The discipline of the territory

Chapter I: Pukllay, Q’eros’ Carnival

The discipline of the territory is an ongoing photographic project about the ancestral lands of contemporary Peru; it incorporates three perspectives, political, anthropological, and spiritual. I use the term discipline for its double meaning of “set of rules that govern the life of a community” and “assiduous commitment, exercise, constant practice”.

What is an ancestral land? What does it mean living in it, and how the will to do so is shaped? What are the symbols of such a relationship with the territory?

The series of photographs that follows constitutes the first chapter of the project; it was realized in 2022 in the Hatun Q’ero village, a community of the Q’eros ethnic group situated on the eastern slope of the Cordillera Vilcanota, roughly 100 kilometres outside of Cuzco. I was there during the local carnival, the Pukllay, the most extensive and anticipated communal celebration in the annual cycle. Due to its importance in the social and cultural organization of the Q’eros, the carnival, with its events and its symbols, produces an array of images that give access to the dimension of the ancestral territory in an emblematic way.

The Q’eros consider themselves the custodians of their land and are strongly rooted in the place where they live. They continuously face and overcome enduring challenges: climate change is strongly affecting the cultivation of potatoes, their main form of sustainment; their territory is rich in gold, and mining corporations try to put their hands on it; on top of everything the local government helps the Q’eros with only small assistance: it installed solar panels in the community and a built a gravel road that connects Hatun Q’ero to the nearest town of Paucartambo, but the electricity is enough for only two hours of light a day and there is no form of

public transport. Despite the great difficulties, all the people I interviewed, young and old, share the same desire to conserve and protect their land, and the reservoir of images that Pukllay produces can be a representation of this deep attachment to the land.

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German is 25, and he was born and raised in Hatun Q’ero. Now he lives in Cusco where he works as a tour guide, but he tries to return to the community as often as possible to help his family with farm work, to participate in community life and to take part in cultural and spiritual events. We walk among the village house and he says: “Here, under my feet, this is earth, Pachamama, and those, over there, are potato crops that we will eat, and that is an alpaca, we will have to kill it and eat it as well. That back there, you see, is a sacred mountain, Apu, and that's the sky. All these things have the same name in mine and your language. But these are the potatoes of my land, the alpaca that was born here, and the water that flows in that river is the water from here. I know you can't feel it the way I feel it, I'm a little sorry for that... I am inside these things and they are inside me. They are me and I am them, and I cannot leave them, I have to come back here, I have to keep on being here. We were given this territory and we have to preserve it, keep it how it was before we came”.

Click on the images below to see them full screen with captions: