Contradictory Heterofaggeneity as a Critical Cuy(r) Tool in Andean Academic Studies

Abstract

The article discusses “cuy(r),” a Spanish mistranslation of “queer” with a defiant connotation combining sexual dissent and an anti-colonial discourse in the twenty-first-century Andean context. Coining the word “cuy(r)” represents a mutation of the concept of “contradictory heterogeneity” developed by Antonio Cornejo Polar in the twentieth century, turning it into “contradictory hetero fag geneity”. This new concept revives the anti-universalist potential of the Peruvian theorist that validates local aesthetics but also criticizes them for their total lack of gender perspective, especially in regard to sexual dissidence. The article briefly analyzes some twentieth-century Andean works that exemplify “contradictory hetero sodomite geneity” to conclude with some reflections on the cultural and semantic translations of “queer” in the Andes and the rest of Abya Yala.