Periodic Reporting for period 2 - TAHL (Temporalities of Andean Heritage Landscapes)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2023-05-01 do 2024-04-30
This research project tackles the issue of Andean cultural heritage being regularly managed in ways that do not do justice to indigenous understandings and experiences of history and of the past. A main consequence is a widespread sense of dispossession and alienation resulting from mainstream archaeological conservation practice and policy in the Peruvian Andes.
The project is relevant insofar as it may redress an imbalance in terms of how indigenous heritage has been managed so far by non-indigenous cultural managers unsensitive towards traditional systems of caring for the land and for the material past.
The overall objectives are: 1) to formulate an archaeological heritage management proposal more respectful of and in tune with Andean ideas of time and uses of space; 2) To frame such proposal in current global debates and initiatives regarding the restitution/repatriation of indigenous cultural property.
The main conclusions are: 1) Current (static and ahistoric) archaeological heritage conservation models in the Andes must and can be replaced by models that incorporate temporalities of rotation and circulation as found in local landscape practices; 2) This is a form of efficient protection that current conservation paradigms obscure and neglect.
The project is relevant insofar as it may redress an imbalance in terms of how indigenous heritage has been managed so far by non-indigenous cultural managers unsensitive towards traditional systems of caring for the land and for the material past.
The overall objectives are: 1) to formulate an archaeological heritage management proposal more respectful of and in tune with Andean ideas of time and uses of space; 2) To frame such proposal in current global debates and initiatives regarding the restitution/repatriation of indigenous cultural property.
The main conclusions are: 1) Current (static and ahistoric) archaeological heritage conservation models in the Andes must and can be replaced by models that incorporate temporalities of rotation and circulation as found in local landscape practices; 2) This is a form of efficient protection that current conservation paradigms obscure and neglect.
1.Santiago de Compostela (1 May 2022-31 July 2022).
from the beginning me and my supervisor set up a career plan with clear goals identified. Then I engaged with the regular internal seminar series that cover I wide range of heritage-related issues from various disciplinary quarters. Also, and apart from the internal training program, the Incipit periodically invites researchers from other institutions and countries to share their research. I attended three of these talks with foreign scholars from different backgrounds and who are working in various geographical areas.
Simultaneously, I joined HABITPAT, a 3-year ongoing collaborative research project within the INCIPIT that explores, with a comparative perspective in mind, the ways in which different grassroots organisations in various international contexts approach heritage from a perspective of habitation and care.
Moreover, I presented two of my latest books in a recent public event held at the Incipit. Before leaving Santiago, I delivered a seminar talk at the Incipit in front of a numerous audience.
During this initial secondment I began reviewing the relevant literature and I established ongoing contacts with my colleagues.
2.Outgoing phase in Australia (1st August 2022-28th April 2023).
From the outset, me and my supervisor at the CHMS set up a series of fortnightly meetings to discuss issues, assess challenges, and track down progress made. She was able to direct me to relevant readings. She was also helpful by suggesting names of scholars within the ANU with whom I had productive conversations.
One of the semester highlights, held in mid-November 2022, was a 5-day online professional development course that I took as part of my training. The course was called: Introduction to repatriation: Principles, policy, practice. It was imparted by an interdisciplinary team of scholars and practitioners who have been working on the field of indigenous property repatriation for a number of years and offered a comprehensive overview on how repatriation works at the international level.
In early December 2022 I temporarily left Australia and travelled to Peru to start a 3-month fieldwork season, in accordance with my MC workplan. Before arriving to Peru I participated in the Critical Heritage Studies International Conference, held in Santiago de Chile between the 3rd and the 7th of December. There I presented my work in progress and attended numerous panels closely related with my field of research.
During fieldwork I gained a greater understanding of landscape practices like muyuy, and how these could be relevant for heritage management issues. This was of the main stated goals of my fieldwork season. Similarly, I participated once more in key landscape events, like the festival of linderaje, a key event for understanding how local people have historically used space and the temporalities associated with these practices. Additionally, I obtained updates on topics of relevance for my project, such as the construction of the new Cuzco airport in town and others.
I spent time in the library of the Centro Bartolomé de las Casas (CBC), a well-known research institution in town, advancing ethnohistoric research pertinent to the project. I was also able to engage with the public, as was expected in my workplan. In Mid-February (2023) I delivered a talk at Inkary, a grassroots cultural centre in Cuzco that regularly organises talks and events related to Andean culture and history.
The content of this talk informed in turn a second talk I delivered on the 22nd of February (2023) in Chinchero in a meeting that brought together the managers of the Inca archaeological site (archaeologists and anthropologists of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture), workers, along with the presidents of the peasant communities of the District of Chinchero and representatives of the Municipality. The meeting had been jointly organised by myself and my colleagues at the Division of Interculturality (Ministry of Culture-Cuzco).
