Living ruins: native engagements with past materialities in contemporary Mesoamerica, Amazonia, and the Andes

Includes bibliographical references and index.Living Ruins explores the ways people relate to the material remains of human behavior, providing a critical stance that contests institutionalized patrimonialization discourse of vestiges of the past in present landscapes. Nine case studies from the Maya region, the Andes, and Amazonia contextualize narratives, rituals, and practices toward different vestiges.--Provided by publisher.Introduction: living ruins and vertiginous vestiges: Amerindian engagement with remnants of the past / Philippe Erikson and Valentina Vapnarsky -- Patrimonialization, defilement, and the zombification of Yanesha cultural heritage (Peruvian Amazonia) / Fernando Santos-Granero -- Maya living ruins: the hidden places of interlocking temporalities / Valentina Vapnarsky -- Deserted ruins? Symbolic interest in spaces among Maya Tzeltal and Ch'ol people / Cédric Becquey and Marie Chosson -- Where past and future meet ... abandoned village sites as cruxes of political, historical, and eschatological narratives among the Chacobo of Bolivian Amazonia / Philippe Erikson -- Grounds for political claims: earthworks and anthropogenic soils as cultural heritage and sources of territorial legitimation in Brazilian Amazonia / Pirjo Kriistina Virtanen and Emilie Stoll -- From prehumans to new agers: the symbolic efficacy of Inca vestiges / Antoinette Molinié -- The topography of time: prehispanic ruins, topographical vestiges, and the controversial Andean new year (North Potosi, Bolivian Andes) / Laurence Charlier Zeinedine -- Disparate ancestors: convergent pasts and the dynamics of heritage in the southern Andean Altiplano (Uyuni, Bolivia) / Pablo Cruz