Notas sobre LASA 2024

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Celebrada, aclamada, odiada, ignorada y siempre bulliciosa, la conferencia de la Latin American Studies Association (LASA) se celebró en Bogotá este año del 12 al 15 de junio en las instalaciones de la Universidad Javeriana. Esta fue la sexta vez que participo en la conferencia y aun no entiendo bien qué está en juego en este evento. Está claro, por supuesto, que la conferencia sirve como punto de encuentro para viejos colegas, excompañeros, o amigos que han interactuado y discutido por años temas afines en el área de los estudios latinoamericanos. Por otra parte, es innegable que entre tantos paneles, talleres, conferencias y eventos uno no puede sino sentirse perdido y algo abrumado. Como alguna vez leí en algún lado, para evitar estos embrollos y sobrevivir LASA con éxito, el festival de cine siempre es un buen refugio. Ahora bien, ¿vale la pena hacer el viaje sólo para ver películas latinoamericanas?

No soy el primero ni el último que se para a pensar en los sentimientos encontrados que genera la conferencia de LASA. De hecho, en Bogotá y a propósito de la conferencia, Luis Guillermo Vélez Cabrera y Alejandro Lloreda escribieron una elocuente crítica sobre el festival. La nota lleva como título “Notas sobre un festival woke.” La nota apunta como a partir de las diferentes divergencias que ha tomado “la izquierda” mundial, sobre todo en Norteamérica, muchos temas canónicos de los estudios latinoamericanos, y otras áreas, han sido desplazados por una agenda “woke.” La palabra, que en inglés hace referencia al estar despierto, pero también a una serie de luchas y reivindicaciones sociales popularizadas por redes sociales a partir del #metoo, y otros movimientos sociales, carga una connotación ambivalente. Mientras que para algunos lo woke refiere a un intento por reivindicar a grupos marginalizados a través de prácticas simbólicas y sociales, como la inclusión de grupos minoritarios en el reparto de películas y programas de entretenimiento. Para otros, lo woke refiere a la atomización social y al dominio de las políticas de identidad acérrimo y más reaccionario. Es decir, como bien ilustran Vélez Cabrera y Lloreda, lo woke se compone del exacerbado comentario de temas foucaultianos; de la aglomeración sin sentido de interseccionalidades o subalternidades; de la victimización ante todas las cosas de cualquier grupo de riesgo; y de la idealización de los grupos marginados (indígenas, colectivos LGBTQ+). 

Quizá lo peor de lo woke, como lúcidamente comentaba mi anfitrión en Bogotá, un profesor jubilado de la Universidad de los Andes, es que, por afán de querer resolver problemas importantes, los movimientos woke terminan generando y atomizando los problemas, creando así falsos problemas que se multiplican y diversifican por todas partes. Vélez Cabrera y Lloreda, añaden que: “El woke, en vez de integrar a la sociedad defendiendo los valores humanos universales, la segmentó en pedazos de salami identitarios que se engullen fácilmente.” Al final, lo más triste de los movimientos woke es que no son reivindicativos ni contestatarios ante las injusticias, sino que son afirmativos y acordes con las propias injusticias y formas de explotación que denuncian. Quizá el ejemplo más claro de este callejón sin salida es la utilización del lenguaje inclusivo. Mientras que los cambios en una lengua siempre han estado en manos de las multitudes, el carácter prescriptivo de grupos a favor del lenguaje inclusivo, que consiste en la utilización de formas “neutras” en el español a partir de la modificación de las palabras (i.e. une, por uno, niñe, por niño), promueven la idea de que las palabras son las cosas. Esto es, si una lengua es siempre excluyente (pues quien no habla una lengua está fuera de ese horizonte de sentido), en el afán de volver a los signos referentes fieles de aquello que designan, el lenguaje inclusivo termina por ser doblemente excluyente. Une niñe puede estar feliz en su casa de coto privado y educación progresiva, mientras miles de niños nunca verán una escuela y nunca sabrán siquiera que algunos de ellos pudieron haber sido niñes.

