Complicating the Local: Defining the Aymara at Tiwanaku, Bolivia

The archaeological site of Tiwanaku, Bolivia, is commonly held to be the "Spiritual Capital of the Aymara People." But negotiating who qualifies as Aymara, and in what contexts, is decidedly more complicated. Local political divisions between residents of the village of Tiahuanacu (who are seen locally as less-Aymara but not as not-Aymara) and residents of the surrounding rural communities (who are considered to be unquestionably Aymara) structure discussions about who has the right to earn income at the Tiwanaku archaeological site, who manages major public events, and who is responsible for the site's maintenance and security. The situation is complicated further by national-level events such as the Winter Solstice, where urban Aymara travel to Tiwanaku to seek their roots, and Bolivian Presidents and politicians come to participate in national Aymara "culture." I focus on the intervencin ("Intervention") that took place in Tiahuanacu in August 2000, which resulted in the transfer of management of the Tiwanaku archaeological site from the Bolivian state to local municipal and indigenous authorities. Heritage researchers should take such local divisions into account, rather than assuming that "locals" are politically unified or easily delineated by geographical boundaries.

Can Andean medicine coexist with biomedical healthcare? A comparison of two rural communities in Peru and Bolivia

Background It is commonly assumed that indigenous medical systems remain strong in developing countries because biomedicine is physically inaccessible or financially not affordable. This paper compares the health-seeking behavior of households from rural Andean communities at a Peruvian and a Bolivian study site. The main research question was whether the increased presence of biomedicine led to a displacement of Andean indigenous medical practices or to coexistence of the two healing traditions. Methodology Open-ended interviews and free listing exercises were conducted between June 2006 and December 2008 with 18 households at each study site. Qualitative identification of households’ therapeutic strategies and use of remedies was carried out by means of content analysis of interview transcriptions and inductive interference. Furthermore, a quantitative assessment of the incidence of culture-bound illnesses in local ethnobiological inventories was performed. Results Our findings indicate that the health-seeking behavior of the Andean households in this study is independent of the degree of availability of biomedical facilities in terms of quality of services provided, physical accessibility, and financial affordability, except for specific practices such as childbirth. Preference for natural remedies over pharmaceuticals coexists with biomedical healthcare that is both accessible and affordable. Furthermore, our results show that greater access to biomedicine does not lead to less prevalence of Andean indigenous medical knowledge, as represented by the levels of knowledge about culture-bound illnesses. Conclusions The take-home lesson for health policy-makers from this study is that the main obstacle to use of biomedicine in resource-poor rural areas might not be infrastructural or economic alone. Rather, it may lie in lack of sufficient recognition by biomedical practitioners of the value and importance of indigenous medical systems. We propose that the implementation of health care in indigenous communities be designed as a process of joint development of complementary knowledge and practices from indigenous and biomedical health traditions.

Promoting the Diversity of Worldviews

In this paper, for the case of a Bolivian community, we show some of the limitations of the dominant ethnolinguistic approaches to explain the correlations between cultural and biological diversity, namely in the role that local cultures can play to maintain and enhance biodiversity. Without questioning the ethical imperative of conserving the world languages as part of the diversity of life, along with the cultural and biological diversity, we propose a shift to an ontological approach for a more comprehensive understanding of the links between these different kinds of diversities.

Clean water in the classroom : understanding the importance of water quality

This study’s objective was to answer three research questions related to students’ knowledge and attitudes about water quality and availability issues. It is important to understand what knowledge students have about environmental problems such as these, because today’s students will become the problem solvers of the future. If environmental problems, such as those related to water quality, are ever going to be solved, students must be environmentally literate. Several methods of data collection were used. Surveys were given to both Bolivian and Jackson High School students in order to comparison their initial knowledge and attitudes about water quality issues. To study the effects of instruction, a unit of instruction about water quality issues was then taught to the Jackson High School students to see what impact it would have on their knowledge. In addition, the learning of two different groups of Jackson High School students was compared—one group of general education students and a second group of students that were learning in an inclusion classroom and included special education students and struggling learners form the general education population. Student and teacher journals, a unit test, and postsurvey responses were included in the data set. Results suggested that when comparing Bolivian students and Jackson High School students, Jackson High School students were more knowledgeable concerning clean water infrastructure and its importance, despite the fact that these issues were less relevant to their lives than for their Bolivian counterparts. Although overall, the data suggested that all the Jackson High students showed evidence that the instruction impacted their knowledge, the advanced Biology students appeared to show stronger gains than their peers in an inclusion classroom.

