Sensing Locality in Yura: Rituals of Carnival and of the Bolivian State

In this article, I discuss how an indigenous population in highland Bolivia established a sense of locality through participation in two different rituals: the musically based rituals of carnival and the bureaucratic practices or rituals of state that resulted from the initial implementation of a decentralizing law. Through a privileging of visually perceived representations, the logic behind the new law assumed populations were attached to contiguous territories within a national grid. In contrast, carnival rituals—through a focus on centerpoints, musical sonorities, and perceiving subjects—emphasized a relationship to locality through a sounding‐ off through space, [nation‐state, space, music performance, sense experience, Bolivia, Popular Participation, Yura]