Andean Lives

SS 169 Andean Lives Anthropologists, as well as travelers, conquerors, priests, journalists, novelists, and natives have constructed numerous accounts through which the Andean region has been imagined. These imaginings seem to vary as widely as the diversity of their authors: as a place steeped in highland indigenous traditions; as the idealized place of the Inca Empire; as a romanticized rural place of self-organized communities where an ethos of collective action outweighs that of individual interest; as the original source of the coca leaf that has ritual significance throughout the region; as the birthplace of a Maoist guerrilla movement in the last gasp of the Cold War; and as the place where social movements have challenged neoliberalism and brought an indigenous president to power. Through details about the lives of those who reside in the Andes, this course will bring together anthropological and historical views of this region with cases primarily from Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador.