The Memory State: Disputing the Past in Plurinational Bolivia

Abstract

This article analyses the politics of memory in Bolivia from the so‐called Gas War in 2003 and the crisis of 2019, travelling from a struggle for power to state's legitimation language and back to the streets. It also studies dissident movements that claimed reparation from the Plurinational State, particularly human rights activists and the regional movement of Potosí. I define the Plurinational State as a ‘memory state’ that, by strongly tying its legitimation to the injustices of the past uncovered by the previous cycle of protests, forced all political groups to use the grammar of memory to dispute Bolivian politics.