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Accepted Paper:

Wakas and water: Julio César Tello's spiritual poetics of archaeology  
Rupert Medd (Independent scholar)

Paper short abstract:

Rupert Medd is an independent scholar and was awarded a PhD (2013, Bristol University, England).

Paper long abstract:

Julio C. Tello, Latin America's first Indigenous archaeologist, ascertained that the valuable environmental knowledge gained by Peru's pre-Hispanic civilizations equally had contemporary significance for a modernizing and industrializing nation.

My presentation links with the panel's topics on how Tello used this Western science in order to respond to issues concerning human geography, natural resources as well as provoking further debates on Peruvian national identity, prevalent during the 1920s and 30s.

Tello's field notes from his 'Expedición al Marañon - 1937' structure my presentation as I focus on the importance of clean water supplies and biodiversity to Peru's pre-Hispanic civilizations. Tello's uncovering of antique water channels - acequias, led him to propose alternative environmental conclusions that were multi-functional.

Archaeology and travel writing contributed toward decolonization of both society and Nature in Peru. With this in mind, I engage with 'coloniality of power' theories developed by Aníbal Quijano and José Carlos Mariátegui, showing how Peruvian culture and history have been mainly defined by colonial, imperial and global processes. In turn, these have had environmental repercussions that were always ancient in origin.

Panel P22
The politics of nature in Latin America
  Session 1