Abstract

This presentation examines how heritage has been mobilised, contested, and weaponised during the most recent years of the Venezuelan crisis. Through two case studies, it analyses heritage as a staging ground for political negotiation, resistance, and violence. First, it explores the toppling of statues of Hugo Chávez following the 2024 presidential election, arguing that beyond political dissent these acts engaged with widespread beliefs in the statues’ ‘magical’ potency rooted in Afro-Indigenous religious traditions. Second, it investigates the 2025 U.S. bombing campaign in the Southern Caribbean, demonstrating how competing representations of fishermen as either ‘narcoterrorists’ or ‘humble fishermen’ were manipulated to legitimise military intervention. Together, these cases show how heritage has played an important role during the latest developments of the Venezuelan crisis and opens avenues for nuanced approaches to even more recent (2026) developments in the country.

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