Against Conservation: Towards a New Model of Archaeological Heritage Management in Chinchero

Abstract

In the Peruvian Highland town of Chinchero, mainstream heritage conservation policies have proven to be at odds with vernacular practices of land management and uses of the material past. The temporal regimes involved in the strict conservation paradigm collide with local understandings of time and history, rooted in a dynamic tradition based on principles of alternation and circulation, and with a utilitarian approach towards ancient physical remains. The consequences of current archaeological management have turned the Inca ruins into a highly regulated space from which community members have been largely dispossessed. This goes against the legal consideration of the site as a cultural landscape. In order to remedy the temporal and spatial disjunctions derived from mainstream archaeological policy at the site, a new model, inspired in traditional landscape practices, local ideas of time, and movement patterns is proposed as a critical counternarrative to a global hegemonic conservation paradigm. For this purpose, two specific practices come into scrutiny where Andean temporalities as forms of knowledge are embedded. One is Muyuy, a long-standing principle of socioeconomic organization by which communal land is periodically rotated and worked. The other one is Linderaje, or the ancient custom of walking around community boundaries while honoring the milestones identified with the ancestors. Both are proposed as a solution to current conservation dilemmas in town.