Writing Machu Picchu. Epistemological Extractivism and the Citadel Through the Lens of indigenismo cusqueño

Abstract

In this article, I examine the reception of the so-called discovery of Machu Picchu and its subsequent reinterpretation by Cuzco’s intelligentsia. After its unearthing, the citadel of Machu Picchu was part of an intellectual discussion that took place in Cuzco and impacted a regional agenda that was constructed by indigenismo cusqueño. Here, I evaluate the historiographic writings about Machu Picchu in three different ways. First, as an act of “epistemological extractivism” perpetrated by the Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham, who self-portrays as the heroic discoverer of the Inca citadel, eliminating previous local visitors from his texts. Second, I illuminate historical reassessments made by two major local intellectuals, Luis Enrique Valcárcel and José Uriel García, whose texts placed Machu Picchu under the large umbrella of Inca civilisation born in Cuzco. Third, I argue that the aesthetical interpretations of Machu Picchu exposed the differences within indigenismo cusqueño; after all, despite its regionalist discourse this movement was not composed by a homogeneous chorus of intellectuals.