Political Economy, Ethnogenesis, and Language Dispersals in the Prehispanic Andes: A World‐System Perspective

Abstract

ABSTRACTIn this article, I argue, first, that a world‐system perspective can illuminate the role of prestigious trade goods such as Spondylus in the reproduction of pre‐Hispanic Andean societies and the significance of their procurement for the course of Andean prehistory. Second, I argue that the successive dispersals of major Andean languages (Aymara, Quechua, Pukina) reflect the establishment of prestigious lingua francas integrating such systems of long‐distance exchange. Political, agricultural, stylistic, and linguistic expansions in prehistory are interpreted as reflections of the integration of regional and interregional systems of exchange and interaction. The theoretical framework of world‐system analysis is shown not only to be applicable to the shifting economic and political geography of the pre‐Hispanic Andes but also to help account for a range of cultural phenomena that are generally not viewed from this perspective, including familiar details of Inca history such as Cuzco's relations to preexisting languages and ethnic identities. Rather than viewing the emergence of linguistic, stylistic, and other identity‐related homogeneities as consequences of political unification, I suggest that ethnolinguistic integration may precede efforts at political control.