Bolivian Studies Journal: Announcements

Call for papers / Convocatoria: Motley Geopoetics in Contemporary Bolivian Narratives

Bolivian Studies Journal — 2021-05-25

In the words of Kenneth White, “geopoetics opens a space of culture, thought and life. In other words, a world” (White, 1989; Galvani, 2010) in which the landscape presents itself as part of a larger lifeworld (Husserl, 2008; Italiano, 2008). Georg Simmel affirms that “[i]n front of a landscape, the wholeness of the being of nature strives to draw us into itself” (2007: 29). This is, to use the words of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, because “things are the prolongation of my body and my body is the prolongation of the world” (1968: 255). If it is not synonymous with the lifeworld, the landscape—at least—is an expression of it.

In Latin America, the reorganization of this lifeworld, together with the social construction of space and landscape (Brambilla, 2015), suffers the marked consequences of the process of coloniality (Quijano, 2014) that reawakens and reproduces its devastating economic logic and policies.

Within this context and based on one of the central ideas of the Bolivian sociologist René Zavaleta Mercado, this dossier proposes that in Bolivia we are not only dealing with a motley society (Zavaleta, 2013; González Almada, 2017b) due to the non-articulated superimposition of different times, spaces, and forms of economic organization, but—we presume—we find a plurality of horizons (González Almada, 2017a), in which landscapes and moods are interwoven and made visible in dissimilar affective expressions (Moraña & Sánchez Prado, 2012). In other words, the motely—in the case of our proposal—also involves the world of the sensible that is materialized in a diverse cultural output that exceeds the limits of a genre or artistic discipline. Therefore, literature, cinema, theater, and performance, among other artistic expressions, become scenarios of sensibility for the representation of diverse realities, of subjectivities marked by the traces of territorial or symbolic displacement and along with it the mobility of affect.

All this allows us to focus on a critical view of the dialogical relationship produced between the motley and the mobility of affect, determining features of Bolivian cultural manifestations of the last decades inscribed in diverse geopoetics. For this reason, we invite critics from different disciplines to approach this phenomenon in relation to the following themes:

The articulation between geography and historical memory in literature and visual culture.
Cartographies of feminine poetics and narrative.
Political corporeality and affect in current cultural expression.
Revisiting the canon: nostalgia, melancholy, collapse, and myths of return/recurrence.
Geopoetic configurations in Bolivian literature and art.
The emergence of conflicting subjectivities in contemporary Bolivian narratives.
Migrant writings and the configuration of textual territories.
Languages and cultural translation in the indigenous poetics of Bolivia.

Information and important dates:

Proposals must include an abstract of no more than 300 words that includes: the title of the article, a brief explanation of the context being analyzed, and a summary of the main discussion points. Articles can be written in Spanish, English, Portuguese, or native languages. Authors must also send a biographical sketch of no more than 250 words.

Deadline to receive proposals: September 1, 2021.

Deadline for review of proposals and notice to authors: October 1, 2021.

Deadline to receive articles: June 1, 2022

Scheduled publication date: Fall 2022

The articles should be sent to the email address monograficobolivia2022@gmail.com

References

Arias, Santa. “Rethinking space: an outsider’s view of the spatial turn.” GeoJurnal, nº 75, 2010, pp. 29-41.

Brambilla, Chiara et al. “Introduction: Thinking, Mapping, Acting and Living Borders under Contemporary Globalisation.” Brambilla et al (eds.). Borderscaping: Imaginations and Practices of Border Making. Roudlegde, 2015, pp. 1-9.

Galvani, Pascal. “El Arte del Camino: Viajes y Trans-formación del sí”. Visión Docente Con-Ciencia IX, nº 54, 2010, pp. 1-13.

González Almada, Magdalena. “Escrituras migrantes: desplazamientos identitarios y territoriales en textos de Magela Baudoin, Fabiola Morales y Liliana Colanzi”. Cuadernos del Hipogrifo, n° 10, 2018, pp. 32-46.

________________________. “Abigarramiento lingüístico, resistencia y traducción: la poesía de Mauro Alwa en el contexto de la literatura boliviana contemporánea”. Mitologías hoy, vol. 16, 2017b, pp. 355-370.

________________________. Relaciones de poder, imaginarios sociales y prácticas identitarias en la narrativa boliviana contemporánea (2000-2010). Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades, Córdoba, 2017a.

