My first four days (90-ish kilometers) in Lima have been packed with sites and experiences that I’m still sorting out mentally. As I’m sure you all know by now, my preferred mode of transportation is on foot. My reasons for this are varied, primary being that I’m am a slave to my Apple Watch (lol) and it wants me to close my rings (haha), but more importantly, walking (running) through the city streets allow me to form my own cognitive map of both the land and my experiences in it. In this way I feel like my mind functions like a neatly organized grid, and I wonder if I was born this way or if it’s a consequence of my upbringing in a western colonial society. I’m sure it’s a bit of both. Regardless, this is the brain I have, so to learn about new things, I feel the need to build a foundation by physically engaging with as many aspects of the material as possible in an attempt to fill in the gaps.
At home in Vancouver, and across Canada more broadly, there seems to be a specific narrative about colonialism, indigeneity, and reconciliation. As I am not originally from Canada, and did not have any education on this issue growing up in the U.S., I certainly lack insight on this matter, so I often feel that I have to learn the “right” way to approach these topics, but because I’m missing that cognitive foundation, I feel that the thoughts are not my own and are merely performative. My hope for this course is that I can build that foundation through this fully immersive experience.
From the start I could sense the gaps filling in my mind when we went on our first informal tour with John to visit the reconstructed Huaca near our hotel. Learning about the different ways that this structure was used by different groups over time allowed my thoughts to organize themselves into the neat categories that I am so familiar with. For example, most conversations about indigeneity and indigenous people seem to lump it all together as if there is no diversity in beliefs and practices. This is disproved by the different uses of the Huaca over time as well as the different artistic talents (pottery/textiles/ornamental jewelry) practiced by ancient Peruvian groups.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a perfect record of historical events that would produce a universal understanding of what happened and what it all means…? For better or worse, this isn’t how humans operate due to the subjective nature of experience and memory. So I will continue to tirelessly seek to understand the world through my lived experience in different spaces and my attempt to decipher the inner workings of others’ psyches.
3 replies on “Mapping out Lima”
Thank you for your honesty on this post! I think that, especially since most of us do not belong to the culture that we are discussing, we are each learning the proper way to go about doing so. Hopefully, by the end of this trip, we’ll all have a more clear foundation of the right way we should approach topics revolving around cultures that are foreign to us. I guess it’s a live and learn process!
Hi Andree! I don’t think you should feel you are lacking in knowledge at all! I think you are having a very unique learning experience as we all are but not having a previous education on indigeneity in Canada allows you to make other connections to the material as I’m sure you’ve experienced. While it has been useful to compare the history of indigeneity in Canada and Peru, I find that I have many pre-conceived notions of what I believe indigeneity is and much of the new information I receive is filtered to fit the existing framework of my idea of indigeneity. I’m not saying this is a fault, but that we each have a very unique perspective on the subject that is equally valuable. It is evident that you can critically engage with the subject as you recognize the conglomeration of various indigenous practices as we’ve moved through the various activities and studies. This was not something I initially picked up on because I feel that in my previous education, there was not much distinction made between the various indigenous groups so I’m grateful you were able to highlight that in your post! Looking forward to hearing more of your cool thoughts and runs!!
Another element that now seems important to me is the distribution of Indigenous presence in each city or small town we have been to. As you say, you’ve learned to navigate them in different ways. Perhaps no one knows the traces of the Indigenous presence like you, who has mapped the places when we have visited them. How has your perspective changed from when you wrote this blog post to today?