Bolivia

Campesina women in the Tariquía National Reserve stand up against impending gas extraction which will have detrimental impacts on the environment and local communities’ ways of life.

An Amazonian Indigenous community evades extinction and finds alternatives to extractivism through developing an ecotourism project in the Bolivian jungle.

A new project, ‘Archiving Real-Time Literary Responses to the Covid-19 in Latin America’, is housed at the University of Birmingham. aims to document some of this literary production in this exceptional period of global history. It will make a body of viral literature in Latin America available through open access for future researchers and the wider public before it is lost.

Chinese companies are behind rapid expansion of gold mining in the Mayaya region of Bolivia, and are invading the Madidi National Park. Bolivian journalist and LAB correspondent Sergio Mendoza travelled by canoe down the Beni and Quendeque rivers, witnessing how the illegal mining activity is hidden by Bolivian mining cooperatives and supported or permitted by the government.

UTAMA pertinently revolves around the conflict between traditional cultures and extreme globalization and portrays how Andean ancestral beliefs are at odds with the Western conceptions of progress which are fuelling climate change.

Bolivia is a major importer of mercury on a world-scale. Pollution caused by the gold business has reached the most important urban areas of the country, while the authorities look the other way.

Whilst Túpac Amaru II is hailed as the hero of the 1780 Andean Rebellion against the Spanish in Peru, little is known about Tomasa Tito Condemayta. Maria Herrera Badell's new short film is a ‘false’ documentary with truth at its heart.

Blending travel writing, history and reportage, Crossed Off The Map journeys from the Andes to the Amazon to explore Bolivia’s turbulent past and contemporary challenges.

The 1960s and ‘70s were a period of revolution, anti-imperialist struggle, and nation-building. Two films which represent and analyse this period in Latin America are Yawar Mallku (Blood of the Condor) and De cierta manera (One Way or Another).

Blending travel writing, history and reportage, Shafik Meghji's Crossed Off The Map journeys from the Andes to the Amazon to explore Bolivia’s turbulent past and contemporary challenges.