________________________. “Territorialidades, textualidades. Torsiones y configuraciones en textos de Juan Pablo Piñeiro, Sebastián Antezana y Liliana Colanzi”. SAGA. Revista de Letras, n° 6, 2016, pp. 1-27.

Husserl, Edmund. La crisis de las ciencias europeas y la fenomenología trascendental. Prometeo, 2008.

Italiano, Federico. “Defining Geopoetics.” TRANS-, no. 6, 2008.

Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Lo visible y lo invisible. Nueva Visión, 2010.

Moraña, Mabel e Ignacio Sánchez Prado. El lenguaje de las emociones. Afecto y cultura en América Latina. Iberoamericana –Vervuert, 2012.

Quijano, Aníbal. Colonialidad del poder, eurocentrismo y América Latina. CLACSO, 2014.

Simmel, Georg. Filosofía del paisaje. Casimiro, 2014.

White, Kenneth. “El gran campo de la geopoética”. Traducido por Manuela Gorris Neveux, Instituto Internacional de Geopoética, www.institut-geopoetique.org/es/textos-fundadores-es/60-el-gran-campo-de-la-geopoetica. Consultado el 18 de marzo de 2021.

Zavaleta Mercado, René. “Las masas en noviembre” en Obras completas. Tomo II, Plural, La Paz, 2013.

____________________. Lo nacional-popular en Bolivia. Siglo XXI, 1986.

Call for papers / Convocatoria: The Depth of the Bolivian Crisis: Roots, Scope, and Forecast of the Recent Political Crisis (October 20, 2019 - October 18, 2020)

Bolivian Studies Journal — 2021-03-02

On November 10, 2019, after 14 years of the constitutional government of Movement for Socialism (MAS), Evo Morales—at the suggestion of the military and pressured by widespread social conflict— publicly resigned from Bolivia’s presidency. Given the ensuing power vacuum, the opposition group assumed the interim political leadership of the country through an irregular process of constitutional succession. The latter was justified by the urgent need for a transitional government to pacify the country and restore democracy, an idea often pushed by the country’s right with the aim to reinstall the republican state in detriment to the plurinational state project. Morales’ fall was followed by public burnings of the Wiphala flag, the seizure of power by the right with an oversized Bible in hand, and the military repression resulting in the Senkata and Sacaba massacres.

The social and political upheaval which engulfed the country between October 20, 2019 and October 18, 2020 is, however, much more complex than a pro-democracy uprising. It brought to light, among other things, the persistence of racism against the indigenous majority of the Bolivian population and therefore, the relevance of the defense of the plurinational state project and the Process of Change for this population (which can be directly linked to the indigenous struggles that preceded the 1952 revolution, and derived decades later in the new Political Constitution of the Plurinational State (2009).) It also made evident the configuration of MAS as the main pillar for the institutionalization of the Process of Change, the exhaustion of the figure of Evo Morales as the sole leader of Bolivian social movements, and the emergence of new leaders around whom the feasibility of communitarian political projects gained force. Furthermore, it made visible the weakening of the traditional left/right binary in the fight for increased participation in projects from where indigenous people were previously excluded by both; and the inability of these groups to respond to the political crisis in ways that address the complexities of Bolivia’s national make up. Lastly, it seems to have cemented the articulation of Bolivia’s ‘other’ national project which on October 18, 2020, against all odds, gave MAS, this time led by Luis Arce and David Choquehuanca, the fourth consecutive victory by an absolute majority in the last constitutional presidential elections.

With the aim of understanding the complexity of the deep processes that resulted in the last Bolivian crisis and the consequent resumption of the political leadership under MAS, this volume seeks to gather works from different disciplines and perspectives that approach the current situation from perspectives that are not limited to a conjunctural analysis of recent events but, instead, extend to the revision of long-term historical structures (Braudel 1949). The guest editors invite proposals for academic articles that focus on the above from interdisciplinary perspectives that may include, among others, the analysis of:

Historical events or periods that, from a contemporary perspective, can be seen to reveal the roots of the recent conflicts;
The crisis or its precedents from cinema studies, literature, visual, fine or performing arts, or cultural production in general;
Collective social phenomena (social movements, rebellions, protests, resistance, etc.) relevant to the narratives at play in contemporary Bolivia;
The historical-political or socio-cultural process that, with a view to build a plurinational state, abandoned the nation-state as the sole constitutive political framework;
The formation of the plurinational state from a legal or political theory perspective, such as constitutional law or the theoretical or historical aspects that are at the basis of the 2009 constitution;
Theoretical and philosophical contributions around ideas of collective identities and, in particular, the self-determination of indigenous peoples;
The success or failure of the economic models implemented for development of the nation-state (until 2009) and of the plurinational state (since 2009);
The relevance of Bolivia and its socio-economic and political antecedents within the global geopolitical context;
New challenges for the consolidation of the plurinational state project within the political, economic, and social context derived from the unavoidable consequences of the acute COVID-19 pandemic health crisis (increased unemployment, closing down of companies, institutional crisis, etc.);
In general, the study of political, social, cultural, historical, economic or legal factors or events of the past or present that acquire a new hue in light of the recent socio-political crisis; or reveal the roots of the problems we face today.

