Indians and Mestizos: Identity and Urban Popular Culture in Andean PeruPosted in Anthropology, Caribbean/Latin America, History, Identity Development/Psychology, Literary/Artistic Criticism, Media Archive on 2010-03-27 02:51Z by Steven |
Indians and Mestizos: Identity and Urban Popular Culture in Andean Peru
Journal of Southern African Studies
Volume 26, Issue 2 (June 2000)
pages 239 – 253
DOI: 10.1080/03057070050010093
Fiona Wilson
The article begins with a discussion of the chronology of conquest and liberation in Peru and reflects on the changing meanings given to the racial categories of Indian and mestizo (half-caste) in colonial and post-colonial periods. Using popular culture as a lens, the transformations taking place in images of race and urban social identities are analysed, using as a case study a provincial town in the Andean highlands in the course of the twentieth century. Through changing forms of street theatre urban groups worked out new identities by weaving together, juxtaposing and contesting different cultural forms. The article explores in detail two manifestations of street theatre that predominated. These are the Dance of the Inca in the 1900s that addressed Indian/white relations, and carnaval where relations between mestizo and white were played out for much of the twentieth century.
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