Decolonial Time in Bolivia's Pachakuti

2013

This article considers the Aymara year count that appeared in Bolivian newspapers in 1988 in connection with June solstice celebrations at the pre-Columbian archaeological site of Tiwanaku. The Aymara year communicates politico-temporal meanings; its numbers are evocative, which is why it has gained traction as an accepted part of solstice celebrations in the media and with the Bolivian public. The Aymara year count is a numeric expression of three implicit interrelated political statements. First, it shows that the Aymara have a history that reaches far deeper than their involvement with European conquerors. Second, it links Aymara history to broader pan-indigenous histories. Finally, it demonstrates to non-indigenous audiences that Aymara history, astronomy, and mathematics are rational and sophisticated. This final claim is achieved by using timekeeping to translate very real Tiwanakota accomplishments into an idiom understandable to national and international audiences. The Aymara year count is not used as a method of quantitative timekeeping. Instead, it forms part of the politics that invoke the past.

This article considers the Aymara year count that appeared in Bolivian newspapers in 1988 in connection with June solstice celebrations at the pre-Columbian archaeological site of Tiwanaku. The Aymara year communicates politico-temporal meanings; its numbers are evocative, which is why it has gained traction as an accepted part of solstice celebrations in the media and with the Bolivian public. The Aymara year count is a numeric expression of three implicit interrelated political statements. First, it shows that the Aymara have a history that reaches far deeper than their involvement with European conquerors. Second, it links Aymara history to broader pan-indigenous histories. Finally, it demonstrates to non-indigenous audiences that Aymara history, astronomy, and mathematics are rational and sophisticated. This final claim is achieved by using timekeeping to translate very real Tiwanakota accomplishments into an idiom understandable to national and international audiences. The Ayma...

2018

Conference “Global Cultural History”, Tallin 26-29. Juni, 2019

2010

PAGE In the month of June the Willka Kuti ritual or Aymara New Year takes place in the Bolivian Western highlands. This thesis explores Aymara historic, cosmologic and symbolic dimensions of the process of change in Bolivia by looking at this specific ritual. With the rise of indigenous people in Bolivia’s political arena there have been many changes to the country’s national affairs involving economical, social and especially religious issues. For the indigenous Aymara, the notion of pachakuti is associated with a mythical transformation of space-time and a profound change. Thus, the beginning of a new era has begun and is transforming the place of the indigenous majority in contemporary Bolivia. Exploring Aymara ritual practice, and deployment of Aymara symbolism in political spaces, this study contributes to anthropological understanding of historical currents of indigenous struggle, politics, symbolism and religion by focusing on the contemporary religious and political situatio...

This special issue of Contexto Internacional, titled Decolonial Temporalities: Plural Pasts, Irreducible Presents, and Open Futures, engages the colonial question through the prism of time. Approaching the colonial as a temporal encounter, the contributions curated below explore the myriad ways in which the politics of universal time shaped and underwrote colonial domination. They also show, through textual, ethnographic, and poetic means, that colonial temporality was never entirely successful in displacing other ways of relating to time. Together, they highlight the importance of the critique of time for decolonial thinking, and question whether it is possible to engage questions of 'land and bread' without enquiring into the politics of time. As such this special issue draws on and seeks to expand on existing critiques that conceive of colonial domination as more than the juridical-political control of one people by another.

Diálogo, 2016

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The journal of Latin American and Caribbean anthropology, 2012

Los turistas que asisten al sitio arqueológico de Tiwanaku son presentados con calendarios precolombinos, de los cuales la Puerta del Sol es el más importante, famosa y hermosa. A principios de del siglo 20 Arturo Posnansky y otros arqueólogos creyeron que las inscripciones de la Puerta correspondían a un calendario escrito. Estas teorías se sustentan en las narrativas que consideran Tiwanaku como un fuente de sabiduría tanto en laépoca precolombinos como en el mundo contemporáneo. Posnansky presentó sus interpretaciones de calendarios Tiwanakotas como respuesta a los debates del Movimiento del Calendario Global, el trataba de racionalizar el calendario gregoriano en la década de 1930. En la Puerta, Posnansky encontró una respuesta boliviana alternativa a la que dominaba en la comunidad internacional científica, la cual buscaba una forma racional de medir el tiempo para la economía mundial. Estos intelectuales bolivianos combinaron su interes por el pasado indígena con sus preocupaciones con el rol del estado boliviano moderno en el sistema global. [Bolivia, Pueblos Originarios, Turismo, Arqueologia, Antropologia social] A b s t r a c t Tourists to the archaeological site of Tiwanaku are presented with ancient calendars, of which the Gateway of the Sun is the most important, famous, and beautiful. Arthur Posnansky and other early 20th-century archaeologists claimed that its inscriptions constituted a written calendar. These claims were intimately connected to narratives of Tiwanaku as a central source of knowledge in both pre-Columbian times and the contemporary world. Posnansky presented his interpretation of Tiwanaku's calendars