Por otra parte, tampoco es aleccionadora la crítica de Vélez Cabrera y Lloreda. Pues claro, es bastante fácil criticar a algo tan poco consistente como lo woke. De hecho, la crítica misma que hacen Vélez Cabrera y Lloreda es, en cierto sentido, una crítica woke. El texto está escrito justo como un woke juzgaría: el internet, las imágenes y un “control + f” por delante. Es decir, Vélez Cabrera y Lloreda critican a la conferencia por no promocionar temas para ellos importantes, de “grueso calibre” les llaman. Criticar el programa de un evento sin haber ido es el consuelo y la lucha misma de los “woke.” ¿Qué pensar, entonces, sobre una conferencia que, al menos desde la perspectiva de Vélez Cabrera y Lloreda, se percibe como “El Woodstock de los estudios latinoamericanos”?

Quizá lo más difícil sería decir que en LASA, al menos en las últimas conferencias, se sigue un tema a fin o que hay figuras “clave” en el campo de estudiso. Esto es, este “festival” no tiene nada de Woodstock pues no hay artistas principales ni teloneros. De hecho, aunque todas las conferencias de LASA promocionen un tema, o una línea de pensamiento a seguir, son contados siempre los paneles que aceptan la invitación del comité organizador. Para este año, LASA invitó a los panelistas a “imaginar futuros posibles para las Américas.” Al respecto, fue bastante anticlimático que, en la casi clásica mesa redonda sobre el estado actual de los estudios latinoamericanos, poco o nada se discutiera sobre el futuro del campo de estudio. Antes bien, los participantes de la mesa, algunos presentando de manera remota, se dedicaron a rememorar cómo ha sido su experiencia dentro del campo. Para algunos, por otra parte, además de ejercitar su memoria, el campo de los estudios latinoamericanos debería de reordenarse ante los embates del discurso identitario y decolonial. Esto mismo, quizá, demuestra la incapacidad de la conferencia de imaginar un futuro, ni mucho menos de entender su propio pasado, pues hace ya más de 20 años varios intelectuales habían advertido el peligro que las políticas identitarias y la opción decolonial representaban para el campo de estudio. Si algo valioso hubiera dentro de las intervenciones de los panelistas de la mesa es que el campo de los estudios latinoamericanos, más bien, siempre tiene que volver a hacerse desde un “afuera.” Esto, al menos, quedó evidente luego de que cada ponente explicara y enfatizara que ellos mismos, como “latinoamericanistas,” habían surgido de otros campos y que, casi, circunstancialmente hubieran caído en el campo de los estudios latinoamericanos.

No hay, entonces, futuro para las Américas. Y, de hecho, esto no necesariamente tendría que ser negativo. En uno de los últimos paneles de la conferencia, quizá un “headliner” del Woodstock que vieran Vélez Cabrera y Lloreda en el programa del evento, un ponente tajantemente argumentó que la idea de futuro no puede ya servir como promesa discursiva para articular cambios políticos ni intelectuales. El análisis presentado por el ponente partía de una lectura del libro de poemas Un libro rojo para Lenin del poeta salvadoreño Roque Dalton. La idea misma de tiempo, para el panelista, es dejada de lado en los poemas de Dalton. La redención, o la promesa, como forma de articuladora de sentido queda agotada a finales de siglo. Con esto, pues, el futuro se borra del horizonte y los movimientos sociales quedan expuestos a la intensidad e inmanencia del instante. Desde el instante, entonces, de nada sirven las identidades. Desde lo inmanente, el tiempo queda vaciado de la urgencia y se abren posibilidades nuevas. No hay ya lugar para gastar energías con planes y proyectos. Sin la idea misma de futuro todo está en manos de las multitudes. Y, aunque claro, el tema de la desaparición del futuro como aglutinador de sentido en los movimientos sociales también, de cierta manera, ya fue discutido por exlatinoamercanistas y otros pensadores afines al congreso, fue interesante ver una intervención que siguiera y desafiara la línea de pensamiento sugerida por el congreso.

Si los especialistas en el área de los estudios latinoamericanos no pueden formular respuestas adecuadas sobre el estado actual del campo mismo, y tampoco hay futuro como aglutinador de sentido, entonces el campo de los estudios latinoamericanos queda a la intemperie. Desde este espacio se abren nuevas posibilidades. Ya no hay futuro, ni especialistas capaces de domar el campo. Todo, al menos desde una perspectiva muy positiva, queda en un “vamos a ver.” Y al mismo tiempo, todo queda también como todo aquello que vive a la intemperie: muy cercano de su muerte en soledad.

Missed Encounters in Pisac, Peru

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While in Peru, we spent more time in the small town (about 10,000 inhabitants) of Pisac than in any other place–almost three weeks, or just under half our time in the country. This was because originally we were thinking of using, and staying in, a facility run there by the Catholic University (the PUCP). We didn’t end up doing that, but Pisac turned out to be a great place to be, and to return to from elsewhere.

