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The Peruvian government's Law N. 27811, an intellectual property law passed in 2002 and designed to register and protect traditional knowledge, provides productive opportunities for critical analysis. Framed within the trajectory of international intellectual property rights and discussions that complicate the integration of Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) into Cartesian scientific frameworks, this paper critically examines how the Peruvian law has been implemented and its impacts in Indigenous communities, particularly in the Andean Amazon region. The analysis is based on the author's work assisting Indigenous communities in San Martin register their knowledge through this law. While the law represents an advanced legal attempt to address power inequalities, it remains problematic. It does not address the impoverishment of Indigenous Peoples and continues to subordinate Indigenous TEK to Cartesian science. Although it is a symbolic recognition of the value of Peruvian Indigenous Peoples, other mechanisms are still required to redress the long history of colonization and racism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the narratives, dialogues and experiences of inmates and health personnel involved in an intervention funded by the Global Fund to reduce tuberculosis rates in Peruvian prisons. It seeks to answer two main questions: How is it discussed and who has the responsibility for care of the disease in this intervention? It is based on an ethnography conducted in 2006 in Lurigancho, the most overcrowded prison in Peru. The study shows that, contrary to what interventionists affirm, most of the inmates can reproduce the biomedical versions of the disease's etiology in their own terms and without major problems. It was found that intervention discourse holds the patient solely responsible for his health condition; obscuring other equally important social and economic factors. It is argued that many public health policies have taken on a reductionist nature since they have begun to be based upon liberal economic assumptions. As a consequence of this process, certain diseases and types of patients or social groups are considered as morally reprehensible and punishable. It is concluded that it is essential to explore the communication ideology behind any intervention or public health policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to think about the dynamics between social labour relationships and the religious believes in Peruvian mining on the basis of anthropological analysis of data collected among Julcani miners (Huancavelica) and Canta artisanal miners (Sierra of Lima) . Julcani miners are observed in two different socioeconomic contexts, one of modernization and technological development, and another of mine closure. Canta artisanal miners are also observed in two different periods, one before and the other after the installation in the zone of a mineral trade company. It can be stated that the apparition of «evil» believes in miner's religious system corresponds to the expansion and intensification of capitalist labour relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Quechua offerings in the South of Peru are banquets dedicated to the Pachamama and the Apus, and at the same time, are elaborated mathematical systems controlled by sophisticated operations. Using two principal numbers, 3 and 4, the religious specialist is capable of transmitting polysemic messages. Through the number 3, the religious specialist refers to the people, landscapes and mountains, in sum, to «persons» able to interact among themselves. The number 3 appears in the k'intus, composed of coca leaves, also in the prayers said during the process of the offering ritual. On the contrary, the number 4 does not indicate relationships but spatial forms: it is a geometrical operator that is constructed of the ceremonial square napkin (unk'uña) and paper in which the offering is completely wrapped to make the offering a miniature world, containing the «four directions of the world.» Using these numbers, the religious specialist can recreate the cosmos, establish covenants with the gods and define new situations favorable to the life of Quechuas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]