STATE RE-INSCRIPTION OF NATIONAL ETHNICIZATION. BOLIVIAN DIASPORIC BUREAUCRACY IN THE CITY OF LA PLATA

Abstract

In the context of a research on the production of transnational agencies of the Plurinational State of Bolivia in the city of La Plata, in this paper we argue that the Vice-consulate created there in 2013 seeks to resituate the consular agencies of that country in a central location on the processes of diasporisation developed in this locality. Through the analysis of documents and reports of the Bolivian Foreign Ministry, participant observation in events, activities and meetings organized by the consular authorities of Bolivia and associations of migrants settlers in the city of La Plata, and interviews and many informal dialogues with the leaders of these spaces, we surveyed the mechanisms through which the state becomes involved in the processes of "ethnicization" connecting the institutional network and the experience of nation of people, as conflicts and resistance it faces in an attempt to consolidate their positions.

            The article reviews the loss of prestige suffered by the consular authorities in the region during the last decades of the twentieth and early twenty-first century, and the strategies that support this attempt to reposition. Thus, the documentation and the figure of Evo Morales emerge in a frame in which it is formed and dispute the representation and authority over the "community".