Pisac is not far from Cusco, and at the head of the Sacred Valley. As such, it is definitely on the tourist circuit, not least for the impressive Inca ruins, including serried ranks of agricultural terraces, that overlook it. It does a thriving trade in handicrafts, both in its Artisans’ Market and beyond, and has plenty of cafes and restaurants. On the other hand, most tourists don’t spend long: many, in fact, include the ruins as part of a day trip from Cusco that takes them up and down the valley in what must be a race against time to visit as many archaeological sites as possible before the sun sets.

There are, however, long term tourists (or perhaps they would call themselves something else: travellers or voyagers?), who have dramatically changed the town over the past few years. These are mostly “New Age” tourists, who often stay months or even years and run an almost parallel economy, including offering workshops on everything from yoga and womb breathing to ayahuasca, presumably mostly for and among themselves.

We, however, were among a small minority who were neither day-trippers nor long-term settlers. We briefly got to know the town and some of its rhythms, as well as establishing our own routines. And though it wasn’t completely sleepy–there were bars, and a regular market, and there was often activity in the central plaza, where most of us were staying–we found some refuge from the constant stimulation of Cusco, especially Cusco during Corpus Christi and Inti Raymi. To some extent, it was a chance to be in something like ordinary, everyday Peru, and to be ordinary and everyday ourselves. It was a good place to sit in café or patio and read without wondering if you were missing out on something going on outside, to take some time out to think and reflect on our experiences elsewhere.

One of the ordinary and everyday activities that caught my eye was the work of the street-cleaners. There was a small brigade of them, costumed in the red uniform of the municipality, who would come out especially in the early morning and then again as night was falling, often in pairs or more, assiduously sweeping the streets and pavements, and sometimes also cutting the grass or doing other minor town maintenance and public works. They were strikingly both visible and invisible: visible because of their bright uniform, and invisible because this same uniform, with wide-brimmed hats and facemasks, made it hard to pick out individual characteristics. I think, for instance, that they were mostly women, but couldn’t be entirely sure. I suspect that they were mostly mestizas, but this also was hard to determine. It was as though they strangely lacked either gender or racial identification. They reminded me a little of the Jawas on Star Wars’ Tatooine: faceless scavengers and tinkerers, clearing up whatever others leave behind.

In some ways, the street cleaners seemed to be classic subalterns in their apparent lack of identity, with their almost unacknowledged (but vital) labour at the margins. They literally left no traces, as their job involved cleaning up after themselves and others. In other ways, however, their facelessness was part and parcel of their absorption into the municipal administration: it was of course a uniform that hid them, embroidered on the back with the town’s name. They were not so much outside as so intimately part of the functioning of the place that they could not be seen.

I occasionally ventured a “Buenos días” (or “Buenas noches”) in passing, but this was rarely returned. No doubt I was part of the problem: one of those wandering the streets whose detritus would eventually have to be cleared. I felt that this was a classic case of what in Spanish goes by the name of “desencuentro,” poorly translated as either “disagreement” or “missed encounter” in that it is an encounter, but at the same time is not; its terms are not sufficiently defined to be sure that there is even disagreement. In a desencuentro there is some acknowledgement or recognition of some kind of relation, some kind of meeting or resonance, even if insubstantial (or perhaps, by contrast, solely material) and indefinite, incomplete and unnameable.

Sometimes I felt that our entire time in Pisac, and perhaps in Peru as a whole, was one long desencuentro.

Spectacle, Movement, and Impasse at Inti Raymi

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“Inti Raymi,” sings Q-Pop (that is, K-Pop in Quechua) pioneer, Lenin Tamayo: “Vamos a bailar. . . todos a cantar”; “We’re going to dance. . . everyone sing!” And the music video, in which K-Pop takes on Andean scissor dancers, is well worth viewing. . . 

But the Inti Raymi celebrations we saw in Cusco were not much like this, and not only for the lack of K-Pop beats. Above all, where Tamayo presents festivities in which everyone can (and should) take part, a collective, mass celebration that is diverse and hybrid, what we saw instead was much more a show with a clear division between actors and spectators. Whether in the city’s Plaza de Armas, which was first cleared of people early in the morning in preparation for the arrival of the dancers, or later in Sacsayhuaman, Inti Raymi was a spectacle to be seen, rather than a festival of participation.