Transformation of local medicinal knowledge in the Andean Highlands: Case studies from Peru and Bolivia

In the Andean highlands, indigenous environmental knowledge is currently undergoing major changes as a result of various external and internal factors. As in other parts of the world, an overall process of erosion of local knowledge can be observed. In response to this trend, some initiatives that adopt a biocultural approach aim at actively strengthening local identities and revalorizing indigenous environmental knowledge and practices, assuming that such practices can contribute to more sustainable management of biodiversity. However, these initiatives usually lack a sound research basis, as few studies have focused on the dynamics of indigenous environmental knowledge in the Andes and on its links with biodiversity management. Against this background, the general objective of this research project was to contribute to the understanding of the dynamics of indigenous environmental knowledge in the Andean highlands of Peru and Bolivia by investigating how local medicinal knowledge is socially differentiated within rural communities, how it is transformed, and which external and internal factors influence these transformation processes. The project adopted an actor-oriented perspective and emphasized the concept of knowledge dialogue by analyzing the integration of traditional and formal medicinal systems within family therapeutic strategies. It also aimed at grasping some of the links between the dynamics of medicinal knowledge and the types of land use systems and biodiversity management. Research was conducted in two case study areas of the Andes, both Quechua-speaking and situated in comparable agro-ecological production belts - Pitumarca District, Department of Cusco (Southern Peruvian Highlands) and the Tunari National Park, Department of Cochabamba (Bolivian inner-Andean valleys). In each case study area, the land use systems and strategies of 18 families from two rural communities, their environmental knowledge related to medicine and to the local therapeutic flora, and an appreciation of the dynamics of this knowledge were assessed. Data were collected through a combination of disciplinary and participatory action-research methods. It was mostly analyzed using qualitative methods, though some quantitative ethnobotanical methods were also used. In both case studies, traditional medicine still constitutes the preferred option for the families interviewed, independently of their age, education level, economic status, religion, or migration status. Surprisingly and contrary to general assertions among local NGOs and researchers, results show that there is a revival of Andean medicine within the younger generation, who have greater knowledge of medicinal plants than the previous one, value this knowledge as an important element of their way of life and relationship with “Mother Earth” (Pachamama), and, at least in the Bolivian case, prefer to consult the traditional healer rather than go to the health post. Migration to the urban centres and the Amazon lowlands, commonly thought to be an important factor of local medicinal knowledge loss, only affects people’s knowledge in the case of families who migrate over half of the year or permanently. Migration does not influence the knowledge of medicinal plants or the therapeutic strategies of families who migrate temporarily for shorter periods of time. Finally, economic status influences neither the status of people’s medicinal knowledge, nor families’ therapeutic strategies, even though the financial factor is often mentioned by practitioners and local people as the main reason for not using the formal health system. The influence of the formal health system on traditional medicinal knowledge varies in each case study area. In the Bolivian case, where it was only introduced in the 1990s and access to it is still very limited, the main impact was to give local communities access to contraceptive methods and to vaccination. In the Peruvian case, the formal system had a much greater impact on families’ health practices, due to local and national policies that, for instance, practically prohibit some traditional practices such as home birth. But in both cases, biomedicine is not considered capable of responding to cultural illnesses such as “fear” (susto), “bad air” (malviento), or “anger” (colerina). As a consequence, Andean farmers integrate the traditional medicinal system and the formal one within their multiple therapeutic strategies, reflecting an inter-ontological dialogue between different conceptions of health and illness. These findings reflect a more general trend in the Andes, where indigenous communities are currently actively revalorizing their knowledge and taking up traditional practices, thus strengthening their indigenous collective identities in a process of cultural resistance.

Human-environment interactions in pre-Columbian Amazonia: The case of the Llanos de Moxos, Bolivia

The reconstruction of past environmental and historical events is much needed in Amazonia, a region at the centre of heated debates about the extent of pre-Columbian human disturbance of the natural ecosystems. Important aspects of this debate are to establish to what extent the rise of social complexity was influenced by the local geo-ecology; and what productive strategies were adopted in order to sustain these societies. The Llanos de Moxos (LM), in the Bolivian Amazon, is a vast floodplain made up of a variety of geo-ecological sub regions that host many different types of pre-Columbian earthworks. Therefore, it offers an excellent opportunity to compare different kinds of archaeological landscapes and their relationship to different pre-Columbian cultures and environmental settings. This paper analyses the links between pre-Columbian earthworks and the local geo-ecology in two regions of the LM: 1) the platform field region (PFR) in the north of Santa Ana de Yacuma, where the highest concentration of raised fields has been documented, and 2) the monumental mounds region (MMR) south and east of Trinidad, where >100 pre-Columbian monumental mounds are found. The study draws from remote sensing and GIS analysis, field work in the Bolivian lowlands, and laboratory analysis. Differences in the way people transformed the landscape in the PFR and MMR seem to respond to differences in the local geo-ecology of the two sites. The results also suggest that environmental conditions exerted an important, though not exclusive, control over the levels of social complexity that were reached in different areas of the LM.

