Periodic Report Bolivia

Since 2005 that President Evo Morales Ayma assumed the Government of Bolivia, the process for the creation of a New Political Constitution that recognizes all the cultural diversity that lives in Bolivia began. By the popular consultation process in 2009 this was promulgated, and since then many National Policies regarding the Cultural Diversity in Bolivia started to flourish.

The same day the New Political Constitution was promulgated, the creation of the First Ministry of Cultures was given through the Supreme Decree Nº 29894, as the main national rector for the administration of cultural issues with two Viceministers under its tuition, Interculturality and Decolonization. In 2010 the Viceminister of Tourism was put in its structure in order to promote Community Tourism.  

The creation of this new institution brings the challenge of building a new organizational structure that must consolidate administration and planning instruments, as well as legal, but at the same time in correspondence to the National Development Plan, defining the executive power orientation regarding its competence.

During the last two decades, the concept of “Culture” and the idea of “Cultural Diversity” have been widely debated by national and international organizations. In this context, the cultural difference not only shows as an anthropological point of view, but also as a fundamental category for the construction of the sociocultural development of the people.  

The multiple identities and cultural behaviors not only depend on the individual values and predispositions, but also respond to the influence of social institutions (school, family and religion), Political (The Estate) and historical (Cultural heritage with its colonial characteristics, racism, homophobic and patriarchal among others).  

The process of recuperating cultural historic values, bring back to the scene the living cultures in Bolivia.  

Culture must be seen not only with the eyes for art, heritage or indigenous people rights. Culture is the integration of every possibility. The distinction made in the New Political Constitution of The Plurinational State of Bolivia between culture and cultures is referred to a new conception of the cultural issue. The classical conception of culture, in its singular aspect comes from the premise that only one culture exists and are the artistic manifestations, especially those known as “Fine Arts”, the ones that give a country certain “cultural” particularities. This vision reduced culture to a formal aspect and discredited the historical vision and the social conformation of the cultures.

Culture must be seen and understood from the neutrality, since its composed by all the cultural manifestations (art, music, theatre, philosophy, science and ideology) that men, women from all peoples and societies develop.  

The practices and cultural identities have their meaning when we think about ethics, responsible behavior, motivation, dynamic administration, initiatives and a whole range of human behaviors, from its private to its communitarian economies.

For these and many other reasons, Bolivia has begun the journey to build a National identity based in the respect and recognition of all its cultural diversity through many new policies emerged in the main objectives of the 2005 Convention.