Submission Information

Accepted proposals will be part of a special edition (number 27) of the Bolivian Studies Journal (https://bjs.pitt.edu), to be published in print and online. Please send your proposal to ed.especial.bolivia@gmail.com

The proposal consists of an abstract of no more than 300 words that includes the following: title, brief explanation of the context analyzed and a clear summary of the main points to be discussed in the article. Works in Spanish, English, Portuguese, and native languages of Bolivia are welcome. The author must also submit a short biographical note of no more than 250 words.

The deadline for submitting proposals is May 15, 2021. Letters of invitation to send final papers to the selected proposals will be sent by email on May 31, 2021 (with a submission deadline of November 30, 2021). The acceptance of papers for publication in the journal will be subject to peer review.

Please see further information on submission guidelines in this link: https://bsj.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/bsj/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

Symposium / Simposio: GAMALIEL CHURATA: Envisioning the Circulation of Andean Epistemologies in the Age of Globalization

Bolivian Studies Journal — 2016-09-22

Dates: November 3-4, 2016

Place: 602 Cathedral of Learning, University of Pittsburgh

Invited Speakers:

Maya Aguiluz Ibargüen, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

José Luis Ayala, Aymara writer and Yatiri

Riccardo Badini, Università degli Studi di Cagliari

Marco Thomas Bosshard, Europa-Universität Flensburg

Jorge Coronado, Northwestern University

Meritxell Hernando Marsal, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

Helena Usandizaga, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

José Luis Velásquez Garambel, Universidad Nacional del Altiplano, Puno

Juan Zevallos Aguilar, The Ohio State University

Amaratt Peralta, Gamaliel Churata's son and custodian of his unpublished manuscripts

Call for papers / Convocatoria: Deadline for submissions: July 30, 2016 / Recepción de manuscritos: julio 30, 2016

Bolivian Studies Journal — 2016-03-18

The editors of the Bolivian Studies Journal invite the academic community to submit original research papers for volume 22. We publish once a year and accept research papers, articles, documents, reviews, interviews, and discussion materials written in Spanish, English, or indigenous languages. Manuscripts should be sent electronically to our website according to the editorial standards available at: http://bsj.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/bsj/about/submissions

Se invita a la comunidad académica a someter trabajos inéditos de investigación para el volumen 22 de la Revista de Estudios Bolivianos. La revista se publica una vez al año y acepta trabajos de investigación, estudios críticos, documentos, reseñas, entrevistas y materiales de discusión redactados en español, inglés, o lenguas indígenas. Los manuscritos deben ser enviados por vía electrónica a la página web de la revista de acuerdo a las normas editoriales disponibles en: http://bsj.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/bsj/about/submissions

Symposium / Simposio: DE-DECOLONIZATION, INDIGENEITY AND DE-PATRIARCHALIZATION: A BOLIVIAN DEBATE / DES-DESCOLONIZACION, INDIANIDAD Y DESPATRIARCALIZACION: UN DEBATE ACTUAL EN BOLIVIA

Bolivian Studies Journal — 2014-11-03

The LASA-Bolivia Section invites its members and the scholarly community to submit papers that address the vibrant debate of "decolonization" in Bolivia from a variety of perspectives and disciplines. The proposals must include a name, paper title and a brief description of the content, and they should be sent to the section’s electronic address (seccionbolivia@gmail.com). The submission deadline is December 15, 2014. The hotel and travel information will be sent shortly.

