Burnt Photos: Lost Things, Absences, and Speculative Gestures in Boyacá

Abstract

This article explores various accounts of lost things, evoked in a single municipality in Boyacá (Colombia), and traces their absences - related to familial, pre-Hispanic, and peasant pasts - by ethnographically following the resonances that link them together. Through “speculative gestures,” the reader’s attention is shifted from what has been undone, lost, or ruined, toward what is cultivated, grows, and even flourishes in the materials surrounding what is missing. After tracing the contours of burnt, stolen, or even invented things, the article reflects on how their provisional assembly creates a wild, undefined path that allows for recognition and insight beyond the logics of ruination.