Reflections on Hegemonies and Political Subjectivity in the Andes
Alan L. Kolata, Steven B. Kosiba, and Zachary J. Chase
The University of Chicago
© 2008
Manuscript in preparation for publication. Please do not cite.
In this position paper we present: (1) a brief historical context of how the concept of
hegemony has been deployed by anthropologists, (2) our own definitions of hegemony
and political subjectivity that we believe extend, deepen or perhaps even provide a new
perspective on hegemony, and (3) concrete examples from the Andes that exemplify our
concepts of hegemony. More particularly, we clarify the definition of hegemony by
offering a suite of heuristics intended to provide a basis of comparison for the
examination of historically specific moments of the emergence and persistence of
hegemonic processes, practices and instrumental effects. These heuristics include
concepts of “hegemony over,” “hegemony between,” “laminar hegemony,” and “viral
hegemony.” We present different empirical data sets in order to illustrate these heuristic
concepts, and to demonstrate how the particularities of historical context may complicate
the conceptual boundaries of such a priori definitions or ideal types. By focusing on the
particularities of these historical contexts, we emphasize that our concepts cannot be
rigidly applied as seamless or over-determined explanations of the cultural and political
conjunctures that generate hegemonies. In sum, we present this conceptual apparatus and
empirical examples in an effort to discuss how different forms of hegemony articulate
with related concepts of sovereignty, orthodoxy, orthopraxy and political subjectivity
(both “subjects” and “citizens”).
Like any position paper, we intend these preliminary reflections to serve as a
prolegomenon to our collective discussions, a stimulus to debate, not a document that
purports to be a comprehensive analysis of the subject. Further, we propose a set of
questions that the VanChiVard Collective might wish to address during the forthcoming
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workshop, some of which, although not all, overlap with issues addressed in our position
paper. The following represent some of the central questions that we wish to explore at:

How do we define hegemony and political subjectivity?

Are there uniquely Andean forms of hegemony (and counter-hegemony)? If so, what
constitutes/causes that uniqueness, and how do Andean forms of hegemony contrast with other
hegemonic projects and processes?

Are there distinct, plural forms of hegemony (i.e. hegemonies) within particular time
periods (horizons) of the Andes rather than single, elementary structures of hegemony and
political subjectivity? In other words, is it perhaps more productive to think of, for instance, Inka
hegemonies instead of Inka hegemony in the singular?

What, if any, are the material (and therefore archaeologically perceptible) signatures of
hegemony (and counter-hegemony) in the Andes? Here we might consider the entire range of
material culture at multiple scales from, for instance, macro-geopolitical structures (e.g. the
material expressions of Tawantinsuyu as a political project) to regional landscapes, to urban
planning, to edifices, to monuments and landmarks, to individual objects and bodily practices.

Specifically with respect to the latter questions can we identify, say, uniquely Moche,
Wari, Tiwanaku, Nazca, Recuay, Chimu, Inka forms of hegemonies. Can we resolve the
hegemonic characteristics and practices of these societies’ underlying political projects into
specific, comparable forms of governance and social relations?

Finally, we must consider the more general anthropological question of what hegemony
may look like within a non-market society, as opposed to the capitalist system upon which
Gramsci first built his original formulation.
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Hegemony: A General Rendering
In the most general sense, hegemony refers to the socially and historically
contingent behavioral crucible of coercion and consent that composes the underlying
lineaments of differentiated political power. Power involves the production of causal
effects, and hegemony specifically entails the production of political subjects embedded
in a social hierarchy characterized by what we can refer to as “principals” (or paramount
agents) and “subalterns” (or subordinate agents) (cf. Gramsci 1971: 52). We could also
employ the analogous Hegelian terms of “master” and “slave,” but this terminology
overstates the power of principals in a hegemonic social relationship to produce intended
causal effects on subalterns and simultaneously understates the capacity and agency of
subalterns to themselves produce intended causal effects on principals. Colloquially
speaking, hegemony is a two-way street, even if the paramount agent who possesses the
capacity to constrain the behavior of subordinate agents often heavily influences the rules
of engagement. As John Scott (2001: 3) observes: “the exercise of power and the
possibility of resistance to it establish a dialectic of control and autonomy, a balance of
power that limits the actions of the participants in their interplay with each other.” Yet, as
Gramsci notes, hegemony is never complete, it is always developing, and it is therefore
linked to a process (“hegemony between”) in which a collective agent seeks to fulfill a
project of domination and world-making (“hegemony over”). In other words, since the
dialectic of control and autonomy involves the establishment of a relationship between
opposing groups, then a common idiom of practices, discourses, and symbols may
emerge. Hence, socio-cultural boundaries develop that serve to confine and frame
possible actions. That is not to say that such a process necessarily leads to the oppressive
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constraint of human action and agency. Indeed, possibilities for action emerge out of a
hegemonic process, just as others are erased. With regard to how individual subjects may
perceive their choices for action, the process is both creative and constraining. Thus, we
argue that the term “hegemony” refers to this somewhat bounded common idiom of
symbols, practices, objects or places that are deemed political, even though such ideas,
symbols, practices, objects and places are not necessarily reflected upon (see below).
Intellectual Context and Critique of Concepts of Hegemony
Contemporary anthropological applications of hegemony are highly influenced, if
not completely structured by Antonio Gramsci’s initial use of the concept to refer to the
historically particular relationship between class formation and state consolidation in
capitalist/industrial Europe. Unfortunately, much like Marx’s concepts of value or class,
the concept of hegemony has become an a priori expectation within anthropological
research, something that analysts seek to find within any political process or period. We
ask, then (along with the Comaroffs [1991: 19]), if there is any specific analytical
purpose for retaining or applying this concept in either general anthropological studies or
particular accounts of the Andean world, especially considering that the concept
“political” often seems to do the same work as the concept “hegemony.” We answer this
question in the positive, yet note that the concept of hegemony must be further clarified
in its application and grounded in the analysis of particular empirical contexts and
historical processes. In short, if hegemony is to be a useful concept, then it cannot be
resolved into a single conceptual formula or “ideal type,” but can be usefully partitioned
into a set of heuristic categories that may then be used as a basis for further analytical
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comparison. Such categories are linked to specific kinds of claims to sovereignty, thus
resulting in the production of particular kinds of political subjects.
Hegemony and Hegemonies
Despite its ubiquitous application, hegemony remains a nebulous concept. Often hegemony
refers to both a period of political domination and a process of establishing political domination.
