DISCOURSES AND STRATEGIES IN FEMALE SIKURI GROUPS IN SOUTHERN PERU: THE EXPERIENCE OF WARMI SIKURI AWKA SISA IN AREQUIPA, PERU (2018-2019)

Some Andean societies have assigned gender roles to specific musical practices, as is the case of sikuri groups in the Andean highlands, which are made up exclusively of male performers in their places of origin. Migration and intense population displacements of the late Twentieth and early Twenty-first centuries from this area to other cities such as Arequipa, in southern Peru, have led to changes in the makeup of these groups in which the growing presence of female members is observed. The formation of exclusively female groups, thus subverting the order established by the communities in the places of origin. Women seek and use discourses based on new ideologies and constructions of thought that allow them to justify this subversion of the established tradition and notably diversify Sikuris groups' actions, which are engaged in very different activities from those originally associated with the participation of these groups. This study addresses the impact that the incorporation of women into sikuri groups in the city of Arequipa has had, their assimilation strategies, the participation of mixed or female groups in religious or recreational and social interaction activities, as well as restrictions, inequalities, and other vicissitudes in the exercise of their activity. Using the concepts of cultural dynamism, gender studies, tradition, and change in social behaviors associated with music, through the study of the Warmi Sikuri Awka Sisa group, the first entirely female group formed in that city.