The Hill at the End of the World: Cosmopolitics and State Effects in the Bolivian Amazon

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article compares versions of the Search for the Sacred Hill – a millenarian movement seeking an enchanted terrestrial paradise for indigenous communities in the marshes of North-Eastern Bolivia. Some versions cast the movement as a precursor to real indigenous political action, while others cast it as a trial of faith. I argue that disagreements about the nature of this movement are not errors or distortions. Rather, they enable the production of different effects (different arrangements of bodies and space) depending on the ontological frame of reference through which they are evaluated. This comparison brings together literature on ‘state effects’ (the epistemological tools for managing people and space which place the state in a position of authority) and literature on ‘cosmopolitics’ (the relationships and interconnections between multiple worlds), both of which have at their heart a concern with the relationship between epistemological authority and the arrangement of bodies and space.