Tejiendo reciprocidades: John Murra y el contextualizar entre los aymara contemporáneos

Abstract

This essay relates John Murra's oeuvre on the one hand to the works of his friend José María Arguedas and on the other to my own etnographical research on cultural dynamics among contemporary urban Aymara in the indigenous city of El Alto (Bolivia). I introduce the notion of 'contextualization' as a pivotal cultural intuition for understanding cultural 'tradition' -that is, tension between change and continuity-among the Aymara. Contextualization refers to the ritual and convivial ways in which different spaces and times are interrelated within the Andean world. It is what makes people participate in what they call pacha. The general theme of contextualization, has been investigated throughout Murra's lucid analysis, and is also explored by Arguedas and several other thinkers. It provides a deeper understanding of the ecological, political and cultural dynamics which have characterized the Andean tradition in general, and the Aymara one in particular. It is of vital importance to study this sense of contextualization, and intercultural creativity ensuing from it, in order to open up paths towards 'alternatives to the world we live in'. That issue was of intense concern to the anthropologist John Murra.