Power in the Mountains: Hydroelectric Companies and Military Expeditions in the Bolivian Andes in the 1920s

This paper charts the activities of hydroelectric companies and military expeditions that began operations in Bolivia’s Cordillera Real in the 1920s, focusing on how those involved thought about, experienced, and dealt with cold temperatures and gradual warming. Both the US-based electric company, Bolivian Power, and mountain military regiments were headed by criollo or foreign men and staffed by Indigenous men. The paper posits that differing ideas about the nature and gender of mountains, glaciers, and Mother Earth among company managers, company workers, military officers, and conscripts shaped these groups’ relationships with their labor and each other in this mountainous environment at a key moment of environmental, political, social, and economic change.