Performing National Culture in a Bolivian Migrant Community

Abstract

Folklorization of traditional Andean culture by a universalizing nation-state appropriates indigenous ceremony for political ends, but at same time creates spaces within which indigenous people can assert their own claims to be true custodians of national cultural patrimony. In a local fiesta modeled on Bolivia's famous Carnaval, residents of one migrant barrio in city of Cochabamba labor to produce a collective identity based on their control of national folklore, in order to enhance legitimacy of their community and to foster integration with Bolivian nation. (Folklore, carnival, state formation, Bolivia) In 1968, Bolivian state nationalized popular culture. In presidential decree number 08396 of that year, military government of General Rene Barrientos Ortuno declared that folkloric music, defined as music produced by peasant groups and folk in general (grupos campesinos y folk en general), was now property of state (Guerra Gutierrez 1990:43). This same decree created a national Department of within Ministry of Education and Culture, specifically to promote cataloging and regulation of Bolivian folklore in its various manifestations. By 1970, government of General Barrientos had been twice replaced (first by that of General Ovando and then by that of General Banzer) (Klein 1992), but state's commitment to ownership and bureaucratization of national folkloric culture remained steadfast. In a decree of 1970, Banzer's government spelled out duties of national Department of and its regional subcommittees, most of which involved compiling registers and inventories of various dances and musics classified by state as folkloric, and promoting and sponsoring folkloric performances. Especially important in this was recognition of and support for annual carnival fiesta, Carnaval de Oruro, now elevated to a national folkloric celebration. In yet another presidential decree of 1970, Bolivian state declared city of Oruro to be Folklore Capital of (Guerra Gutierrez 1990). This series of presidential decrees can be read as part of a strategy by Bolivian state to incorporate popular cultural expressions such as music and dance as components of a national cultural patrimony (c.f. Garcia Canclini 1995). Occurring at a moment in Bolivian history when state stability and legitimacy were in doubt, state's declaration of ownership of all that is culturally produced by its folk represented an attempt to extend national dominion over most public and performative elements of indigenous popular culture, thereby fostering national consolidation and defining Bolivian state itself as legitimate representative of that totality, the natural embodiment of history, territory and society (Cohn and Dirks 1986: 12). Despite many changes that occurred in composition of Bolivian state over next two decades, consequences of this nationalization of popular culture endured. The national significance accorded to Oruro as Capital of Bolivia raised that city's Carnaval to status of national cultural event, and its associated dances, costumes, and musical styles have come to serve as indices of Bolivian nation wherever they are performed. Oruro thus has become a folkloric place within Bolivian national space (c.f. Carter et al. 1993; Gupta and Ferguson 1992), a key site for maintenance of an often fragile Bolivian national identity (Abercrombie 1991). This essay looks at production of a national culture of folklore in Bolivia and at attempts by subordinate groups, specifically urban migrants of Oruro origin, to manipulate discourses of folklore and national culture in contesting state hegemony and their own sociopolitical marginalization within contemporary Bolivian society. It is concerned with ways in which people of Villa Sebastian Pagador, a barrio of Oruro migrants in city of Cochabamba, Bolivia, creatively reappropriate nationalist meaning of folklore to characterize their own expressive culture. …