Masks, Public Health Tents, and Sweeping Closures

That is what swine flu in Bolivia looks like (here called Influenza A). About 100 cases have been reported here, mainly in Santa Cruz. There is a full-blown panic here that to a certain extent overlaps what occurred in the U.S. yet with local particularities and concerns. Overall, it appears that the impact here is [...]

Academic honesty in the U.S.: a diatribe

(Again, nothing to do with Bolivia.  But as many of us are academics, I’m posting this anyway.) Two things have come to light in the past couple of weeks regarding academic honesty in the U.S.  One is the Chicago Tribune’s expose on the University of Illinois at Campaign-Urbana (the state’s main campus) admitting students because [...]

Cuban kharisiris?

Ok, sort of a cheap-shot provocative title to get ya’ll to read this. But that doesn’t change the content of the long article published in Wednesday’s La Razón. A young woman from Oruro, Beatriz, who three years ago obtained a scholarship to a Cuban medical school, died while abroad. Her parents were told that the [...]

Voces Bolivianas expanding

About five years ago, when I was doing field work in Bolivia, there were only a handful Bolivian bloggers. That number has since expanded to include hundreds, and is rapidly expanding today. Today, Bolivians blog in Spanish, English, Aymara, and a number of other languages (depending on where they live). And Bolivian bloggers aren’t only [...]

University Autonomy

The Entrada Universitaria was held last weekend in La Paz. Featuring thousands of dancers affiliated with various facultades at UMSA, the entrada is an important event for many students. What’s interesting to this anthropologist is that the Entrada is explicitly about UMSA as an institution publicly fomenting & demonstrating “national culture.” Furthermore, in an interview, [...]