English + EspañolOn the usually sleepy day after Christmas, on December 26, 2010, Bolivia was awakened with a jolt: the Bolivian government had just decreed a huge increase in the price of combustible fuels. The country exploded in a series of popular protests. A week later, the government revoked the measure. Nevertheless, the price of food and transportation continue to spiral upwards. …
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English + EspañolResearchers interested in investigating the history and anthropology of Bolivia’s eastern region will find two documentation centers in Santa Cruz de la Sierra: the Museo de Historia y Archivo Histórico of Universidad Autónoma Gabriel René Moreno (the History Museum and Archives of the Gabriel René Moreno University and the Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado (Historic Archives of the Archbishopric). …
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Less than a decade ago, few people outside of Bolivia could name its president. Today, Evo Morales is not only a global figure; he is an icon for critics of globalization. During the peak of neoliberalism at the end of …
English + EspañolWhen I passed through El Alto de La Paz for the first time in 1954, I didn’t even notice. The city—just a few minutes outside of La Paz—consisted of just a few little houses and market stalls at the end of the immense altiplano. La Ceja (the “eyebrow”), reaching some 13,500 feet into the air, suddenly tumbles down toward the river and the city of La Paz, about a thousand feet lower, as if it were …
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English + EspañolIt’s worth a Potosí—an idiom that uses the name of Bolivia’s famous colonial silver mining town as a way of saying “it’s worth a fortune”—is closely identified with the country’s past and its economic history. We Bolivians have always depended on some natural resource or other. The first was silver from the highlands of Potosí, then tin and now natural gas. …
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