Between Indianness, Blackness, and Incaness: The Spatial Hierarchies of Difference Behind Peru’s Multicultural Curtain

Entre lo indio, lo negro y lo incaico: la jerarquía espacial de la diferencia en el Perú multicultural

This article examines the trials and tribulations of a recent state-led program of afro-indigenous multiculturalism in Peru within a much broader intellectual history of the nation, its regions, and the ideologies that govern them. In contrast to broadly comparative accounts of afro-descendant and indigenous politics at the regional Latin American level that emphasize the contrast of “race” vs. “culture,” I argue for closer attention to the ways in which afro-indigenous multiculturalisms are Peruvianized in the process of global-cum-regional expansion. The Peruvian case is particularly interesting because of the way the state separates out its multicultural subjects by region (recognizing specifically Andeans, Amazonians, and Afro-Peruvians who are implicitly “coastal”). I also analyze how the nation’s long-standing fascination with the figure of the “returning Inca” affords Andeans a peculiarly “elite” indigenous status within the multicultural imagination. The recurring historical influence of what I term the effects of the “Inca slot” suggest possibilities for a possible point of comparison for all those defined as not-Andean / not-Inca in the process, particularly Afro-Peruvians and indigenous Amazonians in this context.

Brysk, Alison. 2000. From Tribal Village to Global Village. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Clastres, Pierre. 1987[1974]. Society Against the State. New York: Zone Books. Conklin, Beth y Laura Graham. 1995. “The Shifting Middle Ground: Amazonian Indians and Eco-Politics”. American Anthropologist, 97(4):695-710.

COPPIP. 2003. «Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas y Comunidades en la Constitución Política del Perú». Documento de Trabajo No. 1, Noviembre. Lima.

Cuche, Denys. 1975. Poder Blanco y Resistencia Negra en el Perú. Lima: Instituto Nacional de Cultural.

Dean, Bartholomew. 2002. “State Power and Indigenous Peoples in Peruvian Amazonia”. En The Politics of Ethnicity. David Maybury-Lewis (ed.). Pp. 199-238. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Degregori, Carlos Iván. 1998. «Movimientos Etnicos, Democracia y nación en Perú y Bolivia» En La Construcción de la Nación y la Representación Ciudadana en México, Guatemala, Perú, Ecuador, y Bolivia. Claudia Dary (ed.). Pp.159-226. Guatemala: FLACSO.

De la Cadena, Marisol. 2000. Indigenous Mestizos. Durham: Duke U. Press.

Feldman, Heidi. 2001. “Black Rythyms of Peru”. Unpublished PhD Thesis. University of California Los Angeles.

Flores Galindo, Alberto. 1991. La Ciudad Sumergida. Lima: Editorial Horizonte.

Flores Galindo, Alberto. 1988. Buscando un Inca. Lima: Editorial Horizonte.

Gaonkar, Dilip (ed.). 2001. Alternative Modernities. Durham: Duke U. Press.

Garcia, Maria Elena. 2005. Making Indigenous Citizens. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Golash-Boza. Tanya. 2006. “Afro-Peruvians in a Mestizo Nation: The Politics of Recognition, Cultural Citizenship, and Racial Democracy in Peru” Paper presentado en una conferencia del Woodrow Wilson-Ford Foundation. Febrero. Santiago, Chile.

Golash-Boza. Tanya. 2005. “The Manifold Meanings of Blackness among AfricanDescended Peruvians”. Tesis de doctorado. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Greene, Shane. 2009. Customizing Indigeneity: Paths to a Visionary Politics in Peru. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

Greene, Shane. 2006. “Getting over the Andes: The Geo-Eco Politics of Indigenous Movements in Peru’s 21st Century Inca Empire”. Journal of Latin American Studies. 38(2):327-354.

Hale, Charles. 2002. “Does Multiculturalism Menace? Governance, Cultural Rights, and the Politics of Identity in Guatemala”. Journal of Latin American Studies, 34(3):485-535.


Harth-terré, Emilio. 1973. Negros e Indios. Lima: Libreria Editorial Juan Mejia Baca.

Hooker, Juliet. 2005. “Indigenous Inclusion/Black Exclusion: Race, Ethnicity, and Multicultural Citizenship in Latin America”. Journal of Latin American Studies 37(2):285-310.

