Writing the Mestizo: José María Arguedas as Ethnographer

Abstract

At present, it is difficult to trace the history of ethnology in Peru without referencing the contributions of José María Arguedas. During his lifetime, however, his contemporaries in anthropology placed little importance on his work. In this article, I intend to identify the motives behind his belated and posthumous recognition as a contributor to anthropology. The main point I would like to argue is that the concept of mestizo that Arguedas works with in his ethnographies implies an in-depth critique of the dehistoricizing practices of dominant anthropology. By decisively intervening in a key debate in Latin American intellectual history, Arguedas questions early 20th-century Hispanist ideology, which understood the condition of mestizaje as a realization of a homogeneous, harmonic ideal. In retrospect, it can be argued that his formulation of mestizaje shares elements with contemporary cultural paradigms that place value on diversity and multiculturalism.