2015 Thinking Andean Studies Conference

Quechua Honesty in Language and Identity

Unlike Spanish, Cuzco Quechua makes use of three enclitics (–mi/-n, -chá and –si/-s) and two past tense morphemes (-r(q)a- and –sqa-) which communicate evidentiality (information source), epistemology (degree of certainty/doubt) and, in the case of –sqa-, mirativity (surprise or newsworthiness) (Manley, forthcoming). Other Quechua language varieties include similar grammatical expressions. Speakers who use these morphemes qualify the message content they pass on, thereby providing additional information to the hearer that may be used to judge truth-value. It is argued here that messages conveyed with these grammatical expression s may be considered to encode a higher degree of honesty than those without this type of qualification and, as such, may contribute to Quechua speakers’ view of themselves as honest people. In addition to the claim that these grammatical expressions help to shape Quechua speakers’ identity and worldview, it is also put forth here that the well-known Inca moral code, Ama qhella, ama llulla, ama suwa (‘Don’t be lazy, don’t lie, don’t steal’), has a similar impact on Quechua speakers’ worldview and identity formation.

This paper examines the social and cultural significance of the rise of new elites in Peru as embodied in the much-touted figure of the “entrepreneurial cholo.” Celebrated by foreign investors and neoliberal ideologues but oftentimes feared by old-money elites, the figure of the successful entrepreneurial cholo inhabits an ambiguous position in contemporary Peruvian society. Despite their significant contribution to Peru’s economic growth and their unprecedented access to economic capital, these nuevo rico Peruvians of Andean background are not exempt from racism and adverse forms of discrimination within Peruvian society. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork on migration and racialization within Peru and beyond its borders and on preliminary fieldwork on new elites in Lima and in the highland city of Huancayo, this paper seeks to map out the rise of these new “cholo elites,” their aspirational projects, and the challenges they face when trying to claim elite status—often articulated through complex transnational networks and alliances. In doing so, this paper—and the larger project it articulates—examines in a preliminary way the historically shifting meanings and manifestations of “elites” and of “privilege” in Peru as well as the intersection of race with the distribution of economic, social, emotive, cultural, political, and knowledge capitals in the changing character of Peruvian inequality.

Panel II (Friday  3:00pm – 4:30pm)

Elizabeth Monasterios (University of Pittsburgh)
La intervención de Gamaliel Churata en la dinámica descolonizadora andina

TBA

Ulises Zevallos (Ohio State)
Archipiélagos transandinos. Hacia una nueva cartografía de la transformación cultural

Los prefijos trans, inter o la pluralización de ciertos términos son cada vez más frecuentes en diversos campos de estudios. En esfuerzos inclusivos y expansivos, se enfatizan los movimientos, las conexiones y relaciones entre unidades que antes se consideraban discretas. Entre ellas se habla con más insistencia sobre los estudios transandinos. En este artículo voy a llevar a cabo un rastreo de los modelos teóricos y sus aplicaciones prácticas que se han venido desarrollando en el campo de los estudios andinos en los últimos 25 años. Considero que es necesario hacer una genealogía de los estudios transandinos para ver sus aportes y quizás limitaciones. En este esfuerzo genealógico, no quiero negar los desplazamientos y la existencia de relaciones y conexiones que se relievan sino quiero seguir abogando por las especificidades andinas que siguen dando sentido a muchas de nuestras carreras.

Gillian Gallagher (NYU)
Phonotactics in the Synchronic Grammar of Cochabamba Quechua

In Bolivian Quechua, sounds known as ‘ejectives’ [p’ t’ t’ k’ q’] and ‘aspirates’ [ph th th kh qh] are found alongside the plain stops [p t t k q] found in other Quechua varieties, leading to contrasts such as [t’anta] ‘bread’, [thanta] ‘rag’, [tanta] ‘to gather’. In this talk, I’ll give an overview of the heavily restricted distribution of ejectives and aspirates in Bolivian Quechua, e.g., there are roots with initial ejectives ([t’uru] ‘mud’) and roots with medial ejectives ([rit’i] ‘snow’), but there are no roots with two ejectives *[t’ut’i]. I’ll also present the results of a series of experiments with Bolivian Quechua speakers testing their implicit knowledge of these restrictions.

Thomas Abercrombie (NYU)
Aymara Prophets in 17th-Century Charcas (Peru), and their 21st-Century Descendants

Drawing on a pair of trial records from Oruro, Peru dating from 1680, the paper treats two unusual cofradías organized by indigenous purchasers of small images of the Virgin (retablos) after visiting miraculous pilgrimage shrines. The documents, each titled Proceso de Jilsa, treat a kind of cofradía leader that secular judges labeled embustero (con-man), but indigenous followers called jilsa, literally “our elder brother,” but glossed by witnesses as “prophet”. Founding chapels and leading highly unorthodox devotions, the jilsas led followers through lengthy prayer sessions, including penitential scourging, that led to mystical states. Testimony depicts what followed: direct intercession via the descent of the holy spirit, ventriloquized possession of the jilsas by heavenly beings, and their conversion into living oracles through which their followers could consult those beings to answer their questions about about the status of their interests in this and other worlds. Finding comparable acts in the devotions of Santa Rosa de Lima, the paper also compares such 17th-C practices to 21st century shamanic activities, in which Aymara ch’iar yatiri, “knowers of darkness” invoke mountains and condors, in the context of living pilgrimage shrines in the Andean region.