Citation

Van Vleet KE. J. Lat. Am. Caribb. Anthropol. 2010; 15(1): 195-221.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2010, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1935-4940.2010.01066.x

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

inkuys, often termed “ritual battles,” are events of hand-to-hand fighting that occur during Catholic feast days in some parts of the Bolivian and Peruvian Andes. Although their representations do not often circulate widely, tinkuy fighters tell stories of their experiences long after the battle is over. Drawing on a narrative told by a self-described tinkuy champion, the article demonstrates that individuals may make complicated claims to subjectivity that imbricate race, gender, ethnicity, and citizenship in their stories. In contemporary Bolivia tinkuy is closely associated with racialized discourses of indianness and violence, yet fighters who narrate their experiences may mobilize multiple associations—with the Spanish and the nation as well as with the ayllu—and may negotiate belonging to diverse communities. Attention to the nonreferential, as well as to the referential, content of this fighter's narrative illuminates the mechanisms through which an individual may constitute self in interaction. Considering the ways narratives of Andean ritual violence may be used to claim hegemonic masculinity and citizenship challenges the categorical distinctions between indian and white and suggests potential avenues for further research on tinkuy as a living practice.