El Alto: una ficción política

Abstract

Since the beginning of the 2000’s, the city of El Alto has emerged dramatically on the Bolivian political scene. It has become the incarnation and the symbol of popular insurrection against neoliberal governments with a popular national orientation. El Alto serves as the Aymara face (supposed to be more authentic) of social movements. This political imaginary can be considered as socially based, because it is part of the definition of the city and of the identity of its inhabitants, and part of the object of study. After a quick look at the genesis and the socioeconomic structures of the city, in order to reveal the social functions of this political image, this article will examine how the notion of what Marshall Sahlins called the indigenization of modernity can be used to analyze the political resistance of native groups in the city, and the ambivalent incorporation of occidental culture in local contexts. El Alto shows a modern relation to traditional culture, with a coexistence of social conservatism and cultural transformation; of reproduction of inequalities and invention of new forms of expression that leads to a critical view of the communitarism and of the folk vision of Andean people.

Keywords

• Social and Spatial Inequalities
• Social movements
• Indigenization of modernity
• Urban identities