Paper short abstract:

Tracking the global circulation of the melody "El Condor Pasa" from the Andes to the metropolis; from Lima to Paris to New York; from panpipes to piano to disco; and from world music back to national heritage, the film unpacks the global/local dialectic and studies paradoxes of heritage protection.

Paper long abstract:

The film tracks the global circulation and transformation of the melody "El Condor Pasa": from the Andes mountains to global metropoles; from Lima to Paris to New York, and back; from panpipes to piano and from symphony orchestras to the disco; from indigenous to popular music; and from world music back to national heritage.

Some of the story's protagonists are: Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, Daniel Alomía Robles, Alan Lomax, Los Incas, the Cerro de Pasco Copper Company, the Victor Talking Machine Corporation, the Falangist Socialist Party of Bolivia, Chuck Berry, NASA, WIPO and UNESCO.

The story that the film tells shows how individual personalities and states can shape texts that become the foundation of global narratives; and how propositions made for a particular local reason become global instruments with entirely different effects in other corners of the world.

Unpacking the global/local dialectic, the film is a case study in paradox; it analyzes the prehistory of international heritage/copyright norms, the way that prehistory travels in oral and written circulation, and the enduring problems it points to in the implementation of these norms.