Volume: 6  Number: 1  Page: 39–56  doi:10.2167/jtcc104.0

The Inca Heritage Revival: Indigenismo in Cuzco, 1905–1945

Alexandra Arellano Leisure Studies (Human Kinetics), University of Ottawa, 125, University Ottawa, Ontario, K1N 6N5, Canada

The Inca heritage is intermingled in a long trajectory of histories, creations and revivals that have constantly contributed to the renewal of its imagery. This paper analyses an important Inca revival movement that has been crucial in the making and remaking of Southern Andean identities: Indigenismo Cusqueño (1905–1945). This Cuzco version of Indigenismo was a regionalist urban middle class movement that emerged at the turn of the 20th century. I analyse how these Indigenistas, or an elite of intellectual ‘legislators’ from Cuzco shaped the regional identity through the ‘recovery’ of an authenticity founded in the legacy of the ancient Empire. Four decades of the production of a heritage initiated a so-called ‘folklorisation’ process that led to the mobilisation of the peasant mass through the enactment of an ancient Inca ritual in 1944. By staging performances of identity and promoting wide participation, the Indigenistas aimed at promoting a ‘regionalist’ identity campaign, attracting tourism-related investments and transforming the Inca capital into the ‘cradle of Peruvianness’.

Keywords: heritage, identity, Indigenismo, Latin America, race, tourism

© 2008 A. Arellano

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