Moreover many analysts deploy broad categories of social interaction such as "negotiation" or
"contestation" to the explanation of hegemony that condense a complex array of political
activities into these vague, often under-determined categories. Although anthropologists are keen
to invoke the names of Gramsci or Laclau when applying the concept of hegemony and/or the
category of "negotiation" to their data, such analysts rarely explore how their particular empirical
context (object of observation) may add to, challenge or expand upon our received version of
these concepts or categories (object of study). In short, such concepts and categories are often
employed by anthropologists to describe dynamic political processes, but by doing so the
particular dynamics of past and present social struggle are flattened through the application of
overly generalized concepts. We argue that anthropologists should instead concentrate on
"hegemonies" or “hegemonic processes” rather than "hegemony," thereby emphasizing how
processes of contestation, negotiation and struggle are manifested differentially through different
cultural renderings of political and ideological projects and processes.
Although we emphasize that the concept hegemony has lost analytical precision
due to overly generalized and often vague application, we do not mean to imply that
anthropological applications of this concept have been in vain. Indeed, although concepts
of hegemony have been applied in a variety of ways, we note that most anthropologists
deploy the concept of hegemony in one of two ways: as “hegemony over” or as
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“hegemony between.” We are particularly concerned with how each of these applications
entails different notions of political subjectivity—i.e. different notions of the degree to
which political subjects may reflect upon the conditions of political control and/or
subordination. We will explore here how each application may assume that a hegemonic
period (“hegemony over”) or process (“hegemony between”) is the reflective1 or prereflective2 condition that defines different political subjectivities (qua class).
Hegemony Over
This application is typically employed within archaeological research, thereby establishing a
conceptualization of hegemony as an historical period in which one class or group of people has
come to politically dominate or control others. Researchers will often speak of Inka hegemony or
Tiwanaku hegemony over other social groups that had previously been incorporated into an
organized political system of governance and control. As such, this application often downplays
the Gramscian notion that hegemony is always a project, something for which political work is
done, yet something that is rarely sustained as it was originally envisioned. Instead, researchers
applying hegemony in this way focus on hegemony as an established program of political control
and extended domination over people and territory. In this sense, such an application of
hegemony assumes that a dominant class is conscious of their motives and has acquired
knowledge of how society should be organized: they have the capacity to reflect upon the
1
Reflective refers to a political subject’s knowledge of the political structuring of society, as well as their or
their class’ ideal or actual position within that political structure. Similar to Marx’s notion of a class for
itself, we use this term to describe how a ruling class, for example, may recognize its interests as a unified
subject through knowledge of the structuring conditions of a society. In other words, such a class with
definable interests, may be able to orchestrate a society more than others due to (1) access to special sorts
of knowledge, and (2) a congealed sense of interests that may benefit the entire class.
2
Pre-reflective is similar to Bourdieu’s (1990) notion of the habitus, in that it refers to the ways of doing
and seeing that characterize people’s experience and perception at a given moment. Yet, we add to
Bourdieu by noting that, although such ways of doing and seeing are not necessarily reflected upon, social
actors within a given moment may choose to do so, thus transforming everyday cultural practices into
political claims. Similar to Marx’s notion of a class in itself, we use this term to describe how a group or
class may share certain experiential contexts, but not yet fully recognize the hegemonic conditions of their
domination or subjugation, and thus not yet recognize their unified interests as such.
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hegemonic organization of their claim to political dominance. We note that, although this
viewpoint adds to our understanding of political periods, it conflates the pre-reflective domain of
hegemony with reflected upon programs to establish sovereignty.
Yet, we retain this notion of “hegemony over” because it allows for a more politically
infused rendering of the archaeological concept of horizon. However, we suggest that, instead of
assuming ancient states to have “held” hegemony over others, we should consider how
governmental agents attempt to establish hegemony by claiming their political sovereignty over a
specific territory or people. Below, we will link such state projects seeking to attain “hegemony
over” to two specific kinds of hegemony, which we term “laminar hegemony” and “viral
hegemony.” We will emphasize how such a program to establish “hegemony over” is rarely
sustained as it was originally envisioned, and is oftentimes altered or even derailed due to a
process of contestation between the state and subaltern groups. In other words, symbols,
practices, objects and places may be originally associated with such an overt claim of
sovereignty, but then become hegemonic through a resulting process of contestation and
emergent mutual recognition. We use the term “hegemony between” to refer to this process.
Hegemony Between
“Hegemony between” specifically refers to the contested process during which one class
seeks to implement and implant particular ideas and projects for the re-organization or ideal
organization of the world. (This application is typically employed in contemporary ethnographic
renderings of hegemony; see for example Gordillo 2002, Lomnitz-Adler 1991). In this sense,
hegemony refers less to a set of concrete ideas that correspond to a claim of sovereignty, and
more to the political process through which such ideas are born and contested (Laclau and
Mouffe 1985). Throughout such a process, different parties struggle over the definition of the
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symbols, practices, objects and places that both govern and organize everyday experience. In this
sense, “hegemony between” considers such symbols, practices, objects and places to be
hegemonic in that they are recognized to be politically salient by all parties involved, even
though they may mean different things to different parties. This definition of hegemony refers to
an ongoing process of contestation and resulting mutual recognition in which the contenders are
acting as classes for themselves— groups that have identified their own interests and have thus
formed collective subjects.
In contrast to the “hegemony over” application, which often foregrounds a period of
seemingly unchanging political sovereignty, advocates of the “hegemony between” application
concentrate on a dynamic political process through which certain symbols, practices and places
emerge as politically charged instruments that are claimed to be representative of a social order.
This application thus underscores Gramsci’s point that hegemony is never complete; it is a
process through which different groups and political subjects are defined relative to the positions
that they make take on key issues. In short, the “hegemony between” application provides a
productive perspective on political process by emphasizing how certain symbols, things, places
and practices may become politically salient elements of broader ideological projects even if they
were never intended to be part of an explicit project.
In sum, we argue that a distinction must be made between: (1) a claim to sovereignty and
associated ideological projects that are conceived programs for the transformation of a sociohistorical context and attempts to implement a period of dominance (“hegemony over”), and (2)
a hegemonic process through which such ideological projects are contested and negotiated within
political arenas (“hegemony between”). We note that an ideological project will typically not be
sustained as it was envisioned due to contestation that emerges within a process of “hegemony
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between.” Therefore, we use the concept “hegemony” to refer to the symbols, practices, objects
and places that become generally accepted as politically salient, and emphasize how such prereflective and naturalized symbols, practices, objects and places may be the result of various
kinds of political strategy. By doing so, we investigate the processes through which hegemonies
may emerge. Below, we reflect further on this critical distinction of “hegemony over” and
“hegemony between,” and draw out, in particular, the meaning of the terms “laminar” and
“viral” forms of hegemony.
Laminar and Viral Hegemonies
To understand the nature of hegemony at any given moment, one must recognize
and account for the historical specificities of preexisting structures of power, authority
and rule. The creation and extension of hegemony can follow any number of structural
pathways depending on the nature of various externalities. In short, the conditions of
possibility for the emergence and extension of hegemony, as well as the specific
character of that hegemonic power, are directly dependent upon changes in the principles
and structures of government prior to and throughout the process of hegemonic
emergence.
