Peruvian Andes

Wiñaypacha (which means Eternity) - the first Peruvian feature film spoken entirely in Aymara - recently premiered, achieving tremendous success not only in Peru but also internationally. Directed by Óscar Catacora, a young Peruvian filmmaker of Aymara origin, the film is a masterpiece due to both its aesthetic and narrative qualities. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how the film’s script and photography, also signed by the director, work as poetic and potent resources that are revealing of Andean thought regarding, in particular, the idea of Eternity. Finally, it lays emphasis on how, with the success of Wiñaypacha, Andean peoples are now protagonists in places where, thus far, they were mainly bound to subordinate roles.

This paper investigates seed politics through the case study of a native potato repatriation and related livelihood projects at the Parque de la Papa (Parque) in the Peruvian Andes. This in situ oriented agrobiodiversity initiative launches a compelling critique—framed in distinctly spatial terms—of standard ex situ conservation paradigms and policies. Specifically, it works to decentralize seed conservation and to re-situate agrobiodiversity within in situ sites and situations. This spatial reconfiguration has political and epistemological implications: it recontextualizes agricultural expertise and the fruits thereof in the farms and daily lives of Andean communities; it grounds political interventions, which recently led to Peru's decade-long moratorium on transgenics; and it offers a decolonizing vision of genetic resource value. Through a variety of practices and discourses the Parque is articulating and actualizing a critical geography of agrobiodiversity and its conservation.

The danza de tijeras is an essential part of the Water Party celebrations in Andamarca (Ayacucho Department, Peru). During the party, exhibitions and competencias that challenge their endurance are publicly made by the dazantes: they pierce their bodies with nails and thorns, cut themselves with glass shards, and walk on embers. In order to be successful, the danzantes hold continuals negotiations with non-humans, through pactos and pagapas, especially with the Devil, he Siren and with the Apus. Long walks to reach virgen places, where no human has ever treaded before, are another way of developing into a good danzante, of acquiring strength and poder to become a maestro of the danza. This article, focuses on some aspects of the relationships between the dancers and the Apus, the Siren and the Devil; and on how, to become a complete body, the danzante’s body must be composed by such beings.

Improving water governance in the Andes is one of Peru’s biggest challenges. This article examines the state’s role in the water supply of an Andean community. Thirty years ago the community resisted the state’s interference in its water management but now it has adopted a state model. The present article examines this change in the context of two
occasions: the Peruvian state’s investment in a new channel in the area and the community’s confrontation with the state to gain access to this infrastructure. In the article, it is suggested that rather than viewing the confrontation as a form of resistance against the state’s interference in Andean irrigation, we can see it as a way of opposing the state’s water policy that privileges Peru’s coastal desert at the cost of the country’s highlands. It argues that, paradoxically, the community’s success in challenging this policy and gaining rights to new water sources has prompted it to recognize
the state as a legitimate water governor. The article concludes that, to overcome Andean communities’ distrust of the state, the state must allow communities to play an
active role in water management and assure water equity in Peru.

Examination of the distribution of climate vulnerability, water resources, and eco- nomic opportunities in a Peruvian watershed suggests that, rather than the concept of adaptation, a focus on political agency is important to highlight the creative and dynamic political action in local responses to climate change. Peasant farmers and herders in the Peruvian headwaters are among the most vulnerable to global warming, since they are the first to experience the changes in water supplies. Leaders in the highlands claim rights connected to a fluid ownership of water that is born in their territory and demand pay- ments from the companies making money on this water based on the principles of reciproc- ity and justice. These demands are attempts at taking control of an uncertain future and as such are examples of political agency relating to climate change.

Busca comprender el modo en que la identidad de los navinos residentes en Lima posibilita en el actual contexto global la integración de su comunidad de origen. Describe la dinámica identitaria experimentada por los navinos residentes en Lima desde su proyecto migratorio hasta el contexto global actual. Comprende la identidad experimentada actualmente por los navinos residentes en Lima en relación a la Fiesta de La Caporalía y su representación simbólico-ritual. Comprende el modo en que los navinos residentes en Lima articulan en torno a la identidad relaciones socioeconómicas que posibilitan la integración de la comunidad de origen.

