1- Indigenous Mestizos

8/9/2019 1- Indigenous Mestizos

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Kenneth Fuentes

The impact of the scientic method in the conceptualization of

race has resulted in many implications, in terms of preferences and

vantages, in the identity process of people. The implementation of

natural science, as a mean to separate and represent role in constant

societal unfolding, in order to develop a concept of race has, therefore,

resulted in racial superiority, racial hierarchy and other forms of

subordination between civilizations. The unocial census conducted by

professor Albert iesec!e"s in #uzco, $eru, illustrates the con%ict

arising in dening race. The case of the cuz&ue'o populace in

re%ecting the tendency to (self)misrepresentation* lighten the way

towards the historical bac!ground in which previous generations

conceived their social constructs for understanding race.

The historical conte+t between the uropean scientic denitions

of race and the -atin American elites, most of which were a racial

mi+ture of indigenous people and uropeans, namely mestizos,

introduces the causes of self)classication in racial distinctions, and

others, which resulted in a tendency among generations. acial

determinism, being another attempt to conceptualize race, sought to

understand not merely through the connements of sciences but

through the geographical and demographical bac!drop of its regions.

The sierra, an open, une+plored and wild landscape of the $eru,

became associated with the unsophisticated and underdeveloped. The

representation of growth, advancement and sophistication was along



Kenneth Fuentes

the coastline. The presence of political power, driven by racial

distinctions, was well accommodated and consolidated in the lime'o

elite. This is the racial group that represented progress, power and

authority.

As has always been the case, over time, specically by the end

of the nineteenth century in the case of $eru, the political growth is

evident and it begins to form ideologies that see! to address issues

arising from a very conte+tualized regional perspective. For those living

and producing out of the highlands the concerns were of a single)sided

oriented administration of the region, one being mainly administrated

by the central elite of $eru. /n other words, the administration of land,

whether of the highlands or the coastline, became associated with the

elite in the capital of -ima. The distinctions of this political debate were

coined as regionalismo, which represented the struggle for e&ual

participation of the administration in their own region, and centralismo,

which represented administrative power and authority converge in

-ima.

0hile the central elite of $eru became associated with uropean

criteria for racial identity and intellectual capacity for politics, the

#uzco subordinated elite merged provincial interests across their

region 1those of the cuz&ue'o elite and of the more indigenous groups

of the highlands2 with a more indigenous approach, namely

indigenismo. The progress of this political ideology turned it into a



Kenneth Fuentes

movement displaying intellectual capacities thought to be particular of

the lime'o elite. The integration and consolidation of this political

ideology, i.e., indigenismo, within the history of $eru"s politics is

presented as one of the essential strategies, if not the principal, in

order to start to shorten the hierarchical distances that e+isted and

prevailed among groups.

3ut such a move would have been of less impact had they not

move toward the proposals of a new understanding, from the

indigenistas reality about race and superiority, about racial

interpretations among the main social elites. 4i5erences among

mestizos and indigenous people were placed in the moral denitions

rather than on biological ones. 6ome similarities had been proven by

the intellectual advancement in the political arena. 7owever, it

remains a puzzling distinction by the indigenistas about the regional

mestizos as being, contradictory enough, given their apparent belief

for racial e&uality, a 8hybrid" of the highlands, and also di5erent from

the ambiguous dar!)s!inned description.

9verall, This case study is a suited representative of the

interaction and understanding of ethnic identity in the resulted new

ethnic groups across -atin America, in other few indigenous survival

groups and as part of the social phenomenon of evolving civilizations,

which interpret and understand themselves as individuals based on

racial)driven factors or socio)political stereotypes.



Kenneth Fuentes

Documents

1- Indigenous Mestizos