In Search of a New Indigeneity

Abstract

Bolivians are inventing spiritual practices that fit into the current dominant political discourse of decolonization and revalorization of native beliefs by associating these new traditions with archaeological spaces and objects. This new Bolivia is believed to emerge from the ashes of the old economic and social order, which for centuries oppressed and elided native religious practices, and harkens back to precolonial values. Drawing from long-term ethnographic research, media reports, and scholarly works, I aim to examine these new practices to improve our understanding of emerging indigenous identities in this small Andean nation. I discuss two case studies that exemplify how the urban indigenous are rediscovering the power of ancestor veneration and animism in their heritage to construct a new sense of national belonging.