Early and Middle Holocene Hunter-Gatherer Occupations in Western Amazonia: The Hidden Shell Middens

We report on previously unknown early archaeological sites in the Bolivian lowlands, demonstrating for the first time early and middle Holocene human presence in western Amazonia. Multidisciplinary research in forest islands situated in seasonally-inundated savannahs has revealed stratified shell middens produced by human foragers as early as 10,000 years ago, making them the oldest archaeological sites in the region. The absence of stone resources and partial burial by recent alluvial sediments has meant that these kinds of deposits have, until now, remained unidentified. We conducted core sampling, archaeological excavations and an interdisciplinary study of the stratigraphy and recovered materials from three shell midden mounds. Based on multiple lines of evidence, including radiocarbon dating, sedimentary proxies (elements, steroids and black carbon), micromorphology and faunal analysis, we demonstrate the anthropogenic origin and antiquity of these sites. In a tropical and geomorphologically active landscape often considered challenging both for early human occupation and for the preservation of hunter-gatherer sites, the newly discovered shell middens provide evidence for early to middle Holocene occupation and illustrate the potential for identifying and interpreting early open-air archaeological sites in western Amazonia. The existence of early hunter-gatherer sites in the Bolivian lowlands sheds new light on the region’s past and offers a new context within which the late Holocene “Earthmovers” of the Llanos de Moxos could have emerged.

Knowledge and valuation of Andean agroforestry species: the role of sex, age, and migration among members of a rural community in Bolivia

Background Agroforestry is a sustainable land use method with a long tradition in the Bolivian Andes. A better understanding of people’s knowledge and valuation of woody species can help to adjust actor-oriented agroforestry systems. In this case study, carried out in a peasant community of the Bolivian Andes, we aimed at calculating the cultural importance of selected agroforestry species, and at analysing the intracultural variation in the cultural importance and knowledge of plants according to peasants’ sex, age, and migration. Methods Data collection was based on semi-structured interviews and freelisting exercises. Two ethnobotanical indices (Composite Salience, Cultural Importance) were used for calculating the cultural importance of plants. Intracultural variation in the cultural importance and knowledge of plants was detected by using linear and generalised linear (mixed) models. Results and discussion The culturally most important woody species were mainly trees and exotic species (e.g. Schinus molle, Prosopis laevigata, Eucalyptus globulus). We found that knowledge and valuation of plants increased with age but that they were lower for migrants; sex, by contrast, played a minor role. The age effects possibly result from decreasing ecological apparency of valuable native species, and their substitution by exotic marketable trees, loss of traditional plant uses or the use of other materials (e.g. plastic) instead of wood. Decreasing dedication to traditional farming may have led to successive abandonment of traditional tool uses, and the overall transformation of woody plant use is possibly related to diminishing medicinal knowledge. Conclusions Age and migration affect how people value woody species and what they know about their uses. For this reason, we recommend paying particular attention to the potential of native species, which could open promising perspectives especially for the young migrating peasant generation and draw their interest in agroforestry. These native species should be ecologically sound and selected on their potential to provide subsistence and promising commercial uses. In addition to offering socio-economic and environmental services, agroforestry initiatives using native trees and shrubs can play a crucial role in recovering elements of the lost ancient landscape that still forms part of local people’s collective identity.

Assessing sustainable forest management under REDD+: a community-based labour perspective

Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plus (REDD+) encourages economic support for reducing deforestation and conserving or increasing existing forest carbon stocks. The way in which incentives are structured affects trade-offs between local livelihoods, carbon emission reduction, and the cost-effectiveness of a REDD + programme. Looking at first-hand empirical data from 208 farming households in the Bolivian Amazon froma household economy perspective, our study explores two policy options: 1) compensated reduction of emissions fromold-growth forest clearing for agriculture, and 2) direct payments for labour input into sustainable forest anagement combined with a commitment not to clear old-growth forest. Our results indicate that direct payments for sustainable forest management – an approach that focuses on valuing farmers' labour input – can be more cost-effective than compensated reduction and in some cases is themost appropriate choice for achieving improved household incomes, permanence of changes, avoidance of leakages, and community-based institutional enforcement for sustainable forest management.

