Revealing social spaces: comparison and modes of relating in lowland Peru

Abstract

In this paper, I examine different kinds of collective activities with a specific emphasis on work and its outcomes. The movement of the argument comes from an external comparison made by native community president, Manuel Sarasara, inwards to a comparison of different activities within the Native Community. I believe that the Native Community as a social, economic and political institution offers substantial comparative value for thinking through the ways in which Amawaka people have become good Peruvian Citizens and that the Native Community might be understood as integral for the construction of the nation-state. Additionally, I am specifically interested in what makes one kind of collective activity different from another, and how effort, or work, might be understood as being significant for what it means to be a community in a sense that defies a distinction between modern and traditional.