TY - JOUR
T1 - Indexicality and the Indigenization of Politics
T2 - Dancer–Pilgrims Protesting Mining Concessions in the Andes
AU - Salas Carreño, Guillermo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 by the American Anthropological Association
PY - 2020/3/1
Y1 - 2020/3/1
N2 - The Quyllurit'i shrine, located at the bottom of a glacier seventy kilometers from the city of Cuzco, is the focus of the biggest pilgrimage of the Peruvian Andes. This article analyzes a protest organized by the Consejo de Naciones Peregrinas del Señor de Qoyllurit'i (Council of Pilgrim Nations of Lord Quyllurit'i) in the city of Cuzco, which called for the cancellation of the mining concessions near the shrine. While these dancer-pilgrims do not claim to be indigenous, their protest's performances were strongly loaded with indexes of indigeneity when framed through the regional racial-ethnic ideologies. The protest obtained the regional authorities’ support by performing obvious but implicit indigeneity that also entailed challenges to the hegemonic politics that excludes nonhumans. The article highlights how multiple forms of indigeneity, primarily emerging through indexicality, can notoriously intervene in politics; yet also how, paradoxically, the Consejo de Naciones’ political influence depends upon its abstention from active involvement in formal politics. [cosmopolitics, indexical order, indigeneity, performance, protest against mining].
AB - The Quyllurit'i shrine, located at the bottom of a glacier seventy kilometers from the city of Cuzco, is the focus of the biggest pilgrimage of the Peruvian Andes. This article analyzes a protest organized by the Consejo de Naciones Peregrinas del Señor de Qoyllurit'i (Council of Pilgrim Nations of Lord Quyllurit'i) in the city of Cuzco, which called for the cancellation of the mining concessions near the shrine. While these dancer-pilgrims do not claim to be indigenous, their protest's performances were strongly loaded with indexes of indigeneity when framed through the regional racial-ethnic ideologies. The protest obtained the regional authorities’ support by performing obvious but implicit indigeneity that also entailed challenges to the hegemonic politics that excludes nonhumans. The article highlights how multiple forms of indigeneity, primarily emerging through indexicality, can notoriously intervene in politics; yet also how, paradoxically, the Consejo de Naciones’ political influence depends upon its abstention from active involvement in formal politics. [cosmopolitics, indexical order, indigeneity, performance, protest against mining].
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85083093848&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/jlca.12462
DO - 10.1111/jlca.12462
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85083093848
SN - 1935-4932
VL - 25
SP - 7
EP - 27
JO - Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology
JF - Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology
IS - 1
ER -