As we explore Bolivia, we use words and labels to understand the people and landscapes we encounter. We use them as tools to quickly communicate ideas and experiences with people around us. Similarly, companies and organizations manufacture logos to visually represent what they are about; they use images, colors and symbols to transmit their brand essence in the blink of an eye. Even the food we buy increasingly comes with labels which summarize their contents, sources, nutritional benefits and prices. These representations speak to us, and provide instant information we use to make assumptions about who and what we are engaged with.
Social theorist Stuart Hall has written extensively on the idea of representation, which he defines in the simplest terms as ‘using language to say something meaningful about, or to represent, the world meaningfully, to other people.’ He also points out that when we identify people or things through language, we are exercising power.
In this process, culture is key. Labels do not stand alone. They are loaded with meanings defined as much by the intentions of those who create them, as by those who interpret them. And this is what makes them powerful.
In this issue of Bolivian Express, we take a look at the idea of ‘Labels’, and how they shape our understanding of how we see the world. We wrote about some of the labels we frequently see and hear about in Bolivia, and try to dig under the simplest definitions to gain a broader understanding of what they mean. We share stories behind the labels we see every day: who is identified by what labels? Who creates them, why and how? Our writers, acted on the belief that by not accepting labels at face value, we can gain a deeper and closer understanding of people and the forces that drive everyday life.
We wrote about some of the ways in which we label people to make a quick reference point – by calling someone a an orphan, an elderly person, a mother. We looked at stereotypes of being from the country and the city, and of being a gringo. And we dug below the labels that come at us every day, from corporate logos and food packaging to the destinations displayed on La Paz’s minibuses. These labels are all around us and in Bolivia, we found, they can have some very interesting and important origins and meanings.
The process of understanding our environment beyond labels can be difficult as we challenge prejudices and assumptions within ourselves. But it can also be fun to play with the novelty, to take these labels to extremes and see how absurd they can often be. But most importantly, the process can be enriching, as we offer ourselves an opportunity to see the people and the world around us in more complex, beautiful ways.
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Rural Migrants in Urban Bolivia
Adjacent to La Paz sits the sprawling urban mass of El Alto, a city whose existence centres on the movement of Bolivians from urban to rural areas. Since the National Revolution of 1952, internal migrants in Bolivia have travelled to urban areas seeking work, financial gain and better education. And looking at El Alto’s ever-expanding waistline, little has changed today.
Author and social communicator Adriana Murillo describes the impact of this movement from country to town. She talks about previously unseen behaviors such as people sleeping and eating in plazas, and how they’re now common in the city. On a greater scale, she describes how migrants have brought a stronger sense of community to urban areas. ‘In the city, you’re not really interested in what happens to your neighbour,’ Murillo explains. ‘But it’s different in the country. You work as a unit. In other words, your neighbour is important because they affect the community.’
This community spirit is evident in organisations known as juntas vecinales, or neighbourhood committees. A model that began in rural areas and spread to the city, the juntas play a key role in representing each district’s inhabitants and communicating their specific needs to the government.
Yet often the simple move to an urban area poses a danger. Murillo believes that people living in the country can be tempted by the prospect of work in the city or other countries, and instead trafficked for forced labour or sex. ‘I think it’s a problem that we’re just recently starting to analyse,’ Murillo says. In 2012, the government enacted a law prohibiting all forms of trafficking with penalties of 10 to 15 years’ imprisonment. However, in the countryside the issue is particularly difficult to fight. ‘In a very isolated area, no one realises what's going on,’ Murillo explains, although ‘people are starting to be more vigilant about it, little by little.’
Even migrants safely arrived in the city can also be subject to discrimination. Many girls migrate to become domestic workers at the ages of 14 or 15. In 2011, the Bolivian government ratified the International Labour Organization’s Domestic Workers Convention of 2011, which seeks to guarantee domestic workers basic rights and certain levels of living and working conditions. But many, particularly the young, remain unaware of their rights. This allows some employers to force them to work full time rather than receive an education. Thus, though many families send their children to the cities for a better education, these children often end up slipping through the cracks, instead becoming part of a cycle of poverty.
Nonetheless, much has changed for Bolivia’s rural migrants. In the past, the stigma against indigenous people and their native Quechua, Aymara and other languages meant that many parents sent their children to the city to learn Spanish. Nowadays, particularly with the indigenismo of Bolivia’s Aymaran President Evo Morales, people from the country feel pride rather than shame in their native languages – they migrate not out of social pressure, but rather in search of better economic and educational prospects.
At the same time, workers’ unions and recently passed laws continue to improve the rights of rural migrants. Likewise, Murillo believes that nowadays people are more readily suspicious of working in the city, as well as more easily able to empower themselves in negative situations.
Whether or not those from the country really do find better lives in the city, they will never stop moving to urban areas in search of better opportunities, bringing their rural traditions and culture with them. And whilst they continue to do so, the city of El Alto will continue to grow.
Country Quirks
Andean Mysticism
Within Andean cosmology, every object, whether manmade or natural, is believed to have a energy. If a 5 boliviano coin is spotted on the floor, many believe that the money is there for a reason and shouldn’t be touched.
