Living Ruins

Native Engagements with Past Materialities in Contemporary Mesoamerica, Amazonia, and the Andes

Philippe Erikson, Valentina Vapnarsky, Philippe Erikson, Valentina Vapnarsky

• Publisher: University Press of Colorado
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781646422852
• eBook ISBN: 9781646422869
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Arqueología

Ruins and remnants of the past are endowed with life, rather than mere relics handed down from previous generations. Living Ruins explores some of the ways Indigenous people relate to the material remains of human activity and provides an informed and critical stance that nuances and contests institutionalized patrimonialization discourse on vestiges of the past in present landscapes.
 
Ten case studies from the Maya region, Amazonia, and the Andes detail and contextualize narratives, rituals, and a range of practices and attitudes toward different kinds of vestiges. The chapters engage with recently debated issues such as regimes of historicity and knowledge, cultural landscapes, conceptions of personhood and ancestrality, artifacts, and materiality. They focus on Indigenous perspectives rather than mainstream narratives such as those mediated by UNESCO, Hollywood, travel agents, and sometimes even academics. The contributions provide critical analyses alongside a multifaceted account of how people relate to the place/time nexus, expanding our understanding of different ontological conceptualizations of the past and their significance in the present.
 
Living Ruins adds to the lively body of work on the invention of tradition, Indigenous claims on their lands and history, "retrospective ethnogenesis," and neo-Indianism in a world where tourism, NGOs, and Western essentialism are changing Indigenous attitudes and representations. This book is significant to anyone interested in cultural heritage studies, Amerindian spirituality, and Indigenous engagement with archaeological sites in Latin America.
 
Contributors: Cedric Becquey, Laurence Charlier Zeineddine, Marie Chosson, Pablo Cruz, Philippe Erikson, Antoinette Molinié, Fernando Santos-Granero, Emilie Stoll, Valentina Vapnarsky, Pirjo Kristiina Virtanen
 

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Living Ruins and Vertiginous Vestiges: Amerindian Engagements with Remnants of the Past
• 1. Patrimonialization, Defilement, and the Zombification of Yanesha Cultural Heritage (Peruvian Amazonia)
• 2. Maya Living Ruins: The Hidden Places of Interlocking Temporalities
• 3. Deserted Ruins? Maya Tseltal and Ch’ol Engagement with Salient Spaces
• 4. Where Past and Future Meet . . . Abandoned Village Sites as Cruxes of Political, Historical, and Eschatological Narratives among the Chácobo of Bolivian Amazonia
• 5. Grounds for Political Claims: Earthworks and Anthropogenic Soils as Cultural Heritage and Sources of Territorial Legitimation in Brazilian Amazonia
• 6. Inca Vestiges: From Prehumans to New Agers
• 7. The Topography of Time: Pre-Hispanic Ruins, Topographical Vestiges, and the Controversial Andean New Year (North Potosí, Bolivian Andes)
• 8. Disparate Ancestors: Convergent Pasts and the Dynamics of Heritage in the Southern Andean Altiplano (Uyuni, Bolivia)
• Index
• List of Contributors