Author Description

Concerned with Andean cosmology both as the manifestation of a system of belief and as a way of thinking or worldview that orders the social environment, this volume advances an explanation of why Andean Indigenous communities are still recognizably Andean after a half millennium of forced exposure to Western systems of thought and belief. Examining cultural authenticity in an Andean context, the authors describe a process facilitated by a cosmology which readily integrates the accouterments of non-Andean and other Andean influences in a given Andean community. At issue is not so much what is authentic but how it is perceived to be authentic and how it is so maintained. The nine authors explore a model in which a consistent and persistent cosmological discourse leads not to an emergent social order but to a social order which continually emerges as a peculiarly Andean phenomenon. This volume describes a set of mechanisms which together comprise a uniquely Andean perspective through which given communities perceive themselves or are perceived through time to be Andean.