Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1919-1991

In the early 20th century, Peruvian intellectuals, like their European counterparts, rejected biological categories of race as a basis for discrimination. But this antiracist ideology did not eliminate social hierarchies; instead, it redefined racial categories as cultural differences, such as differences in education or manners. In this work, Marisol de la Cadena traces the history of the notion of race from this turn-of-the-century definition to a current denial of the definition’s scientific validity. The study examines how indigenous citizens of the city of Cuzco have been conceived by others as well as how they have viewed themselves and places these conceptions within the struggle for political identity and representation. Demonstrating that the terms Indian and mestizo are complex, ambivalent, and influenced by social, legal and political changes, de la Cadena provides close readings of everyday concepts such as marketplace identity, religious ritual, grassroots dance, and popular culture, as well as of such common terms as respect, decency and education.