One can readily imagine, for instance, that it matters considerably for such an analysis if
the historical trajectory of state formation and governance initially entailed the forceful
imposition of direct control over territories, resources and populations by some form of dominant
political, economic and military power, or if, on the other hand, governance was sustained
through, for example, indirect networks of political alliance, social exchange and commodity
circulation via trade and mutually accepted tributary or clientage relationships. A third
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possibility entails some dynamic combination of mutualism, articulation and perhaps inadvertent
co-constitution of political power by otherwise autonomous social groups.
In this section, we introduce three concepts that will further clarify the processes
by which hegemonies may emerge. First, we elaborate on “laminar hegemony,” a concept
used to describe the forceful imposition of governing principles. Second, we present
“strategic viral hegemony,” a concept used to describe an explicit state strategy to
incorporate people as citizens, principally through the generation of consent. Finally, we
discuss “idiomatic viral hegemony,” a concept used to describe how ostensibly separate,
localized, yet idiomatically generalized political claims or motives may condition the
emergence of regionally hegemonic symbols, practices, objects or places (see Figure 1).
We separate these concepts for purely heuristic, analytical purposes, and stress that most
if not all governmental strategies or political processes embed some elements of all three
concepts. That is, these forms of hegemony possess both spatial and temporal variability.
A given state formation, for instance, may simultaneously exercise or produce laminar
and viral forms of hegemony in different territorial and socio-cultural contexts; this is
particularly likely in the case of expanding states and empires as the course of conquest,
incorporation and encapsulation of subject populations proceeds. Similarly, a state
characterized by a laminar form of hegemony may over a period of time (e.g. decades or
generations) experience and/or produce a viral form of hegemony with the material and
ideological consequences detailed below.
Laminar Hegemony
Laminar hegemony refers to a state strategy that seeks to establish a period of
“hegemony over” by setting into motion (at least initially) a program of coercive and
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disciplinary subjugation. A process of imposed subjugation is essential to this strategy.
Indeed, a strategy of laminar hegemony does not seek to produce subjects qua citizens,
but rather seeks to produce compliant, subjugated populations. Coercion and discipline
become privileged instruments of power within this form of hegemony, even though
governmental mechanisms that seek to produce consent may also be employed. Here
territorial annexation, the imposition of externally derived laws and regulations, and often
a powerful, colonial ideology of a “civilizing mission” are central to the dynamics of
governance. A necessary institutional correlate of this state strategy is the potential or
actual deployment of military and police power. The physical embodiment of this power
often includes chains of strategically-placed fortresses, garrisons, and fortified walls, but
also new colonial towns imposed in the countryside, often with streets laid out in visually
transparent grid or radial forms to enhance, in theory at least, the capacity for
surveillance, tracking (and ultimately taxing) of subject populations. The strategy of
laminar hegemony, in other words, reflects the militaristic logic and logistics of empire.
In the case of a state formation structured according to a political strategy of
“laminar hegemony,” the effects on historical consciousness of subjugated populations
may not be wholly transformative, but rather fluid and potentially evanescent. The
material presence or physical artifacts of the super-ordinate state rarely dominate local
landscapes. Foreign occupied military garrisons and foreign conceived and imposed
colonial new towns are few and far between, or entirely absent. Arguably, the Wari offer
an appropriate Andean example of such a strategy. For instance, recent systematic survey
projects (Bauer 2004; Covey 2003; Kosiba and Galiano 2007) demonstrate that Wari
provincial governance of the Cusco region was largely limited to the installation of an
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immense state “control center” at Pikillaqta. Yet, despite the intimidating, imposing and
monstrous character of Pikillaqta, the surrounding regional landscape bears little
signature of Wari material culture, architecture, infrastructure, or organizational schema.
We use the term “orthopraxy” to describe the everyday behaviors and experience
of subjects that are dominated by a state strategy of laminar hegemony. By orthopraxy we
mean social forms of practice that come close to dominant patterns of behavior without
adopting the underlying meaning or worldview inscribed in such practices. Subjects of
laminar hegemony behave (publicly at least) in a fashion consistent with the expectations
of state authorities. They may do so in order to avoid punishment, or, perhaps just as
likely, to extract social, political or economic benefits from the dominant state and its
institutions. The behavior of local subjects is strategically mimetic, and does not initially
constitute thoroughgoing assimilation or conversion.
Orthopraxic behavior generates an uneasy and fluid synthesis of foreign
(ostensibly dominant) and local (ostensibly subordinate) beliefs, expresses its own value
system that may partially incorporate, transform or even reject foreign elements, and,
importantly, constitutes its own political strategy3. So, even if they are at least partially
transformed by foreign concepts and institutional practices as they interpenetrate them,
local practices are recognized and represented as “local” by subjects. In this way,
orthopraxy is a form of situational, pragmatic social practice formed in the crucible of
unequal power relations. Yet, by initiating a process of “hegemony between,” orthopraxy
3
Laminar hegemony involves the instantiation of a claim to state sovereignty, yet because of the forceful
method by which this claim is implemented, it may entail a process of articulation, or “hegemony
between,” during which values, beliefs and places that are perceived and experienced as “local” are pitted
against material manifestations of explicit state claims. Indeed, the “local” emerges as a referent and
political instrument within such a process. In other words, those practices, symbols and place that were
formerly not reflected upon as “political” or “representational” become key constituents in counterhegemonic conceptualizations of the “local.” In this way, we argue that “local” is a political claim that is
oftentimes made to counter the application of laminar hegemony.
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may condition the possibility for certain symbols, practices, objects and places to become
perceived as naturalized, and thus pre-reflective, political phenomena.
Of course, this does not mean that in a complex state formation structured through
the exercise of “laminar hegemony,” social impacts on subject populations are negligible.
Taxation of labor or product will often be considerably onerous, even though institutional
forms of extraction may remain local. Surplus inevitably flows away from the local
communities into the coffers of both the local authorities (as was likely the case prior to
foreign domination), as well as that of the distant, foreign elites. Although social, and
especially economic impacts on subject populations are considerable, they may be
periodic, not chronic, and framed in terms of very specific social domains; at least
initially, they do not seep into daily social practice or necessarily transform people’s
understanding of themselves or their place in the world, even though such state
installations may later be perceived as naturalized political representations. Thus, we
emphasize how a strategy for laminar hegemony may develop into a process of “viral
hegemony” (see Figure 1).
