This paper analyzes the tension between the "mixture" of religion, spectacle and alcohol as cultural frontiers of the nation -in the understanding of imagined community as Benedict Anderson (1983)-. For this reason, this process will be approached from the interweaving between the public political discourse promoted from the State power, as James Scott (2007) says, which apparently appropriates and officializes the party while suffering a constant resistance that is channeled through a carnival politics -a concept thought from Mikhail Bakhtin (2003)- from society.
For this purpose, I direct my reflection around the celebration of the Virgen de la Candelaria and the Festivity of the Señor Jesús del Gran Poder that are celebrated annually in the cities of Puno (Peru) and La Paz (Bolivia) respectively. Both are recognized by UNESCO as Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity, the first in 2014 and the second in 2019. With this, the States of Peru and Bolivia sought the recognition and revaluation of both festivities as a manifestation of faith, belief, devotion, culture, dance, tradition and music, as a symbol of the identity of the "nation". Hence my interest in making visible the political and social conflict involved in these measures and efforts of recognition of the patron saint celebrations by state institutions.
From this perspective, it is relevant to understand these patron saint festivities as scenarios of disputes between the State and society based on the absence and presence of the State within the festivity. Taking into account that the participants of both festivities preserve and safeguard their cultural ties and worldviews beyond national borders, which is materialized through a constant search for the rearticulation of a territory whose borders were imagined prior to the arrival of the Spaniards and are still maintained in the imaginary of the aimara settlers.
