Los pasados frente al patrimonio. Arqueología durante los primeros años del Estado Plurinacional boliviano (2006-2019)

Abstract

The answer to the question, heritage for whom? is usually held by States through the epistemically violent insertion of scientific-bureaucratic protocols, thought to be the only ones capable of “recognizing” heritage qualities, which replace local ways of experiencing the past. The Bolivian plurinational State, which seems to promote the decentralization of heritage management and protect local knowledge and worldviews, is no exception. This paper reviews the development of regulations linked to heritage and archaeological work during the Republic of Bolivia (1825-2006). Subsequently, we delve into the development of regulations and carry out statistical reviews on the processes of patrimonialization and issuance of authorizations for archaeological work in plurinational years to observe that the plurinational State increased its control over archaeological heritage through centralizing regulations and the notable increase in Environmental Impact Studies (EIA) to execute large extractive projects and, collaterally, heritage tourism. These activities require maintaining vertical practices that reduce the past to “heritages” reified for consumption. Next, based on some cases of ethnographic ethnography, it is suggested that many local Bolivian communities have vibrant ways of relating and constructing the past, which can oscillate with commercialized relationships such as those of community tourism. Thus, if there are possibilities for a radical transformation of heritage in Bolivia, these do not reside in the State or archaeologists but in the communities, which also do not respond to academic expectations of polarization between the indigenous and the commercial.