Viral Hegemony
We use the term “viral hegemony” to refer to the manner in which political ideas
and practices may become deeply embedded in a “body politic,” thus flowing widely
through the “circulatory system” of subjugated populations, to the extent that they are no
longer conceived to be a co-creation of social agents external and internal to the local
society, but rather perceived as the “natural,” normative ways of being. Viral hegemony
thus involves the instantiation of a political program or set of political programs,
culminating in a situation in which the social significance of certain symbols, practices,
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objects and places is no longer explicitly challenged, questioned, or even thought to be
political. Due to its covert characteristics, and oftentimes pre-reflective quality, viral
hegemony thus stands in contrast to varieties of laminar hegemony, the latter consisting
of overt assertions of sovereignty over subjugated groups without the internalization of
“naturalized” principles and practices. In this section, we describe two sub-types of viral
hegemony: “strategic viral hegemony” and “idiomatic viral hegemony.” We separate
these terms through notation of whether the emergence of hegemony is tied to an
explicit, reflected upon project (strategic), or whether it is tied to multiple, differentiated
political claims (idiomatic).
Strategic Viral Hegemony
“Strategic viral hegemony” refers to a context in which a state attempts to establish a
period of “hegemony over” by dominating populations without actually administering them
directly. In this instance, power and influence is exercised not by the unilateral imposition of
administrative regulations, or centrally controlled bureaucracy, but rather by the strategic
application of force—tactical force, not generalized military oppression—and the demonstration
effects of cultural superiority, awesome displays of material wealth, sumptuousness, conspicuous
consumption and superior military capability (Sahlins, 2004). The intrusive, material presence of
the state in local communities is much reduced, often absent altogether, in favor of the
cooptation of local institutions and facilities, while displays of superiority (the demonstration
effects) are frequently limited to capitals where they may impress and overawe local people.
In the dialectic of force and persuasion, strategic viral hegemony involves a claim to state
sovereignty over people and territory, yet privileges inter-agent social relations based on
negotiation, consensus and affiliation. Here forceful coercion by foreign authorities recedes
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before the state’s structures of incentives and inducements to collaboration: the most powerful
being the extension of full citizenship to local populations, which is the ability to move from the
status of “subjugated subject” to that of subject-citizen. The most extreme cases of viral
hegemony can produce a kind of society-wide “Stockholm syndrome,” in which subject
populations move their perception of newly dominant authorities from fear and loathing to
identification, collaboration and emulation. Short of extending the grant of citizenship, states of
this “viral form” deploy a full range of inducements including, for example, the right of subject
populations (or perhaps more accurately their political leaders) to enter into lucrative trade
agreements, massive capital and labor investments in regional infrastructure such as roads,
warehouses, ports and intensive agricultural systems, the establishment of religious foundations
with a full panoply of rites and festivals that incorporate local populations into broader social
worlds, grants of marriage alliances with high ranking foreign authorities, among many more
such inducements to cooperation and collaboration. Of course, the inducements of such state
agents are never equally distributed among subject populations, but rather concentrated among
local elites, congealing into long-term structures of social inequality and wealth stratification.
Unless local elites collaborating with foreign authorities circulate some of the social and
economic benefits of collaboration to the broader population, social ruptures between the haves
and have-nots can emerge and weaken the causal effect of the hegemonic practices, and, in some
cases, induce counter-hegemonic resistance that pits foreign and local elites against the broad
masses of the subjugated population. In such cases, urban riots and agrarian revolts, along with
other more subtle forms of resistance, may emerge to threaten the political stability of state
power (James Scott 1990).
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By employing a strategy of viral hegemony, a state seeks to create conditions in
which historical consciousness may be so thoroughly transformed that the dominated and
the dominators come to broadly share the new ideology of social relations and
governance. The project is to create a situation in which the political subjugation of local
populations becomes naturalized. We use the term “orthodoxy” to describe the everyday
behavior and experiences of subjects of a state strategy of viral hegemony. Behavioral
orthodoxy is intimately associated with a viral process that attempts to transform
historical consciousness. Habitual social, economic, religious and ideological practice is
intimately bound to belief. Believers become citizens; citizens become believers. Subjects
aspire to the values promoted by state authorities, often through religious practice. New
communities of worship and social belonging are among the most effective vehicles for
the transformation of historical consciousness that, in political terms, can be glossed as
the transformation of subjects into citizens. In the world of orthodoxy, behavior and
belief become isomorphic: subjects of the state do what they believe and they believe
what they do. Subjects become stakeholders, and, in the process, willing agents of the
state’s social, economic, political and cultural agendas and its status quo. In the calculus
of cost versus value, orthodox citizens may benefit from conforming their behavior to the
dominant beliefs and practices of the state.
Yet, such agents may also influence or transform the governmental apparatus by
insisting that politics adhere to certain local conceptions of norms and belief. Since
strategic viral hegemony involves the transformation of historical consciousness, such a
strategy will necessarily entail the development of a frame for political action that may
continue even after a state has dissolved. We use the term “idiomatic viral hegemony” to
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refer to such a frame, although we emphasize that such viral lineaments of political ideas
and practices may emerge both after the dissolution of a regional state, as well as through
the non-state “peer-polity” interaction of localized and politically autonomous social
groups.
Idiomatic Viral Hegemony
In contrast to strategic viral hegemony, “idiomatic viral hegemony” is not directly
linked to a state strategy to achieve “hegemony over,” nor is it linked to any explicit
political strategy of regional consolidation or domination. We use the term idiomatic viral
hegemony to refer to how hegemonic ideas, symbols, practices, objects and places may
emerge through an actual or potential struggle between different localized agents or
polities that are situated within a broader region. In other words, much like its strategic
counterpart, idiomatic viral hegemony involves the naturalized or unquestioned
acceptance of certain political ways of being—this is why we use the term “viral” to
describe both processes, i.e. because political ideas and practices are accepted and
circulated without being explicitly reflected upon. Throughout a process of idiomatic
viral hegemony such ideas and practices are simply thought of being essential to “how
politics is done,” even if different social groups are using the same symbols, practices,
things or places to make markedly different kinds of political claims. In short, the
difference between strategic and idiomatic viral hegemony is a difference in scale and
kind. While the former term refers to how hegemony emerges as the product of a state’s
claim to regional sovereignty, the latter term refers to the manner in which hegemonic
political ideas and practices may emerge from the interaction of different, politically
autonomous social groups. These groups may then develop a shared “language” or set of
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socio-cultural idioms allowing for the potentially antagonistic, yet inadvertently unifying
mutual recognition of each group’s authority, boundaries, identity, and/or sovereignty. In
contrast to the other forms of hegemony outlined above, the emergence of hegemony in
this instance is not the intended or reflected upon effect of political claims to sovereignty;
rather it is the general outgrowth of a politics framed by plurality, heterarchy and
oftentimes opposing or mutually incompatible political claims.
