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Contesting Patrimony: Cusco's Mystical Tourist Industry and the Politics of Incanismo

2007; Routledge; Volume: 72; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00141840701768276

1469-588X

Michael D. Hill,

Politics and Society in Latin America

Abstract The Peruvian state's neoliberal policies include its mission to modernize Peru through international tourism and foreign investment, and tourism promoters and politicians increasingly invoke Andean mysticism and Inca patrimony (or incanismo) as a marketing strategy. This paper argues that Cusqueño citizens invoke the same representations, with competing claims of authenticity and authority, as they construct their own versions of Incanist identification in populist movements against the state and its enforcement of the global neoliberal order, as well as in their attempts to survive in the tourist economy. In Peru, criticism of the tourist industry is often grounded in incanismo and seems to take aim at the neoliberal order. However, closer analysis reveals a more complicated set of relationships between resistance and liberalism. Friction emerges not because cultural identity is being commodified or inequalities persist, but because local desires for access to the market are frustrated by state and municipal agencies. Keywords: TourismPerucultural patrimonyneoliberalismindigenism Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge colleagues and institutional affiliations which have shaped and facilitated this work. My research was made possible through grants from the Organization of American States and the Emory University Internationalization Fund. A National Endowment for the Humanities grant for participation in a summer institute entitled, 'Andean Worlds: New Directions in Scholarship and Teaching,' also contributed to the maturation of this paper. I also extend thanks to the anonymous reviewers, whose comments transformed this paper for the better in numerous ways. Notes 1. For the purposes of this discussion, I define incanismo as a cultural ethos or projective space of identification through which diverse social actors construct utopic visions of an ideal society and culture grounded in a romanticized historical memory of the Inca Empire. 2. I define neoliberalism here as both an ideology based in 'free-market' fundamentalism (e.g., principles of private ownership, non-regulation, and the supremacy of the profit motive), as well as a set of policies (popularly known as the Washington Consensus) which have impacted Latin America and much of the developing world over the past three decades. Most notably, neoliberal policy has championed privatization of public programs and the reduction of social programs in favor of aggressively pursuing foreign investment and maintaining debilitating debt repayment plans. 3. My research is based on several years of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork on the New Age Andean movement and mystical tourist industry emanating from Cusco, Peru. Key sites of participant observation have included New Age bookstores and gift shops, support groups, workshops and classes, seminars and lectures, New Age business expositions, organized New Age churches and transnational brotherhoods, informal spiritual gatherings in private homes, packaged trips or 'experiences' with a New Age or mystical focus, travel agencies, tourism conferences and training workshops, tourist sites such as Machu Picchu, and cultural festivals with a mystical or New Age component (such as Cusco's millennium celebration in 2000). Forty-eight structured interviews were conducted in Cusco, while more informal conversations and discussions occurred with a much larger number of individuals. A wide range of social actors was included in interviews, including New Age leaders and pilgrims, international tourists (both mystical tourists and others), those working in the mystical tourist industry, urban shamans and other religious specialists, urban mestizos (whether involved in New Age circles or not), and rural Quechua migrants to Cusco. Most interviews were one-on-one, though I conducted a handful of focus group interviews with international tourists in Cusco. All interviews were conducted in either English or Spanish, and translations of informant interviews are my own. 4. This estimate comes from The International Ecotourism Society (1998, in Stronza Citation2001). Cusco has received over half a million visitors annually in recent years. The city of Cusco estimated 579,288 visitors in 2000, of which 358,503 were foreign tourists and 220,785 were national tourists. There were more international tourists to Cusco of U.S. nationality (112,733) than of any other single nationality. Data gathered from the Boletín Estadistico de Turismo (Cusco: Dirección Regional de Industria y Turismo, 2000). The same report registers 313 tour agencies in Cusco, of which 12 are specifically listed as mystical tourist agencies. 5. For instance, Cusco saw only 176,454 tourists in 1991, but 389,921 just three years later in 1994. Still, it was not until 1998 that the number of international tourists to Cusco surpassed the number of national tourists, a trend that has continued since. Data from Boletín Estadistico de Turismo (Cusco: drit, 2000). Many people I spoke with in Cusco felt the September 11 attacks had adversely affected tourism in late 2001 and 2002. 6. Gina Maldonado, personal interview, May 25, 2002. 7. Miami Herald, October 19, 2002. 8. World Press Review (vol. 49, no.9). 9. Executive Intelligence Review, August 2, 2002. 10. There is no historical or archaeological evidence that the Inca rainbow flag was ever utilized in the Inca Empire. For a brief discussion of the politics surrounding the flag, much of it having to do with its similarity to the gay and lesbian rainbow flag, see Silverman (Citation2002 : 888). 11. El Sol, June 4. 12. From Ch'illico, No. 7 (August 1999, printed by El Diario del Cusco). 13. James Arévalo, personal interview, May 27, 2002. 14. Tawantinsuyo is the Quechua term for the Inca Empire, referring to the legendary four regions of the empire. 15. Common identity categories in Cusco include blanco, mestizo, campesino, cholo, andino, serrano, or cusqueño, but never indio, though the term indio is often used by racial elites in a discriminatory fashion. 16. El Sol, May 24, 2002. 17. Quique, personal interview, June 3, 2002. 18. Miguel Zamora, personal interview, November 11, 1999. 19. Miguel Zamora, Congreso macrosur de Turismo, October 22–24, 1999. 20. Carlos Valencia Miranda, Congreso macrosur de Turismo, October 22–24, 1999. 21. Rocio Valcárel, personal interview, November 19, 2000. 22. Gina Maldonado, personal interview, June 6, 2002. 23. Doris, personal interview, June 2, 2002. 24. El Comercio, June 26, 2002. 25. El Diario del Cusco, January 3, 2000. 26. El Diario del Cusco, December 21, 1999. 27. El Diario del Cusco, December 30, 1999. 28. El Diario del Cusco, December 11, 1999. 29. El Diario del Cusco, December 22, 1999.