Paper short abstract:

The relationship between archaeological heritage, embodied memory and tourism is in the forefront of the debates in the Anthropology of tourism. The paper looks at the new dynamics introduced by tourism in the rural Andes.

Paper long abstract:

This paper investigates current changes brought by tourism and development in the Peruvian highland village of Chinchero. Its aim is to contextualize present events in historical terms by interpreting them in relation to previous processes of transformation and continuity that pervade the history of the Andes. The ways in which people are coping with these changes address the problem of "tradition" and interrogate current notions of indigeneity. My research looks specifically at the relations between the people and the landscape through material culture and archaeological heritage, and privileges for its study Andean worldviews of the land as reflected in the ethnohistoric and the ethnographic sources. My main research question asks how tourism is changing the traditional ties between the people of Chinchero (Peru) and the land with its "other-than-human" entities. Among other things, this project explores transformations and persistances in meanings attached to the landscape, as well as in the social practices that take place within it.

The theoretical direction of this paper is informed by two primary strands. The first strand looks at previous Andean ethnographies which have explored the landscape as the physical embodiment of social memory and local history. These ethnographies have considered the critical role of materiality and performance in the shaping, the articulation, and the reenactment of people´s ties not only with their past, but with their (re)productive present as well. The second strand is made of current anthropological engagements with the phenomenon of tourism, in particular with its political economy and its ideological implications.