Re-owning time: a discussion of Peruvian history through Andean Lens

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Room 206 Ingraham Hall - 1155 Observatory Drive, Madison, WI 53706

Presented by Andrea Guzmán Giura and Pedro de Jesús Gonzales Durán.

About the presentation: In this presentation, we discuss how the battle of Andean societies to define time in Peru determines resistance as a particular action but also as a continuous necessity. In Western societies, time is a core notion that determines a social, economic, and cultural model. This model validates the importance of modernity as a discourse of linear progress, supported by chronological time development. Concurrently, it denies and eradicates other ways of understanding time because they could problematize the power’s colonial structure. However, these alternatives exist, and their manifestations work as decolonial resistance to the Western model. The notion of time in the Andes is twofold. It denotes a particular event of change known as pachacuti, but also a cyclical understanding of time that means repetition as a return of the past to embrace the future. Following this double interpretation, we analyze two distinct events that embody this duality on two relevant levels of Andean societies: the political and the religious. First, from a political perspective, we examine the marches for the coup against ex-president Pedro Castillo as a milestone, representing the return of the Inkarri myth. Finally, from a religious perspective, we present the analysis of the dance Auqa Chileno’s performance, which problematizes the relationship between linear time and history, in an annual festivity that entwines Andean and Catholic traditions.