Quantitative morphometric analysis of lakes using GIS: rectangularity R , ellipticity E , orientation O , and the rectangularity vs. ellipticity index, REi

Quantitative measures of polygon shapes and orientation are important elements of geospatial analysis. These kinds of measures are particularly valuable in the case of lakes, where shape and orientation patterns can help identifying the geomorphological agents behind lake formation and evolution. However, the lack of built-in tools in commercial geographic information system (GIS) software packages designed for this kind of analysis has meant that many researchers often must rely on tools and workarounds that are not always accurate. Here, an easy-to-use method to measure rectangularity R, ellipticity E, and orientation O is developed. In addition, a new rectangularity vs. ellipticity index, REi, is defined. Following a step-by-step process, it is shown how these measures and index can be easily calculated using a combination of GIS built-in functions. The identification of shapes and estimation of orientations performed by this method is applied to the case study of the geometric and oriented lakes of the Llanos de Moxos, in the Bolivian Amazon, where shape and orientation have been the two most important elements studied to infer possible formation mechanisms. It is shown that, thanks to these new indexes, shape and orientation patterns are unveiled, which would have been hard to identify otherwise.

Pb pollution from leaded gasoline in South America in the context of a 2000-year metallurgical history

Exploitation of the extensive polymetallic deposits of the Andean Altiplano in South America since precolonial times has caused substantial emissions of neurotoxic lead (Pb) into the atmosphere; however, its historical significance compared to recent Pb pollution from leaded gasoline is not yet resolved. We present a comprehensive Pb emission history for the last two millennia for South America, based on a continuous, high-resolution, ice core record from Illimani glacier. Illimani is the highest mountain of the eastern Bolivian Andes and is located at the northeastern margin of the Andean Altiplano. The ice core Pb deposition history revealed enhanced Pb enrichment factors (EFs) due to metallurgical processing for silver production during periods of the Tiwanaku/Wari culture (AD 450–950), the Inca empires (AD 1450–1532), colonial times (AD 1532–1900), and tin production at the beginning of the 20th century. After the 1960s, Pb EFs increased by a factor of 3 compared to the emission level from metal production, which we attribute to gasoline-related Pb emissions. Our results show that anthropogenic Pb pollution levels from road traffic in South America exceed those of any historical metallurgy in the last two millennia, even in regions with exceptional high local metallurgical activity.

El ensayo enfermo : Alcides Arguedas y la radiología

Me propongo estudiar en la ensayística de Alcides Arguedas (Bolivia) el lenguaje que utilizó la formación racial cientificista en Hispanoamérica en los comienzos del siglo XX, algunos años antes de los excesos nazifascistas, cuando fue desacreditado por la opinión pública. Mi precepto primero y desde el que comienzo todo mi estudio es la idea de que raza y discursividad son inseparables, por esto, analizaré la representación verbal que confirmará, por una parte, la artificiosidad de lo postulado como "verdad científica" y, por otra, la complicidad que en la forja de esa ilusión una y otra vez han tenido miembros de lo que Ángel Rama llamó "ciudad letrada". Arguedas, en particular, proyectó la imagen de un sujeto que es capaz de relacionar lo estético, lo político y lo científico, logrando en muchas oportunidades ser la personificación de la conciencia nacional.

