When all Return to the Earth: Decay and the Cyclical Life of Heritage in the Bolivian Amazon

Abstract

In the Bolivian Amazon, decay is not an endpoint but a form of continuity. Within Indigenous cosmologies of the Tacana, Tsimane’, and Mosetén peoples, all matter remains alive—breathing, transforming, decomposing, and returning to the soil that sustains life. The processes that Western heritage discourse identifies as deterioration or loss are, in these contexts, integral to cycles of renewal and transformation.

This presentation draws on collaborative research carried out within the project Heritage and Territoriality: past, present, and future perceptions among the Tacana, Tsimane’, Mosetén, and Waiwai, which explores Indigenous approaches to heritage, memory, and landscape. Through archaeological and ethnographic engagement, the project reveals how heritage is sustained not through preservation or isolation, but through ongoing practices of care, storytelling, and coexistence with the material world. In these territories, ancient settlements, abandoned houses, and archaeological and ethnographic objects are not static remnants of the past, but are relational and alive, continuing to act as nodes in a network of human and more-than-human interactions.

In this sense, decay becomes a form of teaching: it shows that value lies not in permanence but in transformation. Each instance of material change embodies a gesture of reciprocity, a recognition of shared vitality between humans, spirits, and the environment. Such practices unsettle colonial notions of conservation, challenging the hierarchical separation between culture and nature, between human and non-human, and between life and death. The accompanying film Nuestra Herencia (“Our Heritage”), co-created with Indigenous researchers, extends this reflection through visual ethnography. It documents how communities engage with the visible and invisible processes of decay—how they care for places and materials that are slowly transforming.