LGBTQ+ Spaces in the Urban Evolution of the City of El Alto: An Ethnography of a Popular and Dissident Bar

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/bsj.2025.378

Keywords:

Urban evolution, El Alto, LGBTQ+ spaces, sexual dissidencies, heterotopias

Abstract

In recent years, studies on the urban evolution of El Alto have focused on topics such as the informal economy, cholet architecture, and metropolitan development. Although these approaches are crucial for understanding the city’s dynamics, the presence, appropriation, and transformation of space by LGBTQ+ communities have been relegated to the background. This may be due to a prevailing urban imaginary rooted in a historically heteronormative context that limits the analysis of such transformations. However, this article aims to address this dimension by responding to the question: what does the lived experience of a popular and dissident LGBTQ+ bar reveal about urban evolution in El Alto? To do so, the text is grounded in a theoretical framework drawn from gendered geography and urbanism, queer space theory, and the role of bars and nightclubs as units of urban analysis. The methodology is qualitative, developed through ethnographic research. The findings highlight the lived experiences of community members who identify the venue Bar Tropical Peña Show as a space of belonging they call home, while also viewing it as a nucleus of sexual dissidences within El Alto’s urban landscape.

Author Biography

Tatiana Vargas Condori, Colegio de México

Geógrafa alteña, magister en ciencias sociales por la Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO-México) y candidata a doctora en estudios urbanos por El Colegio de México (COLMEX). Editora de la Revista de Estudiantes Latinoamericanos de Geografía (RELEG). Miembro del Grupo de Trabajo de Geografía Crítica Latinoamericana en CLACSO, de la colectiva mexicana Morras Socioterritoriales y del Archivo Comunitario de El Alto, yamilka,geo@gmail.com.

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Published

2025-12-11

Issue

Bolivian Studies Journal Vol. 31, 2025

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2025 Tatiana Vargas Condori

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