Newcastle University, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, 30th November 2017 In the last decade, many countries in the Global South have experienced a rapid growth in GDP, fuelled by a resource boom, that has expanded the middle class. In Bolivia, where GDP has tripled in the last ten years, policies based on principles of... Continue Reading →
Peltz Gallery, Birkbeck, University of London, 3-25 March 2017 This exhibition portrays the women whose livelihoods involve the traditional rituals, artefacts and medicines that play a central role in culture and health in Bolivia. The indigenous wisdom involved in this work has been sidelined, either as ‘witchcraft’ under colonial powers or as merely ‘folklore’ by... Continue Reading →
*Latest article* Fashion in Bolivia's Cultural Economy Special Issue of International Journal of Cultural Studies: De-Westernising creative labour studies: the informality of creative work from an ex-centric vantage - edited by Ana Alacovska, Ros Gill and Andy Pratt In 2016, New York fashion week featured, for the first time, a designer from Bolivia. Eliana Paco... Continue Reading →
Special Issue of Gender, Place and Culture: Gendering the City - edited by Melissa Butcher and Kate Maclean La Paz, Bolivia, and its neighbouring city, El Alto, have been experiencing patterns of urban accumulation, dispossession and displacement that demonstrate the importance of social, cultural and historical logics to understanding the politics of urban space. A... Continue Reading →
Maclean, K. (2017). Ninguna ciudad común: Lo que la teoría urbana crítica puede aprender de La Paz, Bolivia. Journal de Comunicación Social 5(5), 15-48 Este artículo explora cómo la ciudad de La Paz ha cambiado a raíz del surgimiento de la “chola burguesía” en Bolivia –personas que trabajan en gran parte en el comercio informal... Continue Reading →
In the last ten years, La Paz has transformed. Incredible economic growth and a government keen to overturn centuries of colonialism, inequality and exclusion, have led to the emergence of an 'Aymara Bourgeoisie'* - people of indigenous or mestizo descent who have made their money in the vast informal markets of El Alto and La... Continue Reading →
The Aymara Bourgeoisie 