«El Camino que nos une»: una historia política del Qhapaq Ñan

Abstract

This paper focuses on how the Qhapaq Ñan, both text and artefact simultaneously, is linked to the history of contemporary Peru and specific narratives about road systems, integration, and Indigenous communities. The Qhapaq Ñan has participated in the discussions of the Peruvian political class since the early XXth century, and has been used as a (pre)text to legitimise specific economic policies and the role of Indigenous citizens in Peru’s nation-building project. During the beginning of the XXIst century, the Qhapaq Ñan became one of the most politically charged artefacts in Peru’s recent history, engaged in diplomatic meeting spaces, regional alliances, and banking policies. From a global perspective, the «roadways» of this precolonial road started to be nodes in a political cartography that extends beyond the national state’s borders.

Keywords

• indigenous people
• Qhapaq Ñan
• Augusto B. Leguía
• Fernando Belaunde Terry
• Ollanta Humala Tasso
• highways