Paper short abstract:

In the southwest of Potosí department, Bolivia, traces of the pre-Hispanic past are monumentalised or preserved in museums, while traces of colonial silver mining are ignored or erased. How does this shape regional discourses about the past and how is the power of such discourses appropriated?

Paper long abstract:

Whether ruins become monumentalised or are erased, forgotten or ignored, may depend on the narratives of the past that nation-states, social movements and regional groups promote.

This paper explores the presentation of prehispanic remains in southwestern Bolivia in museums and recently established heritage sites. Such sites have been developed principally for tourists rather than local people, but the narrative they promote fits with the versions of the past adopted by Bolivia's indigenous movements and with demands of state bureaucracy that rural groups establish claims to territories on the basis of ancestral habitation.

Nevertheless, the landscape of the Lípez provinces tells a different story of occupation and habitation, being inscribed with traces of colonial silver mining that narrate a history of movements of different people (Andeans, Spaniards, African slaves), animals and materials into and out of the region. Almost no attempt has been made to monumentalise these ruins, even though tourists pass them, and some have already been destroyed by mining companies. The paper asks why these traces are ignored. Is it the result of mining being an ongoing activity for both large companies and independent lipeño miners? Does the absence of concern over colonial ruins indicate a lack of use for their history? Should we be concerned that, as Bogotá's gold museum celebrates prehispanic metallurgy but erases a later history of African labour in Colombia's gold fields (Taussig 2004), preserving the indigenous past in Lípez, while ignoring silver, likewise erases a history of colonial exploitation, migration and diversity?