Book Chapter
The Vecino as Citizen

On the morning of 25 June 2008, the neighbourhood, or zona, of Santiago Segundo was more sparkling than usual. Men, women, and schoolchildren had all gathered outside the community centre on the Plaza del Minero (Miner’s Square), where the neighbourhood association (junta de vecinos) had its premises. St. Pedro’s Day, the patron saint of Santiago Segundo, was only four days away and every year the local inhabitants, referred to generically as vecinos, celebrate it with speeches, games, and a carnival. 2008 was special because it marked the 25th anniversary of the founding of Santiago Segundo, which is one of several hundred poor neighbourhoods in the emergent city of El Alto, situated on the high plateau outside Bolivia’s capital, La Paz. On this occasion, the members of the city council had agreed to hold an honorary meeting of the city council in Santiago Segundo, and their plenary session took the form of speeches celebrating both the neighbourhood and its inhabitants and their contribution to the city of El Alto. Diplomas and rewards were handed out to high-flying students and local dignitaries, and the presidente of the neighbourhood association gave a speech commemorating the history of Santiago Segundo.He particularly emphasized the harsh living conditions in the neighbourhood, and described how many of the inhabitants were former miners who had been forced to move from mining centres to El Alto as a result of privatization and the economic crisis of the mid-1980s. He also highlighted the former miners’ organizational capacities, and their courageous participation in the so-called ‘gas war’ of 2003, when then president, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, sent the army against los Alteños (inhabitants of El Alto), and commemorated how 70 people had been killed, and many more injured, as a result.