Search

This thesis is an exploration of how the Quechua-speaking peasants of the community of San Pablo de Inkawasi, in the Andes of northern Peru, make, grow or own things, domestic plants and animals and their own children; and which shows how these creative processes- and the bond of ownership that emerges from them-are central for articulating local notions of sociality and personhood. The relation of ownership is also central for giving meaning to their relations with the generative powers of the landscape and with the colonial and postcolonial State. The focus of this thesis is on the bond of mastery or ownership, responding to the necessity of underlining that all creative processes are thought of by the Inkawasinos as a continuous relationship that long precedes and follows the actual transformation (for example, the transformation of sheep wool into a poncho). Creative processes are understood as appropriations-transforming something or someone into one's own-that create a permanent bond between creators and their creatures thought of in the language of kin. The relations created between creators and their creatures, assimilated to that between parents and children, are used to imagine a plural and unbounded person composed of relations with humans and other-than-humans. Relations of mastery or ownership are established not just between people and their belongings, but also between people and other owners-human or not-including those to which the Inkawasinos belong themselves: such as the mountains (Sirkakuna) or the Christian deities (Amitunchik). Mastery has been historically at the centre of the relations with the colonial and post-colonial States, which allows me to articulate personhood with the particular history of this Andean community, and with the challenges its members face in a world of increasingly contested ownership.

In Talavera, a small town in the rural south-central Peruvian Andes, Catholicism is deeply rooted in local institutions, society and history. I explore Talaveran Catholicism primarily through the eyes of the priests and the core parish community, and in doing so seek to contribute to the anthropology of Christianity, including the anthropology of Catholicism, and the anthropology of the Andes. Engaging with dominant models in the anthropology of Christianity of Christianity as a religion of conversion and radical discontinuity, I argue that in Talavera, such models no longer ring true for local Catholics: instead, Christian conversion is long forgotten and taken for granted, while Christianity is an important source of continuity with the past. This is related to the activities of the current generation of Catholic priests in Talavera, who are locally native and who by and large tend to be more sympathetic to local Andean Catholic traditions as a result—but without subscribing to dominant anthropological framings for pro-Andean sentiment. Instead, I draw on David Brown's formulation of Christian tradition to argue for a new anthropological model views the ‘syncretic' aspects of Andean Catholicism as simply part of Catholicism in general. Following the emphasis on incorporating theology, I subsequently argue that we need to take seriously Catholic notions of sacramentality as an ontological transformation—a theme throughout the majority of the thesis. I argue that sacramentality underlies how Catholic priests can be simultaneously divine and human through the sacrament of ordination; structures clerical-lay relations in Catholic parishes by creating the space for lay assistants to carry out the work of priests without becoming priests themselves; and causes membership of the Catholic Church, thereby leaving belief to carry out the work of improving, rather than effecting, one's Catholic-ness.

This thesis examines social change in the Quechua-speaking town of Chinchero (Peru), located 30 km away from the city of Cuzco. It does so by studying the conditions created by touristic development in the Region. It is an ethnography that builds on, and dialogues with, previous ethnographies done in Chinchero before. It focuses on issues of landscape and cultural heritage, as these are some of the domains most affected by the changes brought about by tourism, among other forms of modernization. The thesis looks at processes of re-territorialization and social exclusion that have followed the reconversion of the Inca ruins into an Archaeological Park. It also studies the town´s reputed textile tradition in a context of growing commercialization. Over the last few years, coinciding with a surge in tourism in the region, the tourist demand for “authentic” indigenous crafts has fostered significant changes in the textile production of Chinchero. The multiplication of weaving centers where the ethnicity is performed for the tourist gaze, plus the social implications of this new mode of social organization, comes into scrutiny. Another major focus of attention is the project of the New International Airport of Cuzco in Chinchero land. The airport is a direct consequence of tourist development in the Region. This thesis explores processes of social disruption and environmental conflict as the project is deeply dividing the community and raising expectations of progress that that are unlikely to be met. Additionally, the airport intersects with issues of indigeneity and the redefinition of the ethnic identity as the project engages with the supposed incompatibility between being indigenous, and thus “traditional”, and being modern, a process that involves the commercialization of “ancestral” land and the heavy reworking of a landscape where the ancestors and other-than-human forces still dwell.