This article addresses a case study in which ethnography and colonization projects in Colombia are intertwined through government policies from the 1930s. The work of the Swedish ethnologist Gustaf Bolinder, who was hired by the Colombian Government in 1935 to conduct ethnographic research in the Llanos Orientales, prepare a manual for government workers, hold a series of conferences on ethnography and archeology, and form a collection of ethnographic objects for the Ministry of Education. The approaches presented in this article are based on documentary research in different archives, materials little explored by studies of the history of Colombian anthropology. Likewise, the case is analyzed within the framework of the development of a s...