Module 3, Post 3

Indigenous Cultures of Peru

http://www.apulaya.com

Apulaya describes itself as the “Center for Andean Culture” and offers courses in music, art, workshops in Andean anthropology, and cultural vacation opportunities. This is a commercial venture aimed at a tourist audience and focuses on different aspects of Andean culture including religion, craft, people, places, and art. An interesting offering is the opportunity to create your own mini-documentary that will contribute to another documentary they title the “Tourist’s Myth and Reality.”(http://www.apulaya.com/en/camera-action-in-an-indigenous-community.php)

With a short session on Andean philosophy and a session on film making I am quite curious to see the results of this kind of “venture.” Will these tourists coming into a single community with limited understanding of anthropology or ethics with regards to anthropological studies benefit or hinder the community? This seems to me to be obviously more of a commercial than a cultural venture and I wounder whether this could possibly serve to further colonize an Indigenous people or does it offer another “space of resistance and hope” as Smith would suggest. I guess we will have to wait and watch for the documentary.

Smith, Linda, Introduction to Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, London: Zed Books Ltd, 1-18