UC Davis

This dissertation explores how male-identified Andeans of Quechua descent deploy Quechua epistemology to negotiate an array of gender and ethnic notions to develop community- and place-based identities. Employing theories and research methodologies from various disciplines – including Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAIS), Performance Studies, Gender Studies, and Anthropology—I study the all-male Qhapaq Qolla dance troupe of Paucartambo, Cusco, both during their performances and their daily lives. The protagonist of two of the most important public celebrations in the Andes, the Qhapaq Qolla dance troupe is highly influential in the region. Based on eight years of field research, I describe how the Qhapaq Qolla explore and (re)shape their gender norms and Quechua heritage every time they perform. I also demonstrate that for the Qhapaq Qolla, ethnic and gender values are not distinct, but always co-constituting one another. I move beyond traditional academic categories to discuss ethnic and gender identity development processes, and instead aim to make Qhapaq Qolla dancers the theorizers of their own reality by privileging the concepts they use to describe themselves. In particular, I focus on the Quechua term “qhari.” While qhari could be understood exclusively as a gender concept (it is commonly translated as “male”), for the Qhapaq Qolla its meaning is imbued with Quechua values that are not exclusively masculine traits, like reciprocity and balance in relationships with humans and more-than-humans, including non-human animals, the landscape, and local deities. My research makes a critical theoretical intervention in NAIS by addressing a pervasive impasse in how the discipline addresses constructions of Indigeneity south of the U.S.- Mexico border. Like many peoples of Indigenous descent in Latin America, the Qhapaq Qolla, despite their strong ties to Quechua heritage, do not identify as Indigenous to distance themselves from the negative connotations of the term “indio,” which in Peru signals poverty, ignorance, and violence. To make peoples of Indigenous descent like the Qhapaq Qolla visible to NAIS, my dissertation reframes Indigeneity in a way that, while not discarding notions of identity and lived experience under settler colonialism, proposes that we also understand it as an embodied process that provides peoples of Indigenous descent, no matter how they choose to identify themselves, with specific ways of being in the world. Through this reframing, NAIS can become more inclusive to the different kinds of structures of colonialism operating throughout the American hemisphere, and recognize the continuity of Indigenous belonging without forcing an identity onto populations who, for very strategic reasons like avoiding discrimination and overt violence, do not privilege Indigeneity when describing themselves. This dissertation is divided into three chapters and a conclusion. Chapter 1 explores the place-based, multilayered categories of identification Qhapaq Qolla dancers utilize to define themselves. In particular, it focuses in the category “gente del pueblo.” I argue that the gente del pueblo category masks complex ethnic, class, and generational histories and relationships in Paucartambo. Qhapaq Qolla dancers privilege the gente del pueblo category to hide their ethnic identification, so they are able to place themselves in a fluid and indeterminate relationship with Indigeneity. Based on the case of the Qhapaq Qolla, who avoid using the category “Indigenous” to identify themselves, I propose an expansion of the NAIS concept of “Indigeneity.” On top of understanding Indigeneity based on notions of identity and experience under settler colonialism, I propose that we also understand Indigeneity as an embodied way of being in the world, one that provides peoples of Indigenous descent with specific worldviews, histories, and community responsibilities. Chapter 2 focuses on one of the central aspects of the Qhapaq Qolla’s choreography, the yawar unu. The yawar unu is a performance in which Qhapaq Qolla dancers, among other things, hit each other in the calves with a whip. In recent years, the yawar unu has been portrayed by outsiders as a public performance of savagery. Nevertheless, dancers argue that what makes a yawar unu performance particularly successful is not measured in terms of how much it hurts dancers. Instead, they highlight aesthetic markers that also prevent harm. For Qhapaq Qolla dancers, the yawar unu constitutes a public demonstration of bravery that highlights the characteristics of a qhari. A qhari is willing to demonstrate his physical prowess in public by engaging in a lashing battle in which he demonstrates his ability using a whip, and his physical endurance by stoically enduring the lashing without flinching or showing he is hurting. Moreover, the Yawar Unu constitutes a protocol for conflict resolution based on Quechua notions of qhari masculinity. Dancers often engage in Yawar Unu battles to solve conflicts between each other. When they do so, they are agreeing to solve their personal problems in public, having other Paucartambinos/as and the deities they honor as witnesses. When dancers solve a personal problem through the Yawar Unu, the solution is final —they cannot continue holding a grudge or bring up the disagreement ever again. In Chapter 3, I analyze how the Qhapaq Qolla use food and drinks to mediate encounters among each other, between themselves and visitors during the public celebrations they are protagonists of, and between themselves and other members of the cosmos. The goal of these encounters is to (re)create relationships of reciprocity. Those relationships of reciprocity are defined by leveled coexisting relationships of similarity and difference. To illustrate how relationships of reciprocity are developed and negotiated in Andean societies with the use of food and drinks, I study at length two private events of the Qhapaq Qolla. The first one is the first event new Qhapaq Qolla dancers participate in. In it, they are required to cook and serve all members of the troupe. I argue that this event establishes and collapses three dichotomies: a gender, a class, and a generational one. The second event is called the T’aqwinakuy. In it, senior Qhapaq Qolla dancers —those who have been members of the troupe for at least four years—privately review their performance in the Festividad de la Virgen del Carmen. The T’aqwinakuy provides a primary example of the inner workings of leveling processes in relationships of reciprocity. Employing the concepts of tinkuy, yanantin, and pampachay, I show how the Qhapaq Qolla have developed spaces to level their relationships of reciprocity, based on ideals they understand as qhari. Those spaces allow the Qhapaq Qolla to ensure the (re)newal of the dance troupe by providing safe environments in which dancers can negotiate their coexisting relationships of similarity and difference. In the conclusion, I propose a “hemispheric framework of Indigeneity” for Native American and Indigenous Studies. I understand this framework as a series of coexisting and leveled relationships of similarities and differences among peoples of Indigenous descent across the Americas. I argue that only by accepting the generative power of differences we can develop academic and political alliances between peoples of Indigenous descent across the hemisphere with the power to make a significant impact in the fight against the most pressing issues of our time, including environmental degradation, racism, gender violence and discrimination, and the migration crisis.