Community Justice
In isolated areas la justicia comunitaria – community justice – occurs when a community enforces its own justice independent of local police or courts. This justice can often be severe, with communities having been known to lynch the perpetrators of crimes as minor as robbery.
Pachamama
Widespread throughout all of Bolivia, the belief in the indigenous earth mother is particularly strong in the countryside. Pachamama gives everything – work, love, family – so giving back to her is important. If something is accidentally spilt and lost on the ground, that person can at least be safe in the knowledge that it has gone to Pachamama.
Public Notice: Rubbish Kills. The Pope Is the Antichrist. Evo 2015. What do these three statements have in common? They are all found written on the walls of La Paz – a city whose graffiti stands out not only for its ubiquity, but also its great diversity.
La Paz seems to welcome street art – in 2012, artists from all over Latin America were invited to come and paint 16 murals on the theme of ‘Myths of Mother Earth.’ Yet above, alongside and sometimes on top of brightly coloured commissioned pieces, spreads a tangle of everything from tags to political slogans to personal confessions of love. And the hazy legality of painting on someone else’s property, whether public or private, often hides both the artists and the artistic process from the public eye. So who’s really behind the paint on La Paz’s walls?
El Marsh is the pseudonym of a street artist living in La Paz who paints murals and graffiti across the city and the rest of Bolivia. Unlike in much of Europe and the United States, he explains, in Latin America the government pays little attention to the already vague laws concerning illicit graffiti, due to more pressing social and economic problems.The result is a city in which blank walls are a rarity. ‘There are walls of houses that are so graffitied on that the owners no longer mind; they have lost the perception that this is their wall,’ El Marsh says. Not that the owners of houses have much choice in the matter; a fresh coat of paint will disguise all but the faintest shadows of just-covered graffiti, right up until a new mark is made the next day.
As El Marsh puts it, this invasion of space gives rise to a public forum for dialogue and freedom of expression. Political groups such as Mujeres Creando, an anarchist feminist group supporting the liberation and autonomy of women, write quotes on the wall in curly script such as “nor the earth nor women are territories to conquer”. At the same time, the names of political figures stretch wide across walls in block capitals.The large quantity of affirmations of political support around the city might make it seem that the ordinary people of La Paz are very engaged politically, yet El Marsh explained that groups affiliated with political parties are often paid to promote the names and messages of politicians.
But what about the most common marks on the city’s walls? Tags are ubiquitous not only in La Paz but in urban spaces around the world. El Marsh himself has his own tag – a pointy-nosed boy wearing a chullo – that has made its way to the streets of La Paz, Cochabamba, Potosí and even onto the bottom of local skateboards. According to El Marsh, the taggers of La Paz are mainly young people struggling to establish their identities, particularly those who have very little. He compares a young person tagging a wall to taking up smoking, stating, ‘It’s something where you can say, “This is mine.”’
Some might think that tagging or any other form of graffiti on someone else’s property is simple vandalism, far different from the polished murals that adorn La Paz’s nurseries and public parks. But in many ways the scrawling words and pictures that cover the walls of the city, like El Marsh’s small Andean boy, are far more important than any slick piece of street art: for many, a small spot on a wall is one of the only spaces they can truly occupy.
The Vendors of La Paz’s Grand Market
A Photoessay by Anna Bellettato
Every day at Mercado Rodriguez – the biggest food market in La Paz – human activity runs smoothly and frenetically from dawn to sunset.
In the midst of the chaotic streets that comprise the market, only a stranger to the place is frozen still while everything around flows. Is their immobility caused by the surprise of the overwhelming and magnificent atmosphere of colours, noise and thousands of different smells that explodes around them? Or is it the feeling of not knowing where to begin, given that products here have no labels? No tag or marker distinguishes one kind of potato from the hundreds of others on offer, nor are there prices written on the ripe and inviting fruits.
Only without labels on goods is it possible to really interact with the caseritas, going beyond the mere economic mechanism of markets. From a simple glance at the caseritas, one can see the important role they play at Mercado Rodriguez. They sit solemnly on each corner of the street in their regular spots, surrounded and almost protected by their piles of produce whilst keeping a vigil eye over the constant stream of people. Sometimes they doze off or occupy themselves with a snack, but this does not mean that they will fail to detect a customer arriving.
At Mercado Rodriguez there are no labels, but one can certainly learn some names.
Beatriz, a matronly woman who kindly allowed me to admire her composure and hard work, smiled at my camera and laughed out loud.
Graciela, a vendor and a mother, posed excitedly with her son, Juan Gabriel. This child, with his dry cheeks and black smiley eyes, thought my camera would become his once he could see himself on its screen.
Lidia, a delightful person to talk to, was very proud of her zapallos and fresh ajíes. She wanted to know where I was from and why I was at the market that day.
Juana sold delicious tomatoes from the Yungas, along with red and yellow ajíes, in addition to lentils, rice and tuntas. When asked how she determined the price of a particular product, she made clear that she does not have any decisional role, but simply sells what she buys from the producers. She blessed me and reminded me to pray to her God.
Mercado Rodriguez is located on Calle Rodriguez near the corner of Avenida Llampu in the San Pedro neighbourhood, open from 5 am to 9 pm.