The empirical correlates of such a process of idiomatic viral hegemony conform
to our expectations of the kinds of material signatures that may be associated with a
protracted process of “hegemony between.” We should expect to see settlement patterns
that are centered around localized authoritative places throughout a region. Although no
one of these localized settlement clusters may seem to dominate the others in terms of
size or elaboration, each authoritative place should share certain key attributes, such as
immense perimeter walls, links to mortuary complexes, or forms of internal organization
that foreground key architectural elements like plazas. Such common attributes signify
that a shared culture of politics characterized the region, even if each social group seems
to have maintained some degree of political autonomy.
An appropriate Andean example of this form of idiomatic viral hegemony may be
the Late Intermediate Period, an epoch that was characterized by political balkanization
as well as the development of a shared regional framework allowing for the recognition
of political authority. It is then not difficult to imagine that such a process of idiomatic
viral hegemony may condition the possibility for and acceptability of regional state
formation, and the implementation of more formalized strategies of hegemonic
governance, as in the Inka example presented below. On the other hand, such a process of
19
idiomatic viral hegemony may be the result of the dissolution of state power, during
which different localized authorities vie for power and struggle for recognition by
mobilizing the symbols and practices of the once-dominating state (see Dean 1999; cf.
the Huarochirí example provided below).
The effect of idiomatic viral hegemony on political consciousness and subjectivity
differs from what we have seen within the more strategic forms of hegemony. In this
instance, subjects are self-defined and socially recognized as localized actors that may be
members of specific politically autonomous ethnic or social groupings. These definitions
refer to an emic characterization of subjectivity within such a process. Yet, since a
common vernacular of political practice emerges within a process of idiomatic viral
hegemony, shared and mutually recognizable categories of subjects will be produced. In
this light, we use the term “variably doxic” to describe how a generalized schema for
“doing politics” becomes doxic across a region defined by balkanized and/or antagonistic
social interaction, even if these doxic behaviors are variably mobilized within each
specific polity or between each social group. Variably doxic thus refers to the ad hoc and
situated nature of politics throughout such a process, a political crucible involving the
making and re-making of various political claims, each one made with reference to an
idiomatic set of shared principles, values or beliefs.
Power and Culture in Anthropological Examinations of Hegemony
In our previous VanChiVard workshop, we discussed cultural change and
continuity in terms of the framing concept of “lo andino” in Andean anthropology. If we
accept Marxist notions of class struggle as the prime mover of history, a Gramscian
hegemony gives us a lens through which to examine vexing “pan-Andeanisms.” As is
20
readily visible in the Andean past, there are certain cultural forms, media, and practices
that transcend particular expansive projects and that are deployed both as part of claims
to sovereignty as well as in resistance to these expansions. That is to say, if the expansion
of states is epiphenomenal and even an obfuscation of more primal class struggles, then
what was hegemonic in the historic Andes would not originate with state expansion, but
would be detectable in the media deployed by both expansive states and local groups in
their conflicts/negotiations; these forms would “outlive” any particular, temporally bound
state expansion. Even in the upheaval of conquest and rebellion, and the rise and fall of
empires, certain non- or pre-reflective modes of action perdure, inasmuch as these
worked to promote or maintain the dominant position of upper classes. Even through
violent physical and cultural conflict, certain concepts, media, practices, and signs were
not contested, even as they were used in contentious encounters (e.g., Gelles 1995; Van
Buren 1997; Urton 1990; cf. the ancestor veneration example below). Such
manifestations of hegemony are just what may be expected in a Gramscian model in
which even state expansion is an epiphenomenal effect of deeper class struggle.
At the same time do we wish to claim that hegemony is everywhere, such that any
and every cultural form, practice, performance is infused with power? In Gramsci’s
hegemony (1971: 52-55), subaltern classes are “incomplete,” and cannot conceive of,
possess, or practice culture, in any coherent way independent from politically dominant
groups. But historical encounters between expansive and local polities provide trenchant
examples not of “culture[s] of resistance” but of the “resistance of culture” (Sahlins in
Wernke 2007: 130). While the “resistance of culture” idea can be located in the
convergence of “viral idiomatic” hegemonies and “viral” or “laminar” hegemonic
21
expansive projects, it also allows us to envision how power operates in/through/with
culture in ways that deny power the status of the sine qua non of all social interaction.
There is a totalizing aspect inherent in so many versions of Marxist thought (Althusser
1969; Gramsci 1971; Wallerstein 1974; Wolf 1982) in which “the idea of culture” is cast
as “a reflex of the ‘mode of production,’ a set of social appearances taken on by material
forces that somehow possess their own instrumental rationality and necessity” (Sahlins
2005 [1988]: 416). Our suggested approaches to the conceptualization of hegemony do
not refer to all cultural practices and manifestations; hegemony and culture are not
coterminous. However, hegemonic dynamics will always work through or within
particular cultural means and media.
Conclusion: Two Cases of Andean Hegemonies
To conclude we present here two concrete, material instances of what hegemony
looks like “on the ground” drawn from both archaeological and ethnohistorical materials.
First, material drawn from the early 17th century Huarochirí Manuscript (Salomon and
Urioste 1991) is analyzed as an expression of hegemony that falls conceptually (and
chronologically) between the Inka viral strategic hegemonic project and the viral
idiomatic hegemony of the post-Inkaic Andes. Secondly, we present a brief analysis of
changes in ancestor veneration practices that occurred throughout the process of early
Inka state formation (ca. 1200-1400 A.D.) in the Cusco area of Perú4. By doing so, we
illustrate our heuristic category of “idiomatic viral hegemony,” with particular emphasis
4
The data presented here are derived from an intensive multi-stage and multi-scalar archaeological project,
directed by Steven Kosiba in the Inka heartland of Cusco, Peru (Wat’a Archaeological Project [WAP]
2005-2007; funded by Fulbright-Hays and NSF). This project examined the interrelation of local and
regional scales of landscape (sociopolitical practices and architectural organization) by integrating data
from: (1) a macro-scale involving the intensive full-coverage pedestrian survey of a 250km2 area
surrounding Wat’a and the Inka city of Ollantaytambo, (2) an intermediate scale of mapping, intensive
surface collections, and architectural studies of specific sites within the survey zone, and (3) a micro-scale
of extensive excavations at Wat’a.
22
placed on how dynamic political and social relations between different groups may
inadvertently result in the emergence of a generalized set of symbols, practices, things
and places that are then subsequently uniformly recognized as politically salient. In this
example, public ancestor veneration is one element within such a process of idiomatic
viral hegemony.
