Dartmouth Events

The Lights of Winaq: Gold, Politics, and Andean Futures - Anthropology Colloquium with Elena Turevon, Ph.D.
Thursday, March 5, 2020 - 12:30pm, Haldeman 252

Myth and everyday politics in Macashca, a town in the Peruvian Andes, illuminate a globally emerging politics of distribution. Storytellers in Macashca tell of Winaq: a mountain embodying the Inca ancestors, which fends off foreign miners to protect their gold. As Winaq's heirs, Macashca storytellers claim rightful ownership of Peru's vast mineral wealth. Ancestral claims transcend the colonial political order. Through Andean-Christian schemes, townsfolk posit an emergent Third Age of history, in which wealth is shared and sovereignty is immanent to the people. Winaq as political theory materialized in populist voting patterns and a collective land invasion in 2015. Together, Andean myth and practice propose a way for "surplus populations" to survive the Anthropocene: as rightful inheritors- owners- of the earth's value.

About Dr. Turevon
Elena Turevon is a Visiting Lecturer in Anthropology at Dartmouth College. A cultural anthropologist, her ethnographic research explores political imagination in the Peruvian Andes. Andean myths, rumors, and fantastic beings reveal the shape and possible futures of global capitalism. She received her Ph.D. from Duke University in 2018, and her work has been supported by the Social Science Research Council and American Council of Learned Societies.