With the Participation of: Xavier Albó, Universidad – PIEB; Waskar Ari, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Pamela Calla, New York University; Pablo Mamani, Universidad Pública de El Alto (UPEA); Julieta Paredes, Comunidad Mujeres Creando Comunidad; Sinclair Thomson, New York University; Esteban Ticona, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA)

La Sección LASA-Bolivia invita a sus miembros y a la comunidad de investigadores a presentar ponencias que aborden, desde distintas perspectivas y disciplinas, el candente debate de la “descolonización” en Bolivia. Las propuestas deberán ser enviadas a la dirección electrónica de la sección (seccionbolivia@gmail.com) con la siguiente información: nombre y apellido, título de la ponencia y breve descripción de la misma. La fecha límite de recepción de propuestas es el 15 de diciembre de 2014. Próximamente se enviará información sobre reservaciones de hotel y logística en Pittsburgh.

Con la participación de: Xavier Albó, Universidad-PIEB; Waskar Ari, University of Nebraska, Lincoln; Pamela Calla, New York University; Pablo Mamani, Universidad Pública de El Alto (UPEA); Julieta Paredes, Comunidad Mujeres Creando Comunidad; Sinclair Thomson, New York University; Esteban Ticona, Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA).

LVIII SALALM CONFERENCE: INDIGENISM, PAN-INDIGENISM AND COSMOVISIONISM: THE CONFLUENCE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES THOUGHT IN THE AMERICAS

Bolivian Studies Journal — 2013-05-03

The Conference will be held in Miami on May 17-22, 2013. Co-hosted by the University of Miami libraries and Florida International University, the overarching theme of the conference is the critical intersection of indigenism, pan-indigenism and cosmovisionism within the context of the indigenous peoples’ modes of thought and action in the Americas. Some of the topics to be addressed are the dialogue between the indigenous and non-indigenous peoples of the world; the logistics of collecting, preserving and processing primary as well as secondary data produced and distributed by the indigenous peoples; indigenous peoples conceptions of time and space; the nature, function and agency of the indigenous epistemic communities in the production, distribution and application of knowledge.

Date: May 17-22, 2013 - Location: The Westin Colonnade Hotel, Coral Gables, FL

The Conference is open to researchers, professors, students and activists interested in contributing to a critical reflection on the conference’s theme.

Information about the theme can be found at: http://salalm.org/Conf/theme

Conference Registration: http://salalm.org/Conf/registration/

INDIGENISMO, PAN-INDIGENISMO Y COSMOVISIONISMO: LA CONFLUENCIA DEL PENSAMIENTO INDÍGENA EN LAS AMÉRICAS

Co-organizada por la Universidad de Miami y la Universidad Internacional de la Florida, la LVIII Conferencia anual Seminario de Adquisiciones de Materiales Latinoamericanos para Bibliotecas, conocido como SALALM, se llevará a cabo en Miami del 17 al 22 de mayo, 2013. El tema general de la conferencia es la crítica intersección del indigenismo, pan-indigenismo y cosmovisionismo en el contexto de los modos de pensar y actuar de los pueblos indígenas en las Américas. Algunos de los temas a tratar son el diálogo entre los pueblos indígenas y no indígenas del mundo, la logística de recolección, conservación y transformación de información primaria, así como materiales secundarios producidos y distribuidos por los pueblos indígenas; sus concepciones del tiempo y el espacio; la naturaleza, la función y la agencia de las comunidades epistémicas indígenas en cuanto a la producción, distribución y aplicación del conocimiento.

Fecha: mayo 17-22, 2013 - Lugar: The Westin Colonnade Hotel, Coral Gables, FL

La Conferencia está abierta a investigadores, profesores, estudiantes y activistas interesados en contribuir a una reflexión crítica sobre el tema de la conferencia

Para información sobre el tema: http://salalm.org/Conf/theme

Para registrarse: http://salalm.org/Conf/registration/

Latin American Political Theory Workshop: The First Theory of Decolonization / Taller sobre teoría política Latinoamericana: La primera teoría de la descolonización

Bolivian Studies Journal — 2012-02-09

Con el propósito de preparar el taller que Rafael Bautista ofrecerá el próximo martes 29 de mayo, quisiéramos sugerir las siguientes lecturas:

In preparing for Rafael Bautista's workshop next Tuesday, May 29, we would like to suggest the following readings:

Rafael Bautista. "El 18 Brumario del Kananchiri"

http://www.bolpress.com/art.php?Cod=2011092711

Rafael Bautista. "La coyuntura y la descolonización"

http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=149242

Rafael Bautista. "¿Qué significa mandar obedeciendo?"

http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=121304

Rafael Bautista. "¿Qué significa el "vivir bien"?"

http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=96739

Inaugural Conference of the Bolivian Studies Journal / Conferencia Inaugural de la Revista de Estudios Bolivianos

Bolivian Studies Journal — 2011-02-03