Sobre el cañón del Choqueyapu

Abstract

This article proposes a reflection on urban social archeology thhrough the study of the Choqueyapu canyon in the city of La Paz, Bolivia. To this end, it offers a discussion of the characteristics of social archaeology, both in general terms and in its application to the fields of historical archeology and the archeology of the recent past. It then traces the history of the Choqueyapu canyon, defining it as an interstitial space formed during the colonial period as a result of the relationship between the urban nuclei of La Paz and Obrajes, and narrates the efforts made to traverse, tame and deny this space. Later, drawing on the new perspectives offered by La Paz’s urban cable car network, the article exercises a “cable car archeology” to uncover and document the materiality of the marginalized people inhabiting the Choqueyapu canyon. It concludes with a series of reflections on the role of urban social archeology as an antidote to desensitization and the routine naturalization of extreme modern inequalities.