Imagining Modernity in the Andes

Book excerpt: Imagining Modernity in the Andes is an interdisciplinary work that deals with the intersection of projects of modernity with constructions of race and ethnicity in the Andes. This book focuses initially on Indigenismo, attempting to recuperate the intellectual energy of writers and artists from the twenties who rewrote political and cultural discourse in an irreversible manner, and concludes with a consideration of the new configurations of indigeneity that are emerging today not only in the Andes but across the globe. The multidisciplinary work of José Marìa Arguedas occupies a privileged place in this study and his anthropological work is analyzed in the context of an ideological climate. In addition to considering sociological and anthropological accounts, Archibald examines representations of urbanization and social informality by four Peruvian novelists, pointing to the prevalence of the troupe of the grotesque as a metaphor for the unmanageability associated with cities of the South. Finally, Imagining Modernity in the Andes analyzes the implications of the emergence of new visual media in a culture context long defined by the oral-textual divide, and considers the continued relevance of the concept of transculturation in a transnational and post-literary context.