The intrusive<i>k'isa</i>: Bolivian struggles over colour patterns and their social implications

Abstract

This essay explores the relationships between technical practices, philosophical ideas and cultures, from the perspective of ideas about colour use in Andean textiles. It proposes that Andean theories of colour, as in Europe, are closely bound to developments in the production of colour. This implies that culturally held colour theories change with the movement of ideas across geographical and political frontiers, as part of the cultural reflections that accompany the interchange and commerce of artifacts (woven and others). We examine the current insistence in the region of ignoring the impact of global influences on local productive practices, and the paradoxical situations that result, when the origins of new productive tendencies become confused with regional phenomena. We also consider the attempts to integrate these external influences into political posture that seek to reinvent regional traditions, arguing that this disguises the possible negative effects of a greater integration of populations into wider economic networks, while effacing the role of regional social actors in technological developments. As a case study we take the k'isa, a pattern of colouring whose use has come to express visually and politically the power of the indigenous movement, above all of Aymara-speaking peoples, in spite of its origins elsewhere.