Reading texts about Peru and the Andes in Peru itself is already a way to bring such texts to life. For instance, we will be reading José María Arguedas’s celebrated account of a young Indigenous boy’s visit to Cusco, former center of the Inca Empire, in his novel Deep Rivers, and will be able to see the same sights, the same buildings and social architecture, that he describes. The same goes, for instance, for Felipe Guaman Poma or Garcilaso de la Vega’s famous historical descriptions of Inca civilization.
Second, we will be able to see how Indigenous people live in Peru today, in different settings and circumstances. We will visit local Indigenous communities in the countryside surrounding Pisac; we will explore the local market in the town itself, as a node for mercantile (and cultural) exchange between the countryside and wider networks; and from our time in Cusco (and also as we pass through Lima, to and from the Andes) we will gain a sense of urban Indigeneity and the negotiations, sacrifices, and successes that result from decades of internal migration to the cities.
Third, the Sacred Valley as a whole, from Cusco to Machu Picchu, is a booming site of various forms of tourism, from backpacking to luxury tours, adventure and high-energy activities to New Age practices. We will observe (and, inevitably, participate in) the legion of transactions in everything from handicrafts to visits to archeological sites, yoga to gourmet food, Shamanistic rituals to holistic health that often draw on (and help to construct) images of Indigeneity in the area. We will thus also be able to reflect on our own role as visitors and students in the heart of the Andes and what was once the centre of the Inca Empire.
Fourth and finally, beyond our own experiences and interactions with texts, local culture, and transnational tourism, we will also benefit from guest speakers and lecturers both from local Indigenous communities and from non-governmental organizations, as well as from Peruvian universities and research institutes such as Cusco’s Centro Bartolomé de las Casas.
