The tourism industry in Peru has grown faster than any other sector in the country’s economy. Peru has used Incanismo, the exaggeration of the Inca culture and identity, to appropriate culture and tourism in and around Cusco. This method has led to significant economic advancements throughout the city. Because of this, traditional Quechua-Speaking communities outside of Cusco have begun to promote a similar method in order to experience the same success. In doing so, many meanings of community values and traditions are changing. Though I began my research with a negative perspective and found the tourism industry to be exploitative, the time I spent living and volunteering in the local community of Ccorccor helped me to recognize the potential positive opportunities that tourism could offer. With a Hopeful Tourism model, I offer suggestions for the incorporation of a broader, more inclusive Andean identity, rather than the previous Inca-specific one. Hopeful Tourism is way for communities to re-cultivate their own unique characteristics and heritages, while supporting economic development. Not only will this maintain tourism throughout Peru, but it will do so in a culturally sustainable way. / text

En este texto se explora el significado de un tipo de representación teatral del pasado prehispánico muy extendida en los últimos años en toda América Latina; la misma se constituye como una de las principales atracciones del turismo cultural de la región. En Perú, estas representaciones reciben el nombre de «raymis» (festivales). Desde una perspectiva antropológica, el estudio de estos festivales es relevante por dos motivos. El primero, por el activo papel que la industria turística, base de la economía política local en amplias áreas del llamado «Valle Sagrado de los Incas» (Cusco), desempeña en la producción de un discurso étnico localmente elaborado por la élite política e intelectual del Cusco (los llamados «incanistas») y globalmente consumido por turistas, nativos, instituciones, etc. En segundo lugar, por la participación de las autoridades tradicionales (los alcaldes o «varayoqkuna»), como representantes políticos de sus comunidades, en la escenificación de rituales para el turismo. La hipótesis de trabajo que sustenta esta investigación sugiere que, en el contexto de la situación poscolonial en la que se insertan las comunidades campesinas en el Perú, la participación de los indígenas «auténticos» en estas escenificaciones para el turismo puede ser interpretada como un ejemplo de acción política de negociación de esta población frente a los poderes foráneos. / The meaning of a type of theatrical representations on the preHispanic past –which have become quite popular all over Latin America in recent years– is explored in this paper as one of the main attractions for cultural tourism in the region. In Peru, these representations are known as “raymis” (the Quechua word for “festivals”). From an anthropological perspective, the relevance of studying these festivals is twofold: first, because given that tourism is the basis of the local political economy developed in wide areas of the “Sacred Valley of the Incas” (Cuzco), the industry of tourism has an active role in producing an ethnical discourse that is locally elaborated by the political and intellectual elite of Cuzco (the so-called “incanistas”) and globally consumed by tourists, natives, institutions, etc. Second, because these representations involve the participation of traditional authorities (the Mayors or “varayoqkuna”) as the political representatives of their communities in the staging of rituals for tourism. The hypothesis guiding this research suggests that, in the context of the post-colonial situation characterizing the insertion of peasant communities to the Peruvian society, the participation of “authentic” natives in these representations for tourism may be interpreted as an example of the political negotiation of indigenous groups vis-à-vis foreign powers.

This thesis examines enclaves of oppression and discrimination, which continue to subject indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Andean society to the pernicious legacies of a racist past. As an interpretive framework this interdisciplinary study draws from theoretical approaches to power, which analyse the reproduction of social injustice in post-colonial societies. This research demonstrates how resistance in post-colonial contexts does not always function as a subversive force. Especially when the variable of racism is taken into account, it becomes clearer how acts of opposition end up fostering a tyrannical domination. Examples from Peruvian history, as well as my fieldwork data, will illustrate how resistances and revolutions in the Peruvian Andes have paradoxically reinstated an oppressive and subjugating social system founded in disavowal of the indigenous Other. In dismantling the ramifications of a violent racist legacy, this study explores those social practices and attitudes which in the course of history have resulted in the subjugation of indigenous peoples. These include paternalism, the commodification of indigenous identity and the phenomenon of incanismo. Ultimately, the very negotiation of identities and the making of Peruvian ethnicity will highlight the reasons why, since the 1970s, the pursuit of Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) in the Peruvian Andes has been a challenging and uncertain endeavour. By comparison with bordering Andean regions of Ecuador and Bolivia, IBE is not in the hands of indigenous peoples. This thesis will demonstrate that this is in part due to an underpinning racism, which keeps disrupting a sense of belonging to an ethnic identity.