HLAS annotation: Babel's study demonstrates how linguistic theory combined with long-term ethnography can yield a detailed scan of the intricate relationships among regional, gender, political, ethnic, and class identifications and affiliations. Switching between first-person accounts of her experiences during nearly two decades and the voices of her consultants, Babel paints a picture of life in a rural Bolivian town. The town of Saipina, located in a valley between the country's Highlands and the Amazon and Chaco Lowlands, is a point of contact between the two regions that are culturally, ethnically, politically, and economically distinct. Babel uses language morphology and speech contact features between Quechua and Spanish to tease out how people in the region - and in Bolivia more broadly - build their cultural communities within a nation known for its Indigenous diversity. The author examines binary oppositions through a series of situated practices and discourses that craft the categories of social identification for Saipina's residents. The categories are analyzed as part of a semiotic field showing contrasts between binaries and defining the community's social norms. More importantly, the binary pairs and semiotic alignments showcase the highly asymmetrical relations of power in Bolivia's social system. Notable material in the book includes how Saipina residents firmly embed themselves into Quechua-speaking or Spanish-speaking camps (quechuista and castellanista), which transcend phenotypical features, dress, and other easily observable identity markers. The Indigenous identity that is most readily attributed to Bolivians is transformed and reinvented in Saipina as past "tradition," while its residents incorporate themselves into the nation state through an urban modernity negotiated by the younger generations working in nearby cities. The book provides a fresh look at the complexity of the rural/urban dichotomy, evidencing how an ethnographic description of "one particular place and one particular time" (p. 237) can provide an improved understanding of a society's system of meaning. [HLAS Contributor: Isabel M. Scarborough]

HLAS annotation: This large-format, handsomely edited bilingual volume that presents some 50 years of her work is how the Chilean poet, conceptual artist, and filmmaker Cecilia Vicuña (born in Santiago in 1948) wishes to be remembered. The book was edited and translated (in part) by Rosa Acalá, who teaches in the MFA program at the University of Texas-El Paso. Because the anthology draws on works published over a long period of time, beginning in the late 1960s when Vicuña was part of a group called Tribu No, there is a team of well-known translators involved in this edition that includes Suzanne Jill Levine, Eliot Weinberger, Esther Allen, and others. The b/w photographs of hands, threads, and landscapes under environmental threat help convey the importance of Vicuña as a performance artist beyond the limits of the printed page. In his introduction, Daniel Borzutzsky describes a site-specific performance at the Poetry Foundation in Chicago: "I saw Cecilia Vicuña perform a few weeks ago. She tied us up." I remember a presentation Vicuña gave in Seville, Spain, as a threading together of the audience, yes, but with the purpose of creating an Amerindian Andean purification ritual to rid the space of the spirits of the conquistadors virtually in the shadow of the Archivo General de Indias. Vicuña often employs words in Quechua as emblems of resistance in her written work. The book includes a section of "Excerpts from Performance Transcripts" in an attempt to recreate the dynamic qualities of the poet's public presence. The lifetime of cultural activity collected in these pages reveals that, for Vicuña, writing is a sacred, intimate activity akin to weaving: "Gold/is your thread/of prayer/Temple/of forever/threading eyelet/Your house built/from the same/braid/Weave on." Though in terms of this last line, one would prefer the informal maternal encouragement of the original Spanish: "Teja mijita/no más." [HLAS Contributor: Steven White]

HLAS annotation: Al igual que su antología Poesía quechua escrita en el Perú (1993), esta obra del catedrático andino es una importantísima contribución a la historia y presente literarios de la poesía quechua latinoamericana. La antología incluye poemas de más de 70 escritores de lengua quechua de Bolivia. La variedad de los poetas es vasta e incluye a poetas publicados, reconocidos y galardonados, así como aquellos cuyas obras eran inéditas hasta la publicación de la antología. El texto se divide en nueve secciones cuyos nombres explican la división del texto basado en las características de los autores: I. Legendarios, II. Apologéticos, III. Seudónimos, IV. Educadores, V. Activistas, VI. Premiados, VII. Compositores, VIII. Inéditos y IX. Centros de aprendizaje. Cada una de estas secciones está dividida cronológicamente con información biográfica y bibliográfica, cuando esta existe. El material que prologa la poesía presenta un resumen bibliográfico de las antologías anteriores de la poesía quechua en la región. Esta obra es fundamental para quienes estén interesados en la poesía quechua andina y seguramente será fundacional para lectores y escritores quechuas futuros interesados en cultivar la riqueza y variedad de las tradiciones literarias indígenas andinas. [HLAS Contributor: José R. Ballesteros]

HLAS annotation: This thoughtful edited volume covers a broad geographic and theoretical range. Case studies span from the north coast of Peru to the central Andean highlands as well as the high Altiplano of Bolivia and the slopes of northeastern Argentina. The collected works take a variety of viewpoints including ancestor veneration, animacy, natural resources, and politics, while always bringing these to bear on ancient understandings of place through Andean time and space. [HLAS Contributor: Jason L. Toohey]

HLAS annotation: An important new study of Andean music and its transnational flows in the later 20th century, particularly between Peru and the US. Drawing on theoretical literatures from cultural geography, ethnic studies, feminism, and gender studies, Dorr presents four main case studies: the history of the iconic "El Condor Pasa" suite from Peruvian composer Daniel Alomia Robles' 1913 zarzuela and its peregrinations to the US and Europe over the century that followed; the rise of Andean subway bands and the "Andean music industry" all over the world in the 1980s and 90s, particularly bands active in California during the author's research; Afro-Peruvian music and the cultural and political activism of prominent performers from the 1950s to the present that include Susana Baca, Victoria Santa Cruz, and Katherine Dunham; and finally, an ethnographic chapter focused on music and political activism at "La Peña del Sur" in Berkeley, California, during a fraught period for Latino/a immigrant rights in the state. Dorr's emphasis on place-making and geography via musical sound, and the social networks such moves entail, is especially novel and will interest scholars from a variety of disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. [HLAS Contributor: Jonathan Ritter]