The paper discusses how anthropology contributes to climate change research and communication. Building on theoretical works that highlight the cultural framing of communication it investigates the signs and symbols that a Peruvian highland community creates and the imaginaries and identities it generates to interpret and communicate climate change and its environmental impact. To explore the community’s communicative repertoire the paper explores three climate voices that illuminate the conflicting ways the global discourse on climate change impacts the community’s future visions. Arguing that anthropogenic climate change poses a new challenge to the communication of urgent public issues the paper asks: Should the communication discuss climate change as a matter-of-fact issue? Or should it present climate change as a cultural phenomenon that is acknowledged as an issue in dispute? The paper concludes that climate change research is a post-normal science that not only must engage a range of scholarly traditions and methods but also listen to the voices that are affected by climate change in the real world. It encourages climate change communicators to recognize that climate communication is a dialogical relation based on the mutual interests of its experts and its users in providing as well as receiving knowledge.

ABSTRACT This paper investigates seed politics through the case study of a native potato repatriation and related livelihood projects at the Parque de la Papa (Parque) in the Peruvian Andes. This in situ oriented agrobiodiversity initiative launches a compelling critique—framed in distinctly spatial terms—of standard ex situ conservation paradigms and policies. Specifically, it works to decentralize seed conservation and to re‐situate agrobiodiversity within in situ sites and situations. This spatial reconfiguration has political and epistemological implications: it recontextualizes agricultural expertise and the fruits thereof in the farms and daily lives of Andean communities; it grounds political interventions, which recently led to Peru's decade‐long moratorium on transgenics; and it offers a decolonizing vision of genetic resource value. Through a variety of practices and discourses the Parque is articulating and actualizing a critical geography of agrobiodiversity and its conservation.

The paper discusses how anthropology contributes to climate change research and communication. Building on theoretical works that highlight the cultural framing of communication it investigates the signs and symbols that a Peruvian highland community creates and the imaginaries and identities it generates to interpret and communicate climate change and its environmental impact. To explore the community’s communicative repertoire the paper explores three climate voices that illuminate the conflicting ways the global discourse on climate change impacts the community’s future visions. Arguing that anthropogenic climate change poses a new challenge to the communication of urgent public issues the paper asks: Should the communication discuss climate change as a matter-of-fact issue? Or should it present climate change as a cultural phenomenon that is acknowledged as an issue in dispute? The paper concludes that climate change research is a post-normal science that not only must engage a ...

"Sembradoras de vida" transporta os espectadores diretamente para as altitudes andinas e enfoca a relação estreita entre as mulheres e a terra. Uma aproximação que se dá tanto pela capacidade de gerar vida como pelo fato de as mulheres ocuparem, via de regra, uma posição de destaque durante a semeadura – como depositadoras das sementes no solo – e, mais tarde, como aquelas que dedicarão grande parte de seus esforços para fazer a chacra (roça) viver. Entram em cena cinco personagens femininas (além de Sonia Mamani, Eliana Garcia, Braulia Puma, Brizaida Sicus e Justa Quispe) de diferentes partes do Peru andino rural, mas com um mesmo propósito: manter e promover o vínculo com aquela que traz tanta prosperidade às suas vidas. A terra é, assim, por onde quer que miremos, a grande protagonista do filme.

