The Dances of Oruro in Buenos Aires: Tradition and Innovation in the Bolivian Cultural Field

Abstract

This paper constitutes a fragment of research conducted between 1999 and 2002 on Bolivian migration in Buenos Aires. That research described the differences between the practice of the dances of the Carnival of Oruro in Buenos Aires, particularly the Diablada, and their practice in Bolivia, in order to make visible the disputes that the changes produced by the migratory process entail at the level of social relations.

This paper therefore analyzes the complex processes of selection, reactivation, and invention of Bolivian cultural forms in Buenos Aires, particularly these dances, as part of the dynamics of relations proper to a cultural field in which the construction of authority and power constitutes a central element.

An analysis of the performances of these dances, which form an important part of the identities that Bolivians construct in the migratory context, makes it possible to understand the changing character of all culture, thus contributing to the task of elaborating a “new” definition of the concept and creating a complex image of the “community”.

Starting from the idea that culture constitutes a disputed process of meaning construction, this paper argues that the study of the Bolivian cultural field that makes possible the practice of the dances of Oruro is a starting point for understanding other aspects of migration from Bolivia to Argentina, through the configuration of social relations that it determines.