Civic Society Groups, Cultural Rights, and Rights to a "Heritage" City during COVID-19

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Current Dynamics of Heritage Values in the Americas" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In an archaeologically rich country like Peru, theoretically all people have access to archaeological sites. However, parallel to the COVID-19 pandemic, vulnerable and traditionally marginalized populations are disproportionally affected by archaeological sites (as well as by coronavirus). This presentation asks: What has changed in the conservation of archaeological sites in metropolitan Lima since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic? Archaeological conservation in Peru still predominately views the absence of social use as beneficial for site preservation. However, since 2008 low-income/working-class heritage civil society groups have become increasingly important in protecting sites even as they make new claims for rights to the city and their local patrimony. My ethnographic research shows that the absence of these groups during Peru’s mandatory quarantine has actually had detrimental effects on urban archaeological sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Current Dynamics of Heritage Values in the Americas   •
• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

Keywords

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33525