Cover: Jaime Cuellar Imaña @jcuellar18 

COMMUNITIES 

The Amazon fires destroyed over 4.2 million acres (1.7 million hectares) of Bolivian rainforest since 15 August. This number doesn’t take into account the fires in Brazil and Paraguay and what is still burning today. Man-made catastrophes such as these make us reflect on ourselves, on our individual lifestyle choices and on how we stand as a species. But ultimately, it makes us react as a whole, as a community; it reminds us that we are all connected and that this connection can be felt from across continents. 

This issue focuses on communities, groups of people bound by common attitudes, interests, and goals: family, neighbours, friends, members of a political party, vegans and more. Our community helps us survive and gives us a sense of belonging and identity, but the nation-state is in decline, religions are losing their appeal and, filling that void, new global communities have arisen: digital worlds, chosen ideologies, foreign cultures. 

To illustrate this, in the most remote corners of the Bolivian countryside one can find images of Korean pop stars on the notebooks of children who can reproduce choreographies and sing along to Korean pop songs. This may be a symptom of Bolivia suffering from the same disenchantment with authority figures as the rest of the world, but it mostly means that Bolivia is very much a part of the global community.

Veganism is another trend that has reached Bolivia. Perhaps veganism is more than a simple fad, as it operates as a secular religion by promoting a way of life and philosophy. The popularity of plant-based food in La Paz is not just a phase; the movement – and similar conscious-food initiatives – was able to establish itself because of how well it fits in with the local understanding of the world. We may be witnessing a new type of syncretism taking place in which the local and the global intertwine to create something new.

If Bolivia is part of a global community, family remains the chore of the Bolivian identity. The family unit is what defines and forges us. But it doesn’t have to be the only community we belong to. Now one’s community is not just immediate family and neighbours; our community is where we want it to be with the people we choose to be around.