Indigenista Geographies of Race in Peru, 1920–50

In early-20th century Peru intellectuals from the highlands became invested in analyzing and representing local and regional societies in terms of varying degrees of indigeneity. In crafting these descriptions, as well as their own complex and ambiguous identities, indigenistas had constant recourse to geography both as a language for describing highland society and as a tool for explaining it. This paper examines how indigenistas associated categories of people with environments, places, and regions, and how they did so in different and often contradictory ways. It is especially concerned with how spatio-racial thought varied from one region to another – for example, indigenistas in Huánuco developed categories that were distinct (and quite deliberately so) from those used by their better known counterparts in Cuzco. I also seek to examine how such varying geographies of race might have influenced state policies towards different parts of highland Peru.