| Framing Machu Picchu: Science, Photography and the Making of Patrimony |
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Amy Cox
University of Florida
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Description:
My research focuses on the ways in which early scientific practices and visual technologies have contributed to the cultural imagining and production of Peru's Machu Picchu.
'Discovered' in 1911 by the Yale Peruvian Expedition (YPE) led by Hiram Bingham, Machu Picchu was not simply unveiled to a global public. Rather, the YPE initiated the framing of the site as a scientific and Incan find, which was soon reframed in Peru as a nativist utopia and national treasure. The translation of crumbling walls and weedy remains of a mountainous ridge into 'Machu Picchu: Incan heritage site' involved not only archaeological excavation and reconstruction, but a host of other tools and technologies. Technologies such as photography and visualization, map-making, the conduct and practices of scientific exploration, and particular readings of the historical record were all invoked in specific ways. Drawing on texts from turn of the twentieth-century Andean explorations, YPE papers, Peruvian archives, and ethnographic interviews and observations, this project investigates the ways in which expeditionary practices, social networks and visual technologies were instrumental in shaping the social meaning of Machu Picchu. |
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