Andean Meltdown: A Climate Ethnography of Water, Power, and Culture in Peru

by Karsten Paerregaard

Overview

Andean Meltdown examines how climate change and its consequences for Peru's glaciers are affecting the country's water supply and impacting Andean society and culture in unprecedented ways. Drawing on forty years of extensive research, relationship building, and community engagement in Peru, Karsten Paerregaard provides an ethnographic exploration of Andean ritual practices and performances in the context of an altered climate. By documenting Andean peoples' responses to rapid glacier retreat and urgent water shortages, Paerregaard considers the myriad ways climate change intersects with environmental, social, and political change. A pathbreaking contribution to cultural anthropology and environmental humanities, Andean Meltdown challenges prevailing theoretical thinking about the culture-nature nexus and offers a new perspective on Andean peoples' understanding of their role as agents in the shifting relationship between humans and nonhumans.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520393929
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	08/01/2023
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	210
Sales rank:	816,123
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Karsten Paerregaard is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology in the School of Global Studies at the University of Gothenburg. He is the author of Return to Sender: The Moral Economy of Peru's Migrant Remittances.

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Illustrations 
Acknowledgments 

Introduction 

1 • Water, Power, and Offerings 
2 • Tapay: The Offering Must Go On 
3 • Cabanaconde: The Hole in the Channel 
4 • Huaytapallana: The Apu That Is Dying 
5 • Quyllurit’i: The Glacier That Shines Like a Star 

Conclusion 

Notes 
References 
Index