In Andamarca the comensality and
the production of foods, spanning
from cropping, the preparing of dishes,
and the given and taken of foods are
creative acts of sociability and reciprocity
among several beings, humans
and non-humans. Refuse food and
beverages is something that it cannot
be done (“no se puede”), an reaction
interpreted by the Andamarquinos as
an act of disdain (“desprecio”), as a
refuse to interact or to the possibility
of create relations. Everyone shall accept
what is offered, and the foods, as
well as the beverage distributed in the
parties, must be offered to everybody
without exception. The goal of this paper
is demonstrate that the movement
of inclusion of the other, which should
not exclude nobody, remits us to other
movements of rotation/alternation that
exist in Andamarca, which privilege the
circularity of flows, the alternance over
the retention/concentration.
Keywords: Andeans. Foods. Reciprocity.
Alternation.

Resumo: A corrida de touros figura como um importante acontecimento anual em Andamarca (povoado quéchua andino do departamento de Ayacucho, Peru), muitíssimo esperada por todos. A atração faz parte das atividades da Festa da Água, a maior e principal celebração local realizada sempre em agosto, início do ano agrícola. Trata-se de um ritual herdeiro de duas tradições associadas ao que alguns chamariam de violência: no caso das corridas espanholas, isso aconteceria com a morte do touro ou, eventualmente, do toureiro; e no caso das corridas andinas peruanas, em sua expressão mais sangrenta, conhecida como Festa de Sangue ou Yawar Fiesta, os ferimentos envolveriam touros e condores, uma vez que estas imponentes aves são amarradas ao dorso dos primeiros. Entretanto, esta versão andina das corridas foi se tornando cada vez mais rara ao longo da segunda metade do século XX no Peru, sendo raríssima nos dias de hoje. Em diversos povoados altoandinos o que se vê atualmente é uma transformação de ambos os estilos de corrida em um evento que desperta sobretudo o riso, não havendo mortos nem feridos. O objetivo deste trabalho é realçar alguns aspectos relacionados a tais rituais, tanto da Festa de Sangue como das corridas de touros contemporâneas a partir de dados oriundos de pesquisa etnográfica em Andamarca, na medida em que possam ser reveladores das relações entre humanos e animais nos Andes peruanos.

The paper discusses how anthropology contributes to climate change research and communication. Building on theoretical works that highlight the cultural framing of communication it investigates the signs and symbols that a Peruvian highland community creates and the imaginaries and identities it generates to interpret and communicate climate change and its environmental impact. To explore the community's communicative repertoire the paper explores three climate voices that illuminate the conflicting ways the global discourse on climate change impacts the community's future visions. Arguing that anthropogenic climate change poses a new challenge to the communication of urgent public issues the paper asks: Should the communication discuss climate change as a matter-of-fact issue? Or should it present climate change as a cultural phenomenon that is acknowledged as an issue in dispute? The paper concludes that climate change research is a post-normal science that not only must engage a range of scholarly traditions and methods but also listen to the voices that are affected by climate change in the real world. It encourages climate change communicators to recognize that climate communication is a dialogical relation based on the mutual interests of its experts and its users in providing as well as receiving knowledge.

The pampas cat Oncifelis colocolo is one of the most enigmatic of the neotropical felids. Little is known of its ecology and its distribution and taxonomy are still a matter of debate. Here we provide an account of a melanistic pampas cat in the vicinity of Yanachaga-Chemillien National Park in the Andes of Central Peru. This report is the first official confirmed record of the pampas cat from the Peruvian province of Oxapampa, which now contains a minimum of seven felid species.

This article discusses the significance of celebration and dancing to Andamarquinos, especially concerning the Water Festivity, or Yaku Raymi, the most important celebration in the small village of Andamarca, in the Peruvian Andes. On that occasion, dancing is, in itself, considered an offering to Pachamama, to the Apus, to the ancestors and to the saints, for water to be abundant and, hence, for the agricultural year to be fertile. It is also the ideal moment to make specific offerings to the waters (rivers, lakes and headwaters), recognizing their importance; and when, so to speak, water itself dances. From this perspective, two performances are highlighted: the ones enacted by the danzantes de tijeras and by the ñawin, whose bodies, in both cases, stand out for their resistance.
Keywords: Peruvian Andes. Water Festivity. Dancing. Body. Resistance.