Final period (overview of the results and their exploitation and dissemination):
a. Design of heritage policies more respectful of local temporalities, landscape practices, and uses of the ruins.
b. Elaboration of a viable proposal for an alternative management of the archaeological site, informed by the results of my research.
These results have been exploited and disseminated by different means (one academic article, the project’s website, the organisation of numerous events like international symposiums, talks, worshops, transfer activities with different sectors of society, articles in publications for a non-specialised audience, etc.), both in Spain and in Peru.
from the beginning me and my supervisor set up a career plan with clear goals identified. Then I engaged with the regular internal seminar series that cover I wide range of heritage-related issues from various disciplinary quarters. Also, and apart from the internal training program, the Incipit periodically invites researchers from other institutions and countries to share their research. I attended three of these talks with foreign scholars from different backgrounds and who are working in various geographical areas.
Simultaneously, I joined HABITPAT, a 3-year ongoing collaborative research project within the INCIPIT that explores, with a comparative perspective in mind, the ways in which different grassroots organisations in various international contexts approach heritage from a perspective of habitation and care.
Moreover, I presented two of my latest books in a recent public event held at the Incipit. Before leaving Santiago, I delivered a seminar talk at the Incipit in front of a numerous audience.
During this initial secondment I began reviewing the relevant literature and I established ongoing contacts with my colleagues.
2.Outgoing phase in Australia (1st August 2022-28th April 2023).
From the outset, me and my supervisor at the CHMS set up a series of fortnightly meetings to discuss issues, assess challenges, and track down progress made. She was able to direct me to relevant readings. She was also helpful by suggesting names of scholars within the ANU with whom I had productive conversations.
One of the semester highlights, held in mid-November 2022, was a 5-day online professional development course that I took as part of my training. The course was called: Introduction to repatriation: Principles, policy, practice. It was imparted by an interdisciplinary team of scholars and practitioners who have been working on the field of indigenous property repatriation for a number of years and offered a comprehensive overview on how repatriation works at the international level.
In early December 2022 I temporarily left Australia and travelled to Peru to start a 3-month fieldwork season, in accordance with my MC workplan. Before arriving to Peru I participated in the Critical Heritage Studies International Conference, held in Santiago de Chile between the 3rd and the 7th of December. There I presented my work in progress and attended numerous panels closely related with my field of research.
During fieldwork I gained a greater understanding of landscape practices like muyuy, and how these could be relevant for heritage management issues. This was of the main stated goals of my fieldwork season. Similarly, I participated once more in key landscape events, like the festival of linderaje, a key event for understanding how local people have historically used space and the temporalities associated with these practices. Additionally, I obtained updates on topics of relevance for my project, such as the construction of the new Cuzco airport in town and others.
I spent time in the library of the Centro Bartolomé de las Casas (CBC), a well-known research institution in town, advancing ethnohistoric research pertinent to the project. I was also able to engage with the public, as was expected in my workplan. In Mid-February (2023) I delivered a talk at Inkary, a grassroots cultural centre in Cuzco that regularly organises talks and events related to Andean culture and history.
The content of this talk informed in turn a second talk I delivered on the 22nd of February (2023) in Chinchero in a meeting that brought together the managers of the Inca archaeological site (archaeologists and anthropologists of the Peruvian Ministry of Culture), workers, along with the presidents of the peasant communities of the District of Chinchero and representatives of the Municipality. The meeting had been jointly organised by myself and my colleagues at the Division of Interculturality (Ministry of Culture-Cuzco).
Final period (overview of the results and their exploitation and dissemination):
a. Design of heritage policies more respectful of local temporalities, landscape practices, and uses of the ruins.
b. Elaboration of a viable proposal for an alternative management of the archaeological site, informed by the results of my research.
These results have been exploited and disseminated by different means (one academic article, the project’s website, the organisation of numerous events like international symposiums, talks, worshops, transfer activities with different sectors of society, articles in publications for a non-specialised audience, etc.), both in Spain and in Peru.
This project has set up the basis for taking the field of heritage conservation to another level. More specifically, by showing the shortcomings and limitations of current conservation models, and by formulating instead more dynamic models inspired in Indigenous temporalities and uses of space, the moment is ripe for proposing a change in paradigm within the conservation field. Such a new paradigm will be premised upon the idea that (Andean) Indigenous worldviews and practices are not "conservationist", in a western understanding of the sense, but rather circulatory. This means that they are informed by fluid, non-linear temporalities and altenating movement patterns that bespeak of a dynamic world in motion and constant exchange and tranformation. The potential impacts of this new approach to conservation is that answers to the challenges and fractures created by mainstream conservation policies, mainly in the form of social exclusion and the commodification of Indigenous landscapes, can be solved.