The Case of Huarochiri
Literate, probably evangelized members of colonial Spanish society, the narrators
of the early 17th century Huarochirí Manuscript–Yauyos Indians of the Checa sub-group
whose immediate ancestors were regarded as reliable allies of the Inka (Guaman Poma
1944 [1615]; Rostworowski 1988; Salomon 1991; Spaulding 1984)–seem to be drawing
on collective memories as “subject-citizens” of Tawantinsuyu. The substance of their
comments about Checa relations with the Inka reflects “orthodoxic” beliefs and
behaviors. Yet certain linguistic conventions framing the accounts may suggest a
minimally doxic view of social memories of Inka presence, or, alternatively, an
“orthopraxic” presentation of the prehispanic religious material vis-à-vis the hegemonic
assertion of Catholic spiritual truth made over the preceding decades, not least by the
narrators’ Jesuit interlocutor, Francisco de Avila.5
5
When initially discussing the relationship between the Inka and the Checa in Huarochirí, the narrators
frame the account with the –si/–s Quechua suffix (Taylor 1999: 238) of “reportive validation” (Salomon
and Urioste 1991: 99, note 442), which indicates one level of removal between the narrators and the events
reported (e.g., translated as “they say” or “se dice que” in Salomon and Urioste [1991] and Taylor [1999],
respectively). While it could be argued that this removal is symptomatic of the chronological distance
between the events reported and the lives of the reporters, it must be noted that a subsequent account of the
Inka connection to the regional deity Pachacamac are couched in terms of “eyewitness” validation
(Salomon and Urioste 1991: 111, notes 548-50) in the form of the –mi/–m suffix (Taylor 1999: 280),
placing in question an explanation based on temporal distance alone. Complicating matters, the narrators’
account of Topa Inka’s enlisting of a Yauyo huaca for martial purposes, and the subsequent reverence the
Inka displayed towards the huaca contains both “reportive validation” (–si/–s) and “witness validation” (–
mi/–m) (Salomon and Urioste 1991: 114, note 568, 116, notes 584, 586; Taylor 1999: 288, 300). Following
Salomon (1991: 32, emphasis added), I suggest here the possibility that the –si/–s suffix “could also come
from a translator or reporter paraphrasing or repeating, without necessarily endorsing, an informant’s
23
Though the example primarily draws on the ethnohistorical record, archaeological
data are fundamental to understanding the aspects of hegemony highlighted. Studies of
the material aspects of Inka expansion are, of course, a staple of Andean anthropology
(e.g., Morris and Thompson 1985; Hyslop 1984; 1990; D’Altroy 1992; Levine 1992;
Malpass 1993). Examination of the articulation of the archaeological and ethnohistoric
records provides a stereoscopic view on hegemony in the past through its material
manifestations and the ways those perpetuating or drawn in to the “project” viewed or
expressed their participation in it. Sixteenth and 17th century Andean ethnohistorical
sources from areas that had been incorporated into Tawantinsuyu are particularly
promising for the study of the various processes of hegemony because of the multiplicity
of factors contributing to the production of these sources and the information they
contain. Frequently, indigenous testimonies explicitly address matters of Inka expansion
and local incorporation. At the same time, by virtue of their existence, these sources
evince new expansionistic projects and new hegemonies. The assumptions, values,
attitudes, and practices, intrinsic to and generated in colonial Spanish bureaucratic record
keeping span the hegemonies discussed in this paper (Salomon 1999; 2002; Salomon and
Guevara-Gil 1994; Chase 2004; Abercrombie 1998; Urton 1990; Adorno 1990).
Inka expansion and presence in the immediate area of the redaction of the Jesuit
Avila’s Huarochirí document is materially evident in (for example) an Inka road just
above the reducción village of San Damián, and a series of rectangular Inka colcas within
sight of Llacsa Tambo, the pre-reducción ritual center of the Manuscript’s indigenous
words.” The use of the “reportive” suffix could be interpreted as the expression of a tenuous doxa
experienced by the informant concerning the narrative tradition. It could be read as an orthopraxic behavior
wherein the narrator conforms to Spanish “laminar hegemonic” assertions of the falsity and evil of
prehispanic spirituality by linguistically distancing himself from them. See also Adelaar (1997) and
Dedenbach-Salazar Sáenz (1997).
24
narrators. Colca storage and the Inka road system were integral facets of Inka expansion.
In terms of the investigation of hegemonic processes, these and other infrastructural
facilities can be viewed as explicit assertions of Inka sovereignty. But the explanation of
Inka presence in Huarochirí as provided by a select group of Checa Yauyos circa 1608
provides insight into the operation of hegemony from a “local” view.
The first appearance of the Inka in the Manuscript accompanies an assertion of
the chronological precedence of the paramount Huarochirí huaca Pariacaca in “Tauantin
Suyo:”
[A] great long time ago, even before the Incas were born,
Paria Caca convoked all the people of Tauantin Suyo. Once
all these people had gathered, Paria Caca founded the
huacsa institution for his own worship. Later on, when the
Incas appeared on the scene and heard about this, they also
acted as his huacsas and held him in great honor” (Salomon
and Urioste 1991: 94).
The anachronistic ascription of “Tauantin Suyo” to the pre-Inkaic Andes indicates the
nature of the “collective memory” evoked here; whatever prehispanic oral tradition of
Inka presence in Huarochirí is recounted here, certainly the intervening years and the
Spanish colonial situation shape the account. We know that many aspects of historical
Inka hegemony, if not produced in the Spanish colonial era, were validated, perpetuated,
intensified, and concretized by Spanish jural policies and social and cultural activity
(Flores Galindo 1987; Urton 1990; Mannheim 1991; Stern 1993; Szemiński 1997; Dean
1999). Thus, it is necessary to consider this particular concretization of the Checa
“memory” as a product of the Spanish colonial era. If these assertions are a strategic
move within the particular dynamics involved in the exchange between Avila and his
informants, they are made from within or in response to the hegemonic proposition of
25
Inka superiority and rights and privileges based on prehispanic Inka associations
established through Spanish-indigenous interaction.
However, an interpretation of these evoked Inka/Checa traditions as whole cloth
colonial inventions is not convincing. Unlike those indigenous that strategically claimed
some form of Inka status in the early colonial period (Murra 1967; Urton 1990;
Szemiński 1997; Dean 1999), these Checas did not cast themselves as Inkas, with the
attendant Spanish colonial legal-political status. This non-reflexive relaying of local
tradition, uncoupled from overt maneuvering within the Spanish colonial system, is
consonant with other ethnohistoric accounts of regional interaction with the Inka (e.g.,
Hernández Príncipe 1621) and makes the resonances with things Inka in the Huarochirí
Manuscript compelling expressions of viral hegemony.
Like the reference to “Tauantin Suyo,” the claim that the regional deity Pariacaca
convened an Andean-wide council centered in Huarochirí “even before the Incas were born,”
also prefigures the empire-wide council of huacas organized by Topa Inca, as related by the
Checa narrators. “When Tupay Ynga Yupanqui was king . . . he first conquered all the provinces.