Ordenamiento territorial y desarrollo local : provincia Cercado, Tarija, Bolivia

El proceso de ordenamiento territorial en Bolivia es relativamente nuevo y por tal razón el avance es mínimo si se piensa en los objetivos alcanzados hasta ahora. El presente trabajo pretende mostrar el avance logrado en uno de los departamentos de Bolivia, Tarija, donde en 5 años, se ha logrado elaborar un plan departamental de ordenamiento territorial y mediante la coordinación interinstitucional (prefectura y gobiernos municipales) se ha iniciado el mismo proceso de a nivel municipal. A partir de estos planes municipales se induce a municipios predominantemente urbanos a trabajar planes de ordenamiento territorial a partir de lineamientos planteados desde la prefectura, con el fin de iniciar los procesos de planificación urbana, actualizar la normativa y elaborar proyectos de desarrollo local. El objetivo del presente trabajo, es mostrar los avances a los que se pretende arribar gracias a un proceso metodológico de ordenamiento territorial incorporado a una dinámica urbana que interactúa constantemente con su área de influencia que en el caso boliviano es normalmente rural; pero además demostrar que el componente interdisciplinario en el caso de la planificación urbana es imprescindible considerando que hasta hace unos años este era un trabajo especifico de los colegas urbanistas y que en una realidad como la latinoamericana casi siempre quedaba en planos y en un viejo anaquel. Por lo tanto a partir de una interdisciplinariedad se puede lograr desarrollo local articulando y optimizando relaciones urbano-rurales que basan su desarrollo en un proceso metodológico como es el caso del ordenamiento territorial. El trabajo, se apoya en la guía metodológica para la elaboración de planes elaboradas por el Ministerio de Desarrollo Sostenible del gobierno boliviano, pero como tal cual su nombre expresa es una guía susceptible a ser adecuada a las exigencias del área de estudio, en este sentido sobre esa base es que se incorporan algunas variables de estudio que permitirán mejorar el producto a nivel de propuesta una vez concluido el trabajo. Contempla varias etapas donde la incorporación de los diferentes actores sociales será una clave para lograr resultados exitosos en la etapa de implementación. Actualmente el plan municipal de la provincia Cercado, es un proyecto a encarar en los próximos meses una vez cumplidos con los requisitos administrativos para iniciar el trabajo técnico que comprenderá un trabajo de campo, para el relevamiento de datos, la elaboración de un diagnóstico integral con dos ámbitos territoriales rural y urbano, para luego proceder al análisis territorial y el planteamiento de propuesta que incluirán políticas, estrategias, acciones y proyectos, pero no solo generará bases para el uso de suelo y la ocupación del territorio, a escala urbana se plantearan los lineamientos para el diseño y la normativa urbana. A partir del cual se definirán proyectos de desarrollo local que nos permita orientarnos hacia la imagen objetivo planteada en la visión del proyecto, este trabajo incluye el aspecto institucional para fortalecer al proceso que hasta esta ahora se encuentra desarticulado; se pretende consolidar el proceso de ordenamiento y dar inicio a otros en escalas de mayor detalle permitiendo la optimización de recursos y el aprovechamiento de las potencialidades y recursos naturales para mejorar la calidad de vida.

Salud e interculturalidad : un estudio en una población migrante en Mendoza

Los objetivos propuestos en la investigación han posibilitado identificar y documentar las barreras de acceso y los factores de riesgo en los cuidados de salud en ginecología y obstetricia y evaluar la situación sociofamiliar en la población migrante instrumentando acciones de inclusión en el sistema de salud de la provincia en aquellas pacientes que requirieron una atención de mayor complejidad. La experiencia de trabajo interdisciplinario en una comunidad ha posibilitado estudiar a 99 mujeres en edad fértil, en un 45% de origen boliviano, con alta vulnerabilidad social que habitan en el Distrito Belgrano de Guaymallén. Se realizó un estudio protocolizado, descriptivo y observacional con entrevistas semiestructuradas y control ginecológico, con toma de muestras para Papanicolaou y colposcopía en un consultorio que se instaló en el jardín maternal. Se aplicó un consentimiento informado a todas las mujeres antes de la realización de los estudios. La lectura de las muestras y los estudios específicos incluyeron mamografías y ecografías que se realizaron en los servicios de anatomía patológica y rayos del Hospital Universitario. El equipo del Hospital Universitario que concurrió a terreno estuvo formado por ginecólogos, trabajadores sociales, enfermeros y alumnos de las carreras de grado.

Hidden realities: What women do when they want to terminate an unwanted pregnancy in Bolivia

OBJECTIVE: To explore women's experience of unwanted pregnancy and induced abortion in Bolivia, where nearly all induced abortions are carried out in clandestine, unregulated, and unsafe conditions. METHODS: Qualitative and quantitative research methods, including focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and a structured survey of women of reproductive age, were used to explore the experience of unwanted pregnancy and induced abortion in poor urban areas of 5 Bolivian cities. RESULTS: Of the 1175 sexually experienced women surveyed, 13% reported having had an induced abortion. The methods they tried included surgical abortion, taking misoprostol, drinking herbal and chemical preparations, and inflicting physical trauma on themselves. Many women made multiple attempts before successfully terminating a pregnancy. Lack of knowledge and confusion about how to use misoprostol may have contributed to the complications that resulted in seeking postabortion care. CONCLUSION: Increased access to accurate information and counseling about abortion options are paramount if women are to make informed decisions and minimize health risks.