HLAS annotation: De la Cadena's book uses her conversations and the project of co-labor that she instigated with two Quechua indigenous men in Highland Peru, Mariano and Nazario Turpo, to translate and thoughtfully interpret notions of indigenous religion, political leadership, historical narratives, and stewardship of forms of knowledge. Mariano was a political activist and leader, as well as believer in the power of written records, while Nazario's realm of expertise was that of shamanic and other rituals that interceded with the spiritual world. De la Cadena explores the imbalanced and precarious landscape of these conversations in which her lack of fluency in Quechua and the lack of Spanish of her interlocutors is the pitted roadway on which these two world views meet. The author carefully studies the points of connection and disconnect between the Andean universe, and both hegemonic Peruvian society and the global community and its preconceptions on indigeneity and the Andean. De la Cadena argues than rather than trying to bridge these differences and agree on an interpretation of Andean concepts that does little more than essentialize a complex, fluid process, we would be better off taking an approach that embraces different perceptions that might never agree. She urges an acceptance of other political and knowledge systems and proposes a cosmopolitics approach that would ground itself on embracing this diversity. The abundance of original theory that De la Cadena crafts to explain her research with the Turpo men makes this book a formidable contribution to indigenous studies, Andean scholarship, and the discipline of anthropology. [HLAS Contributor: Isabel M. Scarborough]

HLAS annotation: This collection of essays examines various processes of individual and collective identity-making by indigenous peoples in the context of the colonial societies of Mexico and Peru. The studies emphasize the agency of indigenous peoples in their ability to understand and manipulate different institutions, languages, and rhetorical strategies. Each essay uses specific artifacts or documents to illuminate native epistemologies as well as the diversity and flexibility of indigenous identities in different contexts. Four of the essays deal specifically with colonial Peru and the Andean World including Rolena Adorno's comparative study of Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, Fernando de Alva Ixtilxóchitl, Fray Martín de Murúa and Carlos de Sigüenz y Góngora; Nancy van Duesen on indigenous slaves in Lima; Rachel O'Toole on the mercantile identities of indigenous muleteers in Trujillo; and Rocio Quispe-Agnoli on the negotiation of Andean notions of the sacred. [HLAS Contributor: Matthew Crawford]

HLAS annotation: This volume presents a study of "Apu Inka Atawallpaman," a Quechua poem, about whose origins little is known, which decries the death of the last Inca leader, Atahualpa, in Cajamarca in 1533. Gonzales, after surveying previous studies of the poem and its impact on artists and writers, proposes that the poem was written in the latter part of the 16th century, when memories of the events were still fresh but yet at some historical remove. Based on this analysis, Gonzales asserts that this poem should be read as the first document of Inca resistance to Spanish colonialism. [HLAS Contributor: Amber Brian]

HLAS annotation: Another invaluable bilingual Spanish-Quechua volume by this team, which has gathered and transcribed myths recollected by the people of the Colca Valley. In addition to a preface by Martín Leinhard and an informative introduction by the authors, texts themselves are of particular interest because they cover the 13 districts of the Valley and therefore offer multiple perspectives on, and variants of, the same myths. Great pedagogical tool for teaching Quechua as well. [HLAS Contributor: Linda Seligmann]

HLAS annotation: The Quechua word ayahuasca means "rope of the death" (soga de los muertos) and identifies a plant native to the Amazon ecosystem. The inhabitants of the region have used it for hundreds - possibly thousands of years - for various purposes. The word has different meanings depending on the community. The word also identifies a medicinal concoction mixed with chacruna, another plant, for ritualistic purposes associated with wellness and contact with a spiritual dimension. Those who drink the beverage experience physical and psychological effects. Use of ayahuasca usually induces energy, magnifies sensibility, and enhances perception and creativity. Rivera interviewed 27 artists who practice or have practiced the ritual of drinking ayahuasca as part of their artistic process (not only in the visual arts, but also in poetry, craftmaking, and storytelling). Rivera refers to the "ayahuasca aesthetic" that searches for answers to the universal, existential questions: Who are we, where do we come from, and where are we going? [HLAS Contributor: Félix Ángel]

HLAS annotation: The authors have collected an important set of chapters dealing holistically with the archeology of ritual in the Peruvian Andean past. The papers seek to treat ritual practice regionally with a focus on local social variability, countering an often-present assumption that Andean practice was broadly spread and timeless. The authors address issues of ritual and belief at both the household and monumental scales and with foci ranging from human to active nonhuman agencies. [HLAS Contributor: Jason L. Toohey]

HLAS annotation: Poeta originaria del distrito de Colta, departamento de Ayacucho, cuyo idioma materno es el quechua. Este poemario se presenta en formato bilingüe con versiones también en español. Su poesía refleja una preocupación vital y académica (la autora es también docente universitaria): dotar al quechua del prestigio alcanzado en la época incaica, y facilitar a los pobladores de la serranía el acceso a su propia lengua. Sus poemas reproducen el componente oral característico del quechua. Además, se recalca una inherente conexión entre los seres humanos y la naturaleza: la vida fluye como los ríos, o tiene los accidentes de los paisajes montañosos. En términos religiosos, los espíritus paternales de los apus (dioses prehispánicos) aún cuidan el bienestar de las comunidades indígenas. [HLAS Contributor: Chrystian Zegarra]