. . . But then enemy rebellions arose . . . [of] peoples [that] didn’t want to be peoples of the
Inca.”6 When extended battle was to no avail, Topa Inka called on the network of socio-religious
relations “from the whole of Tauantin Suyo.” The huacas responded to the call and arrived at the
Aucaypata in Cusco. Pariacaca, however, vacillated, ultimately sending his son, Maca Uisa (94).
“Then the Inca began to speak: ‘Fathers, huacas and villcas, you already know
how wholeheartedly I serve you with my gold and my silver. Since I do so, being at your
6
Note the implication that, unlike the rebellious provinces, the Checa did count themselves “people of the
Inka.”
26
service as I am, won’t you come to my aid now that I’m losing so many thousands of my
people?” The huacas did not rejoin the Inka, invoking ire:
“‘Yao! Speak up! Shall the people you’ve made and fostered
perish in this way, savaging one another? If you refuse to help
me, I’ll have all of you burned immediately! Why should I serve
you and adorn you with my gold, with my silver, with basketfuls
of my food and drinks, with my llamas and everything else I
have? Now that you have heard the greatness of my grief, won’t
you come to my aid? If you do refuse, you’ll burn immediately!”
Maca Uisa volunteered to lead the efforts against the insurrections, for which he was
immediately provided with a litter “made for the travels of an Inca in person” (114-115,
emphasis added).
With Pariacaca’s child Maca Uisa, “the Inca defeated [the rebellious provinces] in
no time at all. From then on, the Incas revered Paria Caca even more. They bestowed
gold and ample amounts of their clothing on him, and every year they made people give
maize, coca, and other goods from their villages to provide for Paria Caca’s . . .
retainters” (99). The Checa narrators convey the nature of the relationship between their
huaca and the Inka in terms of Inka fear, debt, and beholden obligation: “From that time
onward, the Inca revered Paria Caca even more” asking, “Father Maca Uisa, what shall I
give you? Ask me for anything you want, I will not stint.’ The only request attributed to
Maca Uisa’s was that the Inka serve as ritual retainers “‘the way . . . the Yauyo do.’ The
Inca was deeply afraid when he said this and answered, ‘Very well then, father!’ He was
willing to offer Maca Uisa anything at all, for he thought to himself, ‘He could destroy
me, too!’” Subsequent Inka expressions of fealty proffered by the Checa Yauyo narrators
include the assignation of scheduled retainers to fete Maca Uisa with food, and mullu on
a rotating basis (115-116).
27
What chroniclers (and anthropologists) describe as material evidence of Inka
sovereignty in the area, these Checa explain in terms of Inka obligation and fear,
expressed in the deferential kinship terminology the narrators use when telling of the
Inka’s interaction with their provincial deity. The reciprocal balance is tilted in favor of
the Checa, as if they, by virtue of their deity’s performance of feats of which the Inka
were incapable, were in a political position superior to the Inka. At the same time, the
coercive side of Inka rule is evinced in the Topa Inka’s threats of violence to the huacas,
which we know were carried out in various cases. The viral hegemony infusing Checa
understandings and explanations of the world may even be manifest in the way the
account of Inka deference to Maca Uisa reconciles Checa animus towards their Wanka
neighbors (Salomon and Urioste 1991: 70) with the fact of heavy Inka presence in the
neighboring Wanka territory of Xauxa, a sub-regional Inka administrative center
(D’Altroy 1992). The Checa explain the Inka in Xauxa in terms of Inka performance of
ritual duty in reciprocity for Maca Uisa’s military service: “From then on, and for a long
time afterward, the Inca acted as huacsa in Xauxa and danced ceremonially, holding
Maca Uisa in great honor” (Salomon and Urioste 1991: 115-116).
The traditional collective memory mobilized in the early 17th century is suggestive of
historical “orthodoxy” that was transmitted from the past–a viral hegemony in which the Checa
had completely internalized their relationship with the expanding Cusco polity in terms
forwarded in Inka overtures through which groups subsumed into Tawantinsuyu became
convinced of the benefits of their “subject-citizenship.” If indicative of a long-term tradition, the
Checa explanation of this relationship indicates the complicity of their ancestors (grandfathers,
great-grandfathers) in their own political subordination. Deep conversion to the Inka “civilizing
28
mission” and ongoing Checa participation in it was explained as an uneven reciprocity that was
cosmically just. Inka political superiority was predicated on–and thus counterbalanced by–the
supernatural powers of Checa deities and their military prowess. These terms were integral to
Checa traditional understanding and explanation of their prehispanic colonial situation and
outlived the original expansive project and its hegemonic underpinnings.
Public Ancestor Worship: the Historical Background
Multiple lines of archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence indicate that the
period and process of Inka state formation, occurring in the latter portion of what
archaeologists refer to as the Late Intermediate Period (“LIP”, ca. AD 1000 – 1300), was
an era of drastic political transformation within the Cusco area, witnessing the conversion
of the Cusco-based Inka polity into a truly regional power (Bauer 2004; Bauer and Covey
2002). In the south-central Andes the LIP has typically been characterized as an era of
political fragmentation and conflict that began with the dissolution of the political
economic control and influence of the Wari and Tiwanaku regional polities. Numerous
archaeological investigations have documented how politically autonomous and spatially
dispersed complex polities arose throughout the Cusco region during this period (Bauer
1990, 2004; Covey 2003; Kendall 1984; McEwan et al. 2002). Below, we examine Inka
period transformations in the spatiality and content of collective consumption activities
and mortuary practices within the local political landscape of Wat’a, an LIP fortified
political center, in order to contribute to our understanding of how, due to shifts in the
scale and nature of claims to sovereignty, hegemonic authoritative links between people,
ancestors and landscape were reformulated during Inka state formation. In this instance,
ancestor veneration became a mutually recognized political practice, even if it was
29
attached to different claims that were being made by a plurality of balkanized social
groups. More particularly, we propose that Inka ancestor propitiation practices were less
about the maintenance of a timeless “Andean” social structure, and more part of a
dynamic process in which local people made political claims about the meaning,
function, and historicity of specific places and landscapes7.
Idiomatic Hegemony among a Plurality of Social Groups
Similar to other studies of the LIP in the south-central Andes, the LIP
sociopolitical landscape within the WAP survey area was largely defined by large (~1020ha) nucleated settlements, or localized political centers, that were surrounded by tight
clusters of smaller residential settlements. No political center dominates the entire survey
area in terms of size or complexity. These settlement clusters were in part characterized
by stylistic variation in mortuary architecture. Indeed, “tower” tombs are significantly
associated with the northern region of the survey zone, while adobe tombs built into cliff
faces are significantly associated with the southern portion. Yet, we argue that despite
localized differences, authority was culturally constituted in similar ways within these
separate LIP authoritative places, and that the cultural constitution of authority played
upon an intimate relationship between ancestors, specific places and communal food
consumption. In other words, although separate claims of localized sovereignty are being
made, they are being made in the same way. We conceptualize this as a process of
idiomatic viral hegemony during which a plurality of political claims leads to the
crystallization of certain practices and symbols as regionally recognized representations
of authority.
