We anthropologists and ethnologists must avoid interpreting the world by employing a notion of a "collective identity," lest we arrogantly relegate "others" to a very small and uncomfortably tight box. So said Mario Vargas Llosa in his brilliant article from 2000, "The Culture of Liberty," which appeared in Foreign Policy (122): 66-71. Here a post-Maoist Vargas Llosa argues that some aspects of postmodernity and its offshoots, while, yes, denying the world of rich folkloric color, empower many humans to free themselves from stifling nationalism and other shackle -isms. Peruvians and Frenchmen alike can go to Micky-D's and celebrate with ketchup, a condiment so guiltless and beguiling, corn syrup be damned.
Nonetheless, here in Lima, the taxistas participate if not in a collective identity, than in collective practices that involve: (1) honking at everything that moves or does not move, including birds and trash cans; (2) swerving toward one another, glaring, and then honking; (3) eagerly honking at all gringos, soliciting them, regardless of whether they seem to need a taxi or not (and usually ripping them off, shamelessly overcharging us). Fearlessly, I can assert: they ALL do ALL of these things in the course of a day.
How then should we compartmentalize culture? Where is the colloquial boundary of culture-with-a-capital-C? Ah, Intro to Anthropology. I still don't know what to tell them. Just like my mentors, I have devised sufficient answers for even the brightest students.
And then I go to the bar, whereupon ...
We smell a new Limeño culture. As we step through puddles of don't ask, we have, if you are in, say, wealthy touristic Miraflores, at least three archetypes. We have the slut. She's somewhat cute but not brag-worthy, ok? She wiggles her little ass all over, and I mean ALL over, archetype two: the foreign drunk guy. He's usually "on holiday," and muy guapo. He buys her a Pisco. And another, and another. And another. Enter archetype three: the beggar.
I am sad to report that even Peruano Vargas Llosa ignores her in his article. Maybe the beggar can employ some aspects of globalization to "construct their cultural identities through voluntary action, according to their preference and intimate motivations." As John Fogerty shouts from high nosebleed stages, "Don't you wish it were true."
I do. For if it were true, my doctoral dissertation - about the subjective interpretation of beauty, the expression of intimate furniture preference - wouldn't be so goddamned moot. Really, my interviewees, my families, my beggars, my taxistas ... can only choose from what they can afford. And I don't see President Alan Garcia helping them out very soon.
The only professor to ever make me cry in class called me a Bootstrap Theorotican.That is a person who believes that anyone on the planet can lift themselves up by the colloquial bootstrap. Such a North American construct, no? Because it's really hard to lift oneself up if one hasn't eaten in three days.
Now I am an indigenist - but I am not a naive one. I see the benefits that the Great White West brought the Quechua and Aymara speaking descendants of the Inca. Now they can vote, using ballots they cannot read. I see the lovely mix, though, too, of Spain and her innocent, pues, children, who never meant any harm, and who brought the powers inherent to literacy and new forms of nutrition and music and art. We must always meld and weld and as Vargas Llosa says, "joust" against one another.
My taxista - the interviewee of the day today - he works 14 hours most days. He brings home about 70 nuevo soles (new suns - so poetic!) on a daily average, and sometimes he really does choose to spend some on simple pottery. He loves ceramics. HE, not his lovely wife (employed full time in a grocery store), makes the household décor choices. Hey. The liberty of globalization offers him that choice - manifest in new constructs of masculinity. Will he select glazed? Unglazed? He also enjoys watching the street kids on his lower-middle class block paint the street with sidewalk chalk. It gets destroyed, he says, and they do it again the next Sunday afternoon. He says Peruvians have a lot of talent.
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