo: Anneli Aliaga
How a small group of Aymara academics managed to take Bolivia’s social-media outlets by storm
For many years, Bolivia’s academic content and political proposals were exclusively broadcast from and to an elite social sector. Wilmer Machaca, Carlos Macusaya, Iván Apaza Calle and Franco Limber, all academics from El Alto in their own right, decided it was time for things to change. They are managing to dispel the idea that Bolivian popular sectors have no academic agency and potential. Inspired by the word for ‘now’ or ‘the present’ in Aymara, Machaca created Jiccha in 2017 as a personal online blog. Two years later, the blog became a portal and Machaca teamed up with Macusaya, Apaza Calle and Limber to create a group with various social-media platforms such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter. Now consisting of an official team of 12 members, Jiccha is a cultural and political platform that supports, produces and broadcasts academic content in the field of indigenous studies and the indianista and katarista political ideologies to an international and national following of over 15,000 people.
Both Macusaya and Machaca describe how there are no hierarchies in Jiccha. All of the founding members equally distribute the workload and are all active in terms of producing and broadcasting content. They manage this system easily due to the fact that they consider themselves experts in separate fields: Apaza Calle studies indigenista and indianista literature; Macusaya is interested in themes relating to indigenous identity; Machaca delves into technology and politics; and, finally, Limber writes about history. ‘We all complement each other in many ways,’ chuckles Machaca, but he admits that the theme of colonisation and political ideologies are common ground for them all.
Jiccha channels the majority of its activism through its online portal (jichha.blogspot.com) and its Facebook page. On these two platforms, Jiccha has been known to share downloadable content of complete works, such as academic articles and books, that would otherwise be inaccessible to aspiring young academics from the popular sectors who have neither the means nor the money to afford some of these texts. The team also has their own Youtube channel where they frequently upload radio shows on which they have been invited to speak thanks to their online visibility, interviews, documentaries and news clips relating to their objectives and interests. Additionally, they use their Twitter account to discuss current affairs despite Machaca’s explanations that ‘Twitter in Bolivia is seen as a social-media platform that is primarily associated with Bolivia’s middle-class social strata, or verified politicians and figures.’ Jiccha, on the other hand, is mainly focused on creating an academic environment for the popular sectors. While the group’s Facebook page has attracted followers from all over the world, Machaca admits that its Youtube channel has more of a militant political following of kataristas, a stem of the indianismo ideology which is definitely more rooted in the Bolivian Aymara imaginary.
Machaca explains that their principal objectives include ‘generating reflection, thought and promoting new proposals for societal change.’
The group’s philosophy revolves around producing and sharing content that allows them to give their political views more scope. Machaca explains that their principal objectives include ‘generating reflection, thought and promoting new proposals for societal change.’ Macusaya adds that, for him, Jiccha’s most important and overarching group aim is ‘to improve the image of the indigenous figure in the public eye: be it through the exploration of Bolivia’s rural identity, denouncing the political marginalisation of the autochthonous populations or condemning the folklorisation of Quechua-Aymara culture.’
The political currents that are supported and promoted by Jiccha include indianismo and katarismo. These two ideologies are often clumped together, and they certainly share many characteristics. Yet Machaca takes his time in distinguishing one from the other. While both of these movements were born from Quechua-Aymara Andean disatisfaction, ‘indianismo represents a more radical anticolonial stance on an international level,’ Machaca says. ‘The suffering, racism and discrimination that rural indigenous migrants had to face in the city pushed these sectors to create a political movement to defend their rights.’ The realities that these migrants had to face on a daily basis, in terms of discrimination at work and being denied public services, were brand-new preoccupations; indianismo was a form of fighting against systemic, colonial and hegemonic violence and oppression. ‘Katarismo was followed years later,’ Machaca comments. The katarista ideology emerged in the 1970s and was primarily formed by rural syndicates that proposed a new process of decolonisation that would have to come from within society. Decolonising Bolivian school’s curriculum and Bolivia’s dominant culture, and challenging political representation, were all principal objectives that spurred the movement. These battles for Aymara equality and emancipation are not over for the popular sectors of modern-day Bolivia. Jiccha forms an integral part of this struggle, using books, intellect and digital platforms as sources of political empowerment.
A female Andean Condor sweeps over herterritory in search of food, using warm aircurrents to save energy.
Photos: Lauren Minion
This big bird is threatened by habitat loss and human aggression
The Andean Condor, one of the world’s largest birds that are able to fly, weighs up to 33 kilogrammes and has a wingspan that can exceed three metres. The Andes mountain range of South America is the condor’s exclusive habitat. The bird not only wows people with its grace and size, but also with its historical significance. All of this has contributed to the Andean condor’s status as a national symbol of Bolivia, and thus its appearance on the country’s tricolor flag.
In Incan mythology, the condor signified the upper world, or the sky; furthermore, it also signified power and health. Julia Peña, a co-founder of the Valle de los Condores tour company and conservation project near Tarija, says that many Andean indigenous groups believed that the Andean Condor cleaned the air and the human soul. This mythological task makes sense, as the condor is a scavenging vulture that feeds on dead animals, cleaning its territory of carcasses that otherwise would rot and pollute the surroundings.
The Andean Condor soars up to altitudes of 5,000 metres to scout for food, relying on thermal air currents that it uses to propel itself with its fully expanded wings. Considering its weight, this is vital for the Andean condor’s survival, as the warm air enables it to ascend without wasting much energy. However, this reliance on hot air currents within the mountain ranges can also inhibit the condor’s flight during the rainy season from November through March. Once its feathers are wet, it is considerably weighed down, which can interfere with the bird’s stamina, directional skills and flight control, leaving it unable to navigate the skies in search of food. Many condors do not survive the rainy season.
This big bird isthreatened byhabitat loss andhuman aggression.
Steep cliff and rock faces make the perfect placefor a Condor to build its nest, using rocks toprotect themselves from the elements, the sheerdrops and high altitude ensures that predatorscannot get near.
Condors are also threatened by rural farmers. Although the condor will prey on any deceased cattle or sheep, it will never attack a live animal. But some farmers still consider the bird to be a threat to their livestock, and they will use poison to kill the condors – not realising that the iconic birds are no threat to their farm animals at all. Peña says that due to this and other factors, such as loss of habitat, the breathtaking species is under threat of extinction.
Because the condor was a relatively hardy species in the past, before widespread human encroachment and persecution against it, it had a low mortality rate and a concomitant low reproductive rate. It is more difficult than ever for condor mates to find each other, and because the female condor lays only one egg every two years, the species cannot replace its depleted population. During infancy, both the mother and the father condor mind their young, feeding it by regurgitating food that they have consumed in a liquid form so that the chick can consume it. The young bird stays in a nest that its parents have made out of rocks, which provides protection against the elements. These rock nests are located at extremely high altitudes, sometimes on cliff edges.
According to Peña, although there are very effective conservation and reproduction projects for the Andean Condor in Colombia and Argentina, Bolivia lacks such efforts. There is a condor conservation site in Andean foothills of the western region of the Santa Cruz department, but it is not aimed towards increasing numbers in the wild. Its staff rescues condors that have been poisoned by farmers, but the birds are kept in captivity after their treatment. Though this conservation has the condors’ welfare in mind, any chicks born here do not have the chance to fly as they should, and the birds are susceptible to many diseases that are carried by humans. It is for this reason that Peña expresses the need for more educational projects about the species so that people can learn about its habits and especially about its harmlessness to livestock in the area.