7
Due to limitations of space, we only present the relevant survey data from this project. It should be noted,
however, that the surface collection, architectural analysis, and excavation data support the conclusions
presented here.
30
Indeed, regional similarities in tomb design—specifically the association of
“open” or accessible individual tombs within select public spaces throughout the political
centers—suggest that the settlement clusters and ancestral places not only functioned as
centers of population, but also as clearly demarcated areas in which the tangibility and
visibility of physically dead was important to the staging of ancestor propitiation
ceremonies8. All three LIP political centers within the survey zone are linked to mortuary
complexes containing multiple individual, above ground tomb structures, each tomb
having a single clearly defined doorway. Open plaza areas within each mortuary complex
are clearly visible from the plaza spaces of each political center, thus creating a link
between public ceremonial events that occurred within the ceremonial spaces of death
and life. There are not any LIP mortuary complexes that are visually or physically
detached from these political centers, thus suggesting that (at least some of) the dead, and
their associated feasting activities, were explicitly associated with such authoritative
places. Kosiba’s systematic surface collection data demonstrate that high densities of late
LIP9 decorated serving vessels (mean: >10 sq. m.) were located within the plaza spaces of
8
In the Cusco area, there is no concrete evidence for such visible, “public,” and open tombs prior to the
LIP. By citing this lack of evidence, we do not mean to imply that ancestor veneration practices began in
the LIP, but rather that ancestor veneration practices became linked to a different kind of political claim
during the LIP.
9
“Late LIP” is defined based on specific stylistic and formal attributes of serving vessels. This designation
is not the same as Killk’e or Killk’e-related, which are specific Cusco area decorative styles that have a
widespread distribution in the late LIP. On the other hand, late LIP is a more general classification based on
the observation (within undisturbed stratigraphic columns at Wat’a) that later LIP levels contain subtle
shifts in ceramic manufacture in decoration, most obviously notable in bowl rim diameter, rim morphology,
the use of a cream-colored slip, and heavy “grooving” of the exterior surface of vessels. Kosiba analyzed
over 7,000 excavated and collected sherds to make these classifications. Also, a distinct form of
architecture and tomb morphology is often associated with sites that have high surface level densities of
late LIP ceramic styles, thus indicating that the mortuary practices discussed here were most likely linked
to a period of urbanization, centralization, and balkanization within the late LIP (ca. 1100-1300 A.D.).
Kosiba is still awaiting results from radiocarbon assays, which will place this relative stratigraphic and
architectural information within an absolute historical trajectory. Yet, Kendall’s (1996) architectural dates
from two of these LIP political centers within the WAP survey zone support Kosiba’s claim that that such
sites are late LIP, having been occupied and elaborated in the mid-late 11th century (e.g. Pumamarka: 1010
 40 A.D.; Llactallactayoq: 1035  50 A.D.—see Bauer 2004 for Cusco area dates). These architectural
31
both mortuary complexes and political centers, thereby suggesting that the political
centers functioned as spaces in which elaborate feasting ceremonies included living and
dead. We argue that the association of these mortuary and feasting spaces is linked to an
historically situated, vertical (or emplaced) LIP claim to sovereignty that, because it was
framed within a regional struggle for the recognition of each localized polity’s claim to
localized authority, led to the crystallization of a generalized idiomatic viral hegemony.
In other words, the interrelation of spaces of death and life, ancestral past and
contemporary public ceremony, emplaced group identity and political authority within
LIP political centers by inventing and establishing such settlements as “traditional” or
“ancestral” places that were claimed to be representative of localized authority. As a
result of this process, local political claims became generally recognizable through the
perception of and participation in hegemonic practices of fêting the dead. Such practices
were thus not directly linked to any general political claim, but rather were the
generalized effect of a plurality of localized political claims. Therefore, these practices
can be conceptualized as part of a process of idiomatic viral hegemony. In turn, this
idiomatic viral hegemony conditioned the possibility and acceptability of early Inka state
formation.
The WAP survey data demonstrate how the early10 Inka period wrought
substantial changes in the northwest Cusco landscape, substituting practices of localized
developments roughly correspond to a similar phase of site expansion and elaboration that was occurring at
Chokepukio (located approximately 70 km from the WAP survey zone, in the Southwest part of the Cusco
valley)
10
“Early” Inka refers to the initial process of state formation in the Cusco area, during which buildings and
spaces within numerous local political centers were selectively embellished and destroyed in order to make
their design adhere to a general architectural template. This process preceded the construction of later
imperial monuments, such as Ollantaytambo and Machi Picchu. Thus, the “early” Inka period is only found
in Cusco, and is characterized by a distinct architectural style that includes both regional and local late LIP
attributes (e.g. circular buildings, D-shaped buildings, rounded interior corners, lack of coining at dorrway)
32
emplacement with a generalized strategic process of displacement, including the
production of new, separate spaces of residence and ancestor veneration. For example,
the tight association between mortuary complexes and clusters of LIP settlement was
strategically severed during the early Inka period, as a series of new mortuary complexes
were established throughout the area, many of these being located within or near
agricultural terraces, within or near Inka domestic settlements or completely independent
of larger settlements. Considering additional archaeological data from this time period,
all of which point to a drastic restructuring of the Cusco area landscape, we argue that
this selective transformation of the LIP landscape was part of a broader governmental
strategy of state formation and subject conversion, or strategic viral hegemony. As with
late LIP tombs, Kosiba’s intensive surface collections and architectural analysis at early
Inka mortuary complexes demonstrate that they contained feasting ceremonies, i.e. high
densities of Inka decorated serving wares were found near and within plaza spaces and
ramped platforms located within the mortuary complexes. Yet, during the early Inka
period, the previous LIP spatial relationship between the physically dead and centralized
residence spaces was transformed. Indeed, instead of situating the dead directly within
the walls of paramount political centers (as at Wat’a), individual tombs were located
apart from residential spaces, near agricultural terraces. Thus, we argue that, during early
Inka state formation, spatial transformations took place that were driven by political
motivations seeking to strategically de-centralize the authority that may have been
perceived as entrenched within local LIP political centers. The nascent Inka government
as well as some attributes that later come to be developed and formalized as parts of the imperial Inka
architectural canon (e.g. relatively large trapezoidal or rectangular niches, thicker wall widths, mortar
placed in center of walls). This