The Community of Believers: Law, Rituals and Magic in a Self-Governed Bolivian Prison

Within the self-governed prison of San Pedro (La Paz-Bolivia), Andean ritual specialists (yatiris) play an important role. They adapt themselves to an unusual scenario and work to solve problems concerning imprisonment, marking an important arena of hope and contention. Based on a long-term ethnography, the case study presented in this chapter sheds light on how spirituality and rituals are mobilized to create a community of believers and to produce new subjectivities and a certain knowledge of the prison space. I demonstrate how Andean rituals, magic and witchcraft may offer a system and a practice of order within ambiguous circumstances, where legitimization processes are to be constantly redefined and negotiated and where different powers are set against each other to create or destroy likewise