Neoliberal Reform in Machu Picchu

Protecting a Community, Heritage Site, and Tourism Destination in Peru

By (author) Pellegrino A. Luciano

Publication date:

01 November 2017

Length of book:

182 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

Dimensions:

236x161mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9781498545945

As Latin America completes its second decade of neoliberal reforms, Pellegrino A. Luciano takes readers on an ethnographic journey back to a moment of monumental social and economic change in Peru. In Neoliberal Reform in Machu Picchu, Luciano describes the privatization struggles and challenges of people living in the district of Machu Picchu, a heritage area and tourism destination, during the early 2000s. This Incan citadel became central to the Peruvian government’s neoliberal policies and efforts to project a new global image and attract foreign capital. Luciano analyzes the role of middle-class actors in consequence, resistance, and accommodation to these neoliberal changes. This book is recommended for scholars of anthropology, political science, economics, tourism studies, and history.

Anthropologist Luciano (American Univ. of Kuwait) presents an insightful ethnography detailing the struggles of local residents of Machu Picchu Sanctuary (Peru) regarding neoliberal reform within the World Heritage Site. He gives voice to the residents living adjacent to the site as they fight for matters of politics that center on belonging, recognition, and participation in the site’s economy. Luciano does a fascinating job conveying how locals do not feel they own the land and have little say in how Machu Picchu should be managed. In the author’s words, his focus is to “bring to life the actions and struggles of the people involved … in a shift towards free-market policies and privatization … and to provide a case study of identity in the Andes drawn into a process of dispossession under state and market forces.” The text, focusing on shared narratives of inhabitants, comprises seven chapters examining the overlapping of spaces, public goods, private interests, stigmatized identities, power struggles, protests, memories of violence, and the impacts of tourism. Libraries with anthropological reserves focusing on World Heritage Sites, tourism, and Latin America should have a copy of this work.

Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.