Knauft, Bruce (ed.). 2003. Critically Modern. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Latour, Bruno. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Lowrey, Kathleen. 2006. «Bolivia Multiétnico y Pluricultural», Ten Years Later Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, 1(1):63-84.

Lucero, José Antonio. 2006. “Representing ‘Real’ Indians”. Latin American Research Review, 41(2):31-56.

Luciano Huapaya, José Carlos. 2002. Los Afroperuanos: Trayectoria y destino del Pueblo Negro en el Perú. Lima: Centro de Desarrollo Etnico.

Matos Mar, José y José Manuel Mejía. 1980. La Reforma Agraria en el Perú. Lima: Instituto de Estudios Peruanos.

Mendez, Cecilia. 1996. “Incas sí, indios no: Notes on Peruvian Creole Nationalism and its Contemporary Crisis”. Journal of Latin American Studies, 28:197-225.

Millones Santagadea, Luis. 1973. Minorías Étnicas en el Perú. Lima: Editorial Andina.

Nugent, José Guillermo. 1992. El Laberinto de la Choledad. Lima: Fundación Friedrich Ebert.

Orlove, Benjamin. 1993. “Putting Race in its Place: Order in Colonial and Postcolonial Peruvian Geography”. Social Research, 60(2):301-336.

Prescott, William H. 1847. History of the Conquest of Peru. New York: Harper and Brothers.

Rahier, Jean. 1998. “Blackness, the ‘racial’/spatial order, migrations, and Miss Ecuador 1995-1996”. American Anthropologist, vol. 100, n. 2, June: 421-430.

Rasnake, Roger. 1988. Domination and Cultural Resistance. Durham: Duke University Press.

Romero, Fernando. 1987. El negro en el Perú y su transculturación lingüística. Lima: Editorial Milla Batres.

Romero, Raúl. 1994. “Black Music and Identity in Peru: Reconstruction and Revival of Afro-Peruvian Musical Traditions”. In Music and Black Ethnicity. Gerard Béhague, ed. Pp. 307-330. Coral Gables, FL: North-South Center, University of Miami.

Sanchez, Margarita, Maurice Bryan, with MRG Partners. 2003. Afro-Descendants, Discrimination and Economic Exclusion in Latin America. Minority Rights Group. Electronic document: http://www.minorityrights.org, date accessed June 23, 2006.

Santa Cruz, Nicomedes. 1964. Cumanana. Lima: J. Lejía Baca.

Santos-Granero, Fernando. 2002. “Boundaries are made to be Crossed”. Identities, 9:545-569

Santos-Granero, Fernando. 1992. Etnohistoria de la Alta Amazonia. Quito: Abya-Yala.

Silverblatt, Irene. 2004. Modern Inquisitions. Durham: Duke University Press.

Smith, Richard. 1996. «Las Políticas de la Diversidad: COICA y las Federaciones Étnicas de la Amazonia». En Pueblos Indios, Soberanía y Globalismo. Stefano Varese (ed.). Pp. 81-125. Quito: Abya-Yala.

Starn, Orin. 1999. Nightwatch. Durham: Duke University Press.

Stern, Steve (ed.). 1987. Resistance, Rebellion, and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Stern, Steve. 1982. Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

Templeman, Robert. 1998. “We are People of the Yungas, We are People of the Saya Race”. En Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean, Norman Whitten and Arlene Torres (eds.). Pp. 426-444. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Turner, Terence. 2003. “Class Projects, Social Consciousness, and the Contradictions of Globalization”. In Globalization, the State, and Violence. Jonathan Friedman (ed.). Pp.35-66. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

Van Cott, Donna Lee. 2005. From Movements to Parties in Latin America. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Press.

Van Cott, Donna Lee. 2000. The Friendly Liquidation of the Past. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Varese, Stefano. 1973[1968]. La Sal de los Cerros. Lima: Retablos de Papel.

Varese, Stefano. 1972. “Inter-ethnic Relations in the Selva of Peru”. In The Situation of the Indian in South America. Walter Dostal (ed.). Geneva: World Council of Churches.

Velásquez Benítes, Orlando. 2003. Cultura Afroperuana en la Costa Norte. Trujillo: Universidad Nacional de Trujillo.