Moreover, proceedings also followed a program, a script, whose key points or steps were announced in both Spanish and English. There was a plot and direction to the performance, as we prepared for the dramatic arrival of the Inca (preceded by the Inca Queen), leading ultimately to the symbolic sacrifice of the llama, whose entrails were read for what they may say about the coming twelve months. This was a performance of power and continuity: both the impressive display of fealty to the Inca from the various quarters of the Twantinsuyo, as it has been reimagined by twentieth and twenty-first century Indigenists, but also the notion that this sense of territorial unity continues into the present. Downplaying or even erasing the rupture that was the Spanish conquest, Inti Raymi claims a more or less unbroken link to a distant past, replayed now in all its vibrant colour and impressive coordination of exotic difference.

Indeed, it was a show: but what a show! The sheer stamina of the dancers and musicians, who began in the morning at Qorichancha and didn’t finish until almost sunset eight or so hours later, was remarkable, not least as we spectators started to wilt in the heat of the Andean sun. All around, there was movement and motion, albeit ultimately calmed by the hand of the sovereign as the dancers bowed to his authority. And if this is a fiction of state, as it surely is, it certainly has the power to attract and capture the crowds: not simply the foreign tourists who (mainly) were those who, like us, had paid for the privilege of seats as Sacsayhuaman, but also the cusqueños who also traipsed up the hill, and then beyond, to observe the performance from the more distant but elevated perspective of the surrounding outcrops.

As we then made our way back down to the city, via the narrow and uneven path that leads to the highway, the sense of coordination soon fell apart. As tourists and locals merged, there was a logjam of people and much frustration at the fact that we weren’t moving faster, or at times even moving at all. Apart from some who had sped off already in chartered buses (but I doubt the roads were much clearer), here the different audiences were now cheek by jowl, pressed against each other, with a common but frustrated aim of escape. There were a couple of police officers looking on, who received many insults from the crowd for the fact that they seemed unable to bring more order or get the flow going again. It was literally an impasse as the physical contours of the cliffs on either side prevented anyone getting around the crush of people. Eventually the traffic restarted (no thanks to the police), but it felt as though we were once more in a more familiar Peru, and (briefly, at least) all in it more or less together.

Later, there may have been a party, who knows? If so, it wasn’t obvious, and/or we weren’t invited. But we had already felt, in suitably (and literally) dramatic fashion some of the country’s tensions: the spectacular display of coordinated unity, on the one hand, and then a rather different commonality of a delayed and frustrated, but ultimately successful, line of flight, that the authorities could only observe from the sidelines, powerless to intervene.

Machu Picchu at the End of the Line

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On arrival at Machu Picchu, we are told that this is a sanctuary, a sacred space. We are also provided with a list of prohibited objects and activities: no tripods or selfie sticks; no musical instruments or high heels; no climbing or jumping; no singing or whistling; no dressing up or running. And upon entering, our movement is carefully regulated: we have to follow a pre-established circuit (which we have chosen in advance), without deviation or turning back. Our guides usher us towards the “best” site for a photograph–though we have not chosen the circuit that includes the “classic” postcard shot, we are taken as close as possible, waiting our turn as the group before us get their pictures in. If this is a sanctuary, we are sharing it with the other four thousand tourists who visit each day.

It is hard not to feel a little bit cynical at Machu Picchu: pushed and prodded at all sides, if visitors feel a sense of their own insignificance it is as much because they recognize that they are simply a small part of a constant tourist stream as because they are confronted with a site of sublime awe and wonder. Or rather, perhaps here the tourist sublime makes itself known in the fleets of buses careening up and down the winding road to the citadel, in the lines snaking through the ruins themselves, and in the brutal (and uncharacteristically Peruvian) efficiency of the whole operation. Moreover, there is a sense that the whole of Peru funnels tourists to this end–Lima to Cusco to the Sacred Valley and then the train to Aguas Calientes–only to dump them out the other side, wondering “What next?” Answer: Puno, or perhaps the Colca Canyon; tourism never really stops. But still, augmented by the fact that there is essentially only one way in or out of Machu Picchu, one gets the feeling that this is the end of the line, the culmination of something. But what?

In The Heights of Macchu Picchu, Pablo Neruda claims to have experienced some kind of epiphany here: the realization that behind or beneath the spectacular stonework of the Inca ruins is the back-breaking labour of those who built it, who stand in for all those exploited over the ages up and down the continent; “Stone within stone, and man, where was he? / Air within air, and man, where was he? / Time within time, and man, where was he? [. . .] Let me have back the slave you buried here! / Wrench from these lands the stale bread / of the poor, prove me the tatters / on the serf, point out his window. / Tell me how he slept when alive,” (14). In The Motorcycle Diaries, Che Guevara presents a similar reflection, inflected through a sense of Indigeneity:

“Here we found the pure expression of the most powerful indigenous race in the Americas–untouched by a conquering civilization and full of immensely evocative treasures between its walls. The walls themselves have died from the tedium of having no life between them. The spectacular landscape circling the fortress supplies an essential backdrop, inspiring dreamers to wander its ruins for the sake of it; North American tourists, constrained by their practical world view, are able to place those members of the disintegrating tribes they may have seen in their travels among these once-living walls, unaware of the moral distance separating them, since only the semi-indigenous spirit of the South American can grasp the subtle differences.” (111)

Claiming special access to the meaning of the site thanks to his “semi-indigenous spirit,” Guevara inscribes upon it a double resistance to colonialism: Machu Picchu as fortification, untouched armed redoubt against the Spanish; and now its ruins resist also the North American gaze today, providing a lesson that only Latin Americans can read.

I wonder if such epiphanies are available in Machu Picchu today. It’s certainly not possible for visitors to “wander its ruins for the sake of it” as they could in Guevara’s time (and indeed, when I first visited, twenty-five years or so ago). I wonder if our guide had a better idea, when he constantly (and perhaps surprisingly) insisted that Machu Picchu was not such a big deal: the stonework is finer in Cusco, he kept on telling us; there are grander and more significant ruins elsewhere. Maybe these days, Machu Picchu is mostly distraction. Anything it once said, whether to locals or to visitors from South or North America alike, is now irreversibly drowned out or overwhelmed by the tourist sublime. It is the end of the line, but also a dead end. It’s time to look elsewhere.

Crashing Amaru

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There had been some disquiet about our planned visit to the Amaru community, one of twelve that ring Pisac on the slopes of the mountains above the valley floor. It wasn’t clear to some of the students why we were going, and for others, why we were paying to go. 

I tried to explain, and even went so far as to suggest that it could be in some ways the most important day of our time here in Peru: our one chance to visit a more or less self-governing Indigenous community, recognized by the state as such. By some measures, this was perhaps our only opportunity to see and interact with “real,” Indigenous campesino life. And of course we couldn’t simply barge in to such a place, certainly not as twenty foreigners, many of whose Spanish is basic at best. This would have to be a curated, and even to some extent commodified experience. I warned that it could well be disappointing (“rubbish” was the word I used). But it was worth trying.

My worst fear was that it would be undignified: not for us, but for our hosts. But our experience so far of the Kusi Kawsay Association, who helped organize the trip (and whose school we had visited earlier in the week), has been generally positive, so I hoped for the best. In fact, it turned out that we were visiting families involved with the Association up in Amaru.

In the end, if anyone lost any of their dignity, it was me. I had been a bit sick in the morning before breakfast (almost everyone in the group has had minor stomach upsets or possible flu-like symptoms over the past few days), and then once in the field in which we were rather unceremoniously dumped upon arrival, I started to feel a little faint and dizzy. I felt even more uncertain of myself when, after being asked to put on a poncho and cap then take some ceremonial coca, I contributed some frankly risibly token efforts (even more token than everyone else’s) to work the chacra with hand-plough and pickaxe. So when we then moved on, and once we had been greeted by members of the Association for lunch, I promptly crashed out on the ground in the Andean sun. For the next little while I was more or less aware of little boys making fun of me and poking my face with bits of straw, while weaving demonstrations and the like went on around and about. The students were amused, I think, at my wholesale uselessness. I only gathered myself together once it was time to go, and finally on return to the hotel I promptly threw up again. The only saving grace was that I had managed to hold onto myself sufficiently not to despoil the community with gringo vomit.

Yet the fact that I felt able to crash out was a sign that I felt comfortable: comfortable enough to give in to my physical discomfort, at least. And I would say that that was the prevailing tenor of the visit. We visitors were gently challenged, even to do a little physical labour in unfamiliar and sometimes ill-fitting garb. But we were also made to feel welcome, with quite elaborate rituals of greeting and farewell that involved rounds of embraces and kisses. We were put at our ease and yet our hosts, I felt, had the upper hand, helped no doubt by the fact that there was not too much effort put into explaining or justifying the proceedings. We were asked simply to let fate take its course. It was no doubt performative (so much for the “real”), but the Amaru performers were happy and able to take charge, and perhaps smile at how badly their guests, myself above all, performed our own roles.

