Fieldwork in the Cochabamba Valley

Genius Loci readers:

I’m back from South America and I have a lot to share. Though finding the time to sift through the material I collected on my trip — the videos, audio recordings, photographs, notes, and interview transcripts — has been a challenge because of the sheer amount of data I collected on the trip. And because the back-to-school chaos, the family visits, and a sniffling toddler have consumed all my time and energy. This is a way of apologizing that the September 2025 installment of Genius Loci is a few days late. But here it is! In today’s issue, I reflect on my fieldwork in Bolivia, offer you a note of encouragement if you’re like me and slammed at your day job, and leave behind some bits and bobs for you to pick at from around the web.

Personal Update

It felt good to be back in the Cochabamba Valley last month. It was late winter in the southern hemisphere, and the Cochabamba Valley felt like spring — the valley’s namesake is after all Bolivia’s “City of Eternal Spring.” And unlike my first visit to Bolivia, the altitude didn’t make my head feel as if a dagger had pierced it.

As I mentioned last month, the goal of this trip was to do more documentation and research on and around the holy mountain, Cerro Calvario, during the Festival of the Virgin of Urkupiña and its pilgrimage. No high or mighty photo projects, no “pop-up newsletters,” and no grand goals this time. My only objective was to do fieldwork: researching, experiencing, engaging, documenting, and thinking.

I conducted more interviews this time. I spoke with shamans working at the foot of the hill on and on the hill itself. I spoke with “miners” — those who take care of the mines and ceremonial spaces on top of the hill. I spoke with vendors, pilgrims, and dancers. Heck, I even spoke with the former mayor of city that hosts the festival — Quillacollo.

One highlight of the trip was meeting a few healers and shamans I met and photographed three years ago. I was hoping to see some of them again, in fact. So I printed their photographs and brought them with me. Of the three healers whose photographs I printed, I only found one. He was happy to receive the image. I met another shaman I previously photographed, but I didn’t have his image printed.

When I returned from my 2022 trip to Bolivia, I remember feeling upset that I didn’t record any video. I had a few reels or stories that I posted to my Instagram, but nothing deliberate or considered. So, I made it a point to record a lot video this time. I think I have enough material for a few films, which I’ve already begun working on and will post on my YouTube channel soon.

One of the videos is a POV-style walk-along that I recorded on the two busiest days of the festival, when the activity around the mountain makes the conditions less conducive to carrying out formal interviews. I strapped an action camera to my shoulder and photographed the activity on and around the hill.

I also recorded most of my interviews and plan to release a longer, more considered documentary about the festival and the events on and around the hill.

I have a lot to unpack, a lot to unravel and untangle.

Priority #1 is finishing the videos I mentioned above. Deadline: September 2025.

I somehow got monetized on YouTube late last year, which means I’m generating revenue on the platform (currently a whopping 39 cents per day based on my meager views). But YouTube threatened to take away my monetization if I don’t post again. Any writer, artist, or creator will tell you that getting paid for one’s creative work is rare. While it doesn’t seem like a lot, 39 cents per day is around $145 a year. This amount will help pay for some of my tech stack (website hosting, email service, creative subscriptions, etc.). I don’t want to give this up, so I need to feed the beast and publish another video within the next two weeks.

Priority #2 is folding in my fieldwork into the chapter I’ve been working on, which is more difficult than it sounds. Incorporating new research and material into a solid draft cannot usually happen without a substantial overhaul of the draft. But I’m here for this. Deadline: December 2025.

Also on my agenda the last quarter of 2025:

• An analysis of mountains in Deuteronomy
• An analysis of mountains in the classic Sanskrit work The Birth of Kumára by Kālidāsa
• A review of The Scent of Time by Byung-Chul Han
• A review of Resonance by Hartmut Rosa
• A few more podcast interviews

All that to say, a lot of good work will be coming your way in these last four months of the year—YouTube videos, analyses, articles, podcast interviews, and possibly more.¹

My trip to Bolivia coincided with the country’s bicentenary, which was cool to experience — lots of parades, patriotism, and public debate about the future of the nation.² But the presidential elections in Bolivia disrupted the dates of the festival and forced me to return earlier than I would have liked.

Also forcing me to return: the fall semester.

Stay Energized

Teachers and professors will know what I’m talking about. Every new academic year starts with a flurry of institutional energy: meetings, committees, red tape, emails — oh, so many emails! Add to that some course prep and, once the tap opens, a steady stream of grading that won’t stop for another 16 weeks. As anyone who has hunkered down during a hurricane will tell you, not all energy is a positive energy.

Yet amid all the busywork of a day job, you need to find time to continue the real work — the fulfilling creative work, the book idea you’ve been chewing on for years, the research you’ve been conducting for just as long. You don’t need to just “find” the time. You need to carve it out. Fifteen minutes here, thirty minutes there. Oh? You’re already tired? Take what you can get — a hundred words here, fifty there. It’s all too easy to veg-out in front of Netflix at night, but doesn’t a hundred words better the next day?

This slow march forward is progress. And though your work does not compete against the work of others, your dedication is as rare as it is difficult. Most people on this planet will not yield as much creative output as you.

Stay energized on your work, that nucleus around which you find yourself orbiting like a charged particle.

Bits and Bobs

If you’re interested in the philosophical side of space and place, you might want to listen to this heady interview with philosopher Jeff Malpas. The interview is actually on a photography podcast, The Land Behind, but fortunately they speak very little about photography.

Read Thomas Swick’s article about Paul Theroux’s The Great Railway Bazaar, published half a century ago this year, and its place in the history of travel literature.

Speaking of trains, look out for Monisha Rajesh’s new book, Moonlight Express, out now in the UK and soon in the US (Bloomsbury). I got word that Tharik Hussain’s new book Muslim Europe is scheduled to come out at the end of November (Penguin/Viking). I also got a press release about an interesting book about Peru to come out early November (Icon): Another Bone-Swapping Event by Brad Fox.

That’s all for this month.

Thanks for reading and farewell,

JB