Rivera Andía, Juan Javier, ed. 2025. Cañaris II: Arquitectura, Organología y Tradición Oral En Incahuasi y Regiones Circunvecinas. Rumbo Sur: Ethnographica.
Description:
This admirable volume is the successor and complement to the book “Cañaris: Ethnographies and Documents of the Northern Highlands of Peru”… Once again, Rivera Andía succeeds in bringing us a multitude of voices and perspectives from this little-understood region of the Andes. Until recently, the Cañaris region was largely invisible: on the one hand, it was rarely studied by ethnographers, who, for the most part, focused their attention on Cuzco and Ayacucho; And, on the other hand, it did not attract much attention from the Peruvian public until recently, when the mining interests in the region provoked its resistance… Rivera Andía unites his ethnographic experience with a chorus of regional voices in a happy conjunction of scientific ethnography and local autoethnography… Although Rivera Andía’s epilogue offers a merciless critique of the ignorance and disinterest that render Cañaris invisible with such adverse effects, he concludes the volume on a positive note: Cañaris is not a problem, but rather presents the nation that encompasses it with the opportunity to lift the veil of invisibility and recognize the will and reason of its people. It reveals an opening, a path toward understanding “some of the many mysteries of Peruvian history and its complex cultural reality.” Will this course be taken? It seems unlikely. However, why not join Rivera Andía’s incorrigible optimism? —Yes, the opportunity is within reach.