Still, I was left with many questions, and if I hadn’t been laid low I would probably have tried to ask them. Above all, I wonder about the relationship between the members of the Association and other members of the community. We didn’t really get a sense of the community as a whole, and I wonder whether there are frictions or even rivalries within it, not least because the Association seems to be doing such a good (and perhaps profitable) job hosting such instances of experiential tourism. Moreover, our guide did tell me (while I was still more or less compus mentis) that the Association’s goals of “reinvigorating, promoting, protecting and celebrating the Andean Culture” are driven in part by fears about the encroachment of Protestant sects, such as the Seventh-Day Adventist Church that we passed on the way through the village. I wonder how such differences are negotiated in the everyday life of the broader community.

But perhaps such questions are too much to ask over the span of just a few hours, even if I had been feeling more myself. We were only going to see (and feel) a small facet of things, and we shouldn’t fool ourselves otherwise, but that was plenty for the time being. At least it wasn’t rubbish.

Punk Indigenism

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Yesterday, I broke a chair. I’m not particularly proud of the fact, but I’m also sorry / not sorry. If by any chance the owners of Sapos pizza bar are reading this, then I will indeed pay for the damage. But I suspect the chair must have been pretty flimsy in the first place. And it was part of a performance that is perhaps symptomatic of my feelings about this place, and even of a couple of other things, too.

I can’t sing. When I was at primary school, I was asked simply to mouth the words of collective songs and hymns, as the noise I was emitting was deemed to be putting everyone else off. But I do like performing. So when, years ago, in Lima, I was taken by some friends to the karaoke bar at the Centro Cultural Peruano Japonés, I couldn’t resist putting myself forward. And the only song they had available (probably by some kind of mistake) that seemed to fit my style, and which didn’t involve any actual singing–rather, shouting–was the Sid Vicious version of “My Way.” Which duly became my karaoke party piece, although only in Peru. Elsewhere, I tend (with only very occasional exceptions) to avoid karaoke. But in Peru, I sing. And I sing Sid Vicious.

So when the students excitedly wanted to go to a makeshift karaoke bar here in Pisac, I duly trundled along, and after an introductory rendition of “Piano Man” (for which I was helpfully drowned out by their own enthusiastic participation) and a rather less successful attempt at “So Long Marianne” (which I thought they would also turn into a sing-along, but I guess these days young Canadians don’t know their Leonard Cohen), I ended the night as Sid. And when it came to the line “I shot it up or kicked it out,” somewhat carried away by the occasion I kicked at the nearest unoffending article of domestic furniture, which turned out not to be quite as robust as I had imagined.

But a bit of punk in Pisac seems appropriate. Because this is a town riddled with New Age tourists, neo-hippies, and of course the punks hated hippies: “Never trust a hippy,” as they used to say. And to be honest, the posters plastered on Pisac doors featuring white-bearded gringos advertising such things as “Sacred Healing Ceremony and Musical Oracle” or “Psychedelic Counseling” and “Authentic Yoga” were getting me down. So the chair paid the price, in what was no doubt a bit of personal catharsis.

To be honest, though, I do have hippy friends. Yes, the old cliché: “Some of my best friends are hippies.” I’m thinking of one in particular, Steve, who I last saw on a very brief trip to London in March, who is very unwell, and who I fear I will not see again. Indeed, I could no doubt go on at length (also in clichéd fashion) as to why these Pisac neo-hippies are so unlike and different from the “real” hippies that I love back in Penge and Beckenham.

But I think the main thing here is that the New Age business is a distraction. As a group, we’ve almost begun to see and think about it more than about the issues of Indigeneity that we are actually here to consider and reflect on. Not that the two are easily entangled: obviously, the New Age Spiritualism feeds on a construction of Indigeneity that is specific to highland Peru and the Sacred Valley (the very notion of a “sacred” valley). It is not for nothing that they are here, as well as other places (Pisac reminds me for instance of Antigua, Guatemala) where Indigenous culture remains strongly embedded. And of course, for the locals, though there may well be grumbling about some of their ways and their impact on the town, they also contribute to the economy, and the guides for instance willingly play up to the image of spirituality and peace, much in fact as way back in the 1600s Garcilaso de la Vega portrayed Inca imperialism as a process of smothering the subjugated in peace, love, and understanding, “so that however brutish and barbarous they had been they were subdued by affection and attached to [the Inca’s] service by a bond so strong that no province ever dreamed of rebelling” (33). Arguably, the neo-hippies are similarly neo-colonists but preaching wellness, breathwork, and organic veggies. Still, I’m not sure I want much to do with it.

