O corpo (geo)político boliviano: práticas de teorizações fronteiriças descoloniais

Abstract

This thesis aims to discuss the configurations of Bolivian (geo)political bodies, taken as bodies situated in a specific locus — Bolivia — and traversed by different epistemologies, resistances, and ways of existing and thinking. To this end, it attempts, from the perspective of biographical criticism (SOUZA, 2002), border biographical criticism (NOLASCO, 2013), and decolonial theorizing (MIGNOLO, 2003), to construct a discussion on how these Bolivian (geo)political bodies have, since the colonial period, resisted and practiced what we now conceptualize as decoloniality. For this discussion, it draws on Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, Fausto Reinaga, Juan José Bautista, Rafael Bautista Segales, Pablo Mamani Ramírez, Walter Mignolo, Edgar Cézar Nolasco, Marcos Antônio Bessa-Oliveira, among other authors. The thesis is organized in four chapters. The first, entitled ―Pensar é o mesmo que sentir e viver: a re-volta do ser donde yo pienso,‖ traces the historical framework of Bolivia's formation, articulating colonial processes and their permanence in the constitution of Bolivian (geo)political bodies. The second chapter, ―Interculturalidade como projeto pluriversal desde abajo,‖ discusses the colonialities of being, knowledge, and power, as well as their ruptures based on the ideals of the Plurinational State and Interculturality, considering decolonial projects and the actions of social movements that are reshaping the country's political landscape. The third chapter, ―Práticas de teorizações descoloniais: os corpos pluriversais bolivianos,‖ is dedicated to everyday practices that, although sometimes strained by modern structures, nevertheless produce other meanings, linked to their own modes of existence and thought, which give substance and concreteness to the hypothesis under development. Finally, the fourth chapter, ―Voltar ao passado e caminhar no presente: haverá um futuro?,‖ discusses recent events between 2024 and 2025, problematizing possible forms of government and the tensions between the nation-state and ongoing Indigenous self-government projects in the country, concluding the argument with the aim of proving the thesis.