The Life and Death of Glaciers: A Social and Environmental History of the Bolivian Andes

Indigenous peoples in the Andes Mountains of South America have long believed that mountains, birds, lakes, and rivers are part of their communities. Snow-capped mountains are especially powerful living beings that provide water and protection for human communities, animals, and crops. Now, in the face of rising global temperatures, glaciers are receding up mountainsides. As a result, water sources that communities, towns, and cities depend on for drinking and irrigation water and hydroelectricity production are in peril.

This talk is based on a book-in-progress that traces people’s relationships with mountains and glaciers in the Bolivian Andes from the beginning of human settlement to the present. It will focus the ways that Aymara Indigenous communities and other groups have experienced and responded to glacier retreat since the 1990s.