Reimagining Colonialism: A Local History of Community and Empire in the Peruvian Andes Between the 15th and 18th centuries

FAIN: HB-288997-23

Carla Hernandez Garavito
Regents of the University of California, Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA 95064-1077)

Research and writing leading to a book about how the Andean inhabitants of Huarochirí responded to the Inkas' domination and then to Spanish colonialism in Peru from the 15th to 18th centuries. 

Reimagining Colonialism is a book project based on archaeological, historical, and spatial research that investigates indigenous narratives of successive waves of colonialism by the Inka (1400-1532 CE) and the Spanish Empires (1532-1821 CE) in the Peruvian Andes. Reimagining Colonialism is driven by the question: what if the Inka and Spanish were an addition to local history rather than the filter through which we discuss the diverse and complex communities that inhabited the Andes? In doing so, this book centers on the highland region of Huarochirí (in the Department of Lima, Peru) and their engagements with the Inka and Spanish between the 15th and 18th centuries. At its core, Reimagining Colonialism inverts traditional scholarship that centers on how Andean communities repositioned themselves as part of the Inka and Spanish Empires, and instead shows how this community saw the Inka and the Spanish as parts of their local history.

Associated Products

Construyendo la provincia de Pariacaca Interacción y ritual en la organización de Huarochirí durante los periodos tardíos (Book Section)
Title: Construyendo la provincia de Pariacaca Interacción y ritual en la organización de Huarochirí durante los periodos tardíos
Author: Carla Hernández Garavito
Editor: Celia Rubina and Carmela Zanelli
Abstract: This article investigates the "official" discourse of ideology and rituality in Huarochiri through the perspective of Inka interventions between the 14th and 15th centuries. I use a multiscalar model to explore shifts in local ritual practices at the domestic, community, and sacred landscape levels.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: http://https://www.fondoeditorial.pucp.edu.pe/categorias/1575-sobre-la-vida-de-los-antiguos-hombres-de-este-pueblo-llamado-huarochiri.html
Primary URL Description: Webpage from the editor.
Access Model: Book purchase
Publisher: Fondo Editorial PUCP
Book Title: “Sobre la vida de los antiguos hombres de este pueblo llamado Huarochirí”. Voces, seres y lugares del Manuscrit
ISBN: 9786123179229

Reinvention and Colonialism in the Central Andes: The Archaeology of Huarochirí (Peru) through the Inka and Spanish Periods (Web Resource)
Title: Reinvention and Colonialism in the Central Andes: The Archaeology of Huarochirí (Peru) through the Inka and Spanish Periods
Author: Carla Hernández Garavito
Abstract: UC Santa Cruz “Reinvention and Colonialism in the Central Andes” builds upon results from archaeological excavations, the revision of archival sources, and spatial modeling to investigate the experience of the people of Huarochirí (Lima, Peru) and their engagement with successive waves of colonialism by the Inka and Spanish empires between the 15th and 18th centuries. I use the idea of “reinvention” to center how locals significantly acted upon colonial policy to claim positions of belonging. I focus on “history-making” to discuss the Indigenous appropriation of history, understood in this context as a body of knowledge that legitimizes group identity. Throughout the chapters, I argue that, in the face of drastic socio-political changes, the people of Huarochirí turned to their history, creating analogies and shared spaces between local and Inka landscapes and materiality and incorporating written representations and ideas of settled lives to validate their claims in Spanish eyes. The manuscript moves from speaking about conquering empires to centering the history of Indigenous communities and their telling of how those empires came to be a part of their world.
Year: 2024
Primary URL: https://uchri.org/awards/reinvention-and-colonialism-in-the-central-andes-the-archaeology-of-huarochiri-peru-through-the-inka-and-spanish-periods/
Primary URL Description: This is the web page for the Junior Faculty Manuscript Workshop Award by the UC Humanities Research Institute. This workshop will be based on the book manuscript funded by NEH.

“Reinvention and Colonialism: A Local History of Community and Empire in the Peruvian Andes Between the 15th and 18th centuries” (Web Resource)
Title: “Reinvention and Colonialism: A Local History of Community and Empire in the Peruvian Andes Between the 15th and 18th centuries”
Author: Carla Hernández Garavito
Abstract: “Reinvention and Colonialism” investigates the experience of successive colonialism through the history of a single community in the Peruvian Andes. Grounded on archaeological, historical, and geospatial methods, my book centers on the people of the highland region of Huarochirí (Lima, Peru) and their engagements with the Inka (1450-1532 CE) and Spanish (1532-1821 CE) empires. Research on the negotiated adaptation to colonial policies has become the de facto way to understand Indigenous identities in colonial contexts, reinforcing the homogenization of the communities that lived through the process. My book inverts this scholarship and is instead driven by the question: what if the Inka and Spanish were an addition to local history rather than the filter through which we discuss the diverse and complex communities that inhabited the Andes? I argue that, in the face of drastic socio-political changes, the people of Huarochirí turned to their history, creating analogies, shared spaces, and transformations on the practices that marked ideas of “civilization” for the invading empires to integrate their subjection into local history. By centering on the creativity and endurance of this community, my book explores how they crafted spaces of political and social action where colonial systems meant to leave none.
Year: 2024
Primary URL Description: This is the web page for the awards made by the UCSC Institute for Social Transformation. Hernández Garavito was awarded the Book Manuscript Accelerator Award. This workshop will be based on the book manuscript funded by NEH.

Mapping Community Life: Using StoryMaps to Explore Histories of Resilience in the Central Andes (Web Resource)
Title: Mapping Community Life: Using StoryMaps to Explore Histories of Resilience in the Central Andes
Author: Carla Hernández Garavito
Abstract: Mapping Community Life explores ESRI StoryMaps as a centralized platform for engaging archival sources, anthropological research, and digital scholarship. This project builds upon my ongoing work in the Peruvian highlands, centered on how communities endured and actively transformed colonial institutions aimed at destroying their ways of life by redefining said institutions through their local practices, memories, and interactions with their surrounding landscapes. Students working on this project will engage with different methodologies (e.g., paleography, spatial modeling) and develop small, directed projects that will be incorporated into this centralized platform. The outcomes of this project are two-fold: 1) Explore the multi-media capabilities of StoryMaps to redefine scholarly work, and 2) Use spatial methods to center local histories and knowledge in archival research.
Year: 2023
Primary URL: http://transform.ucsc.edu/building-belonging-fellows/
Primary URL Description: Webpage for the Building Belonging Projects and Fellows 2023-2024. Hernández Garavito was awarded funding to work with two undergraduate students on the digitization and spatial modeling project that is part of the book funded by NEH.

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