Ghosts and Cyborgs of Landscape Pasts, Presents, and Futures: A Case Study from Sajama, Bolivia

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments " session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Landscapes are haunted, cyborg stories. They are haunted by pasts that could have been and emergent futures. They are cyborgs as they are assemblages of human and nonhuman entities in emplaced relationships. They are stories because we curate and present a version of a landscape where certain places, voices, and agents are more important. This is the case for the Sajama landscape in highland Bolivia. The ghosts of the local Carangas, Inca, and Spanish pasts continue to emerge. At the center of Huaylilla, Inka and Carangas client relationships are reflected in residential architecture and portable goods. Spanish churches remain emplaced within communities and their abandonment indicates changing relationships. The dynamic nature of landscapes is best marked by the Sajama lines, a system of linear geoglyphs over 15,000 km long. These places show assemblages of typical archaeological actors: humans, memory, living mountains, ancestors, prestige goods, and utilitarian wares. However, the story of the Sajama landscape is informed by contemporary practices of tourism, Indigenous movements, President Obama, alien conspiracies, and to a small extent Corona beer. A relational, assemblage approach is taken in examining the dynamic Sajama landscape. Preliminary dissertation data is presented from pedestrian surveys, site collections, and drone mapping.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Living Landscapes: Disaster, Memory, and Change in Dynamic Environments   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36065.0