If I were to choose (though I’m not sure I can), I’d rather a punk Indigeneity or Indigenism. This might be along the lines of the graphic artist Cherman Quino, whose work I love. In my office I have a poster of his, which features an image of César Vallejo and the text: “Hay Hermanos muchísimo que hacer. . . y no has hecho ni mierda.” But I think there’s something of the punk spirit in the rebellion of the chicheras in Arguedas’s Los ríos profundos, or even in the multitudinous arrival of the colonos in Abancay at the end of the same book, where they are described as “crawl[ing] around like big lice, bigger than merino sheep; they’d eat up the little animals alive, finishing the people off first” (226). Arguedas is always aware of the dark side, of the threat of Indigeneity. What else is “yawar mayu,” the bloody river that he constantly predicts and fears, but the ultimate in punk? Or, further back, if Garcilaso is hippy, isn’t Guaman Poma the first punk (even before Los Saicos and “Demolición”). Doesn’t his handwritten artwork have something of the aesthetic of Jamie Reid? Or his self-staged interview with the King of Spain something of the sheer chutzpah of the Sex Pistols on TV with Bill Grundy?

Perhaps not. Perhaps this is as much of an imposition or fantasy as that of the neo-hippies. But it’s one I prefer.

Music and Dance in the Plaza de Armas

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Music is important in the Andes, and we have certainly heard plenty over the last few days. As I write, outside in the Plaza de Armas is some kind of “battle of the bands,” which has been going on for hours and, we are told, will continue for many more. There is a wide variety of styles and content: from a cover of Bruno Mars’s “Uptown Funk” to a kind of Andean Rock featuring pipes alongside guitars, glorifying the city of Cusco.

Late last night, also in the Plaza, was a rather more impromptu musical performance that gathered up a crowd in the central park singing and no doubt drinking until late. In the streets around the Plaza are bars and restaurants aimed mostly at tourists, some of which feature live bands, but all of which have music blaring until the early hours. During the day, there are also buskers, not least a guy just outside our hotel who sings his heart out from a wheelchair.

A couple of days ago, many of us went to a concert in the Municipal Theatre, featuring upcoming “Q Pop” star Lenin Tamayo, whose fusion of Andean music (and Quechua lyrics) with K Pop beats and extraordinary dancing was quite something. On the same bill was Lenin’s mother, Yolanda Pinares, a veteran singer whose speciality seems to be torch songs that express the struggles and triumphs of Andean womanhood: she sang for her Warmi, even when life was hard and they felt they couldn’t go on.

It is festival season–we are in the midst of Corpus Christi–and so perhaps the music we have heard most has been the marching music, less drum and bass than drum and brass (no band is complete without a couple of tubas, if not half a dozen), that accompanies the parades that thread through the city streets and circle the Plaza. This is the music that accompanied the transport of the saints from the parishes that constitutes the essence of Corpus Christi. But it is also the music of the school parade that we saw the first morning we were here, accompanying a wide variety of Indigenous dance troupes as well as students marching along in their school uniforms. It is repetitive and insistent; it keeps threatening to stop, only to be picked up and continue on. The stamina of marchers, dancers, and musicians is impressive.

Then there was the music of the sung mass held outdoors before the saints paraded around the square. Music and chants drive home the liturgy of the church, not least for a society that historically has had high rates of illiteracy. It adds to the pomp and splendour of the occasion. But even the church music is subject to hybridity and fusion of various kinds: for us, there was a strange recollection of home to hear a Spanish interpretation of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” broadcast around the plaza.

Finally, I want to mention the performance I stumbled across in the Plaza yesterday evening, which was not simply music and dance but also a form of narrative theatre that reminded me of everything from pantomime to (what I have read about) the European Commedia dell’arte of the late Middle Ages and beyond. There was no dialogue or lyrics, and there were more or less formal dances but also much play-acting and drama. 

This, one of the audience told me, was specifically a performance called “Los majeños” (put on in this instance by the Centro Qosqo de Arte Nativo), which features a whole set of stock types such as a Harlequin-style clown and satirical portraits (with masks) of the mestizo merchants who once trafficked liquor through the southern highlands, introducing the vice of alcohol. Only a turn to the church and the cross (and the representation of a procession much like those we had seen in the Corpus Christi celebrations) finally saves the day. 

The message was no doubt intensely moralistic, combining nationalism with religion in a version of the Peruvian flag with a cross in the middle panel. But along the way the audience laughed most at the comic consequences of the portrayed drunkenness, oohing and aahing at the physical comedy of bodies falling over or slumped on the ground, or the fights that broke out between women and men alike. The carnivalesque disruption required a moralizing resolution, of course, but that same resolution also enabled the carnival that preceded it, which provided most of the draw and all the entertainment.

Plaza Mayor

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Yesterday we went to Lima’s city centre, a UNESCO world heritage site, designated as such in 1988 for “bear[ing] witness to the architecture and urban development of a Spanish colonial town of great political, economic and cultural importance in Latin America. It represents an outstanding expression of a regional cultural process, which preserves its architectural, technological, typological, aesthetic, historic and urban values adapted in terms of availability of materials, climate, earthquakes and the requirements of society.” And it is indeed impressive: the grand Plaza Mayor, with the Presidential Palace on one side, flanked by the Municipality on another, and the Cathedral opposite, and then buildings that (now) include the headquarters of the Caretas news magazine. In true colonial style, then, some of the major centres of power are represented (or instiantiated) at this symbolic and real heart of the city: politics, religion, and the press.

Other elements of power were also evident. Yesterday, the whole square was essentially closed off (though you could walk the pavements at its edges), with barricades preventing anyone crossing the roads to the park at its centre, and there were plenty of police lurking around the perimeter. Later, I saw a bunch of riot police (with shields) watchfully wandering around. I talked to several people to try to find out what was up: the first person I asked, a guy trying to drum up custom for a nearby restaurant, shrugged his shoulders and said simply the single word: “Politics!” He then apologized, but I told him there was no need. A few minutes later, a policewoman told me the closure was something to do with a “protocol” meeting at the palace. A third opinion (from another police officer) was that it was in preparation for an incoming march by disaffected workers who had just been laid off by the municipality. This last version seemed the most possible, though we didn’t see any evidence of the demonstration over the next few hours, and in any case the laconic first response I’d received had already summed everything up nicely. Politics!

Later some sort of event did start up at one side of the square, with music and speeches and dancing. There were flags, too: someone was carrying around a large Wiphala, the flag associated particularly with the Aymara people in Peru’s far south, near Lake Titicaca, and also in neighbouring Bolivia. It was hard to get close to the event or to hear what was going on (and at point in any case I’d made arrangements to meet the students in the Plaza San Martín a few blocks away), but I heard some reference to Manco Inca, one of the last Inca rulers, installed after the Spanish conquest and originally allied with them as the Inca Empire split and dissolved in internecine disputes much aggravated by the Spanish. He later escaped the Spanish and laid siege first to Cusco and then to Lima. He was murdered in 1544 by Spaniards who had previously also murdered the conquistador Francisco Pizarro, as the invaders similarly broke up into contending factions. Yesterday, around the perimeter of the square, one guy was wandering around holding up a home-made sign saying “Manco Inca Anticolonial.” I asked him if I could take his picture, but didn’t talk to him any further. I have no idea whether he was part of the event on the other side of the square, or whether he was protesting against it for some reason. Perhaps there was simply no relation between the two things.

Meanwhile, life went on around and about. Tourists (including ourselves, of course) looked on, visited the museums, and checked out handicraft shops, while regularly approached by ambulant vendors offering everything from postcards and maps to trinkets and shoeshines. Many but not all of the people trying to make a little cash from the milling crowd were Indigenous. There was at least one wedding about to take place in the Cathedral, the guests waiting in their finery while little boys in matching suits who were perhaps nephews or cousins of the bride or groom ran around and their parents looked on to ensure they didn’t stray too far. And, despite my predictions to the students that Lima the Grey would be perpetually covered by its characteristic cloud as we enter winter and approach the solstice, in fact the sun burned off the sea mist and burnished the buildings’ yellow-painted walls. Later that night, in the Plazas San Martín I saw the riot police get picked up in a van, presumably to go back to the station. It looked like they hadn’t seen any action. The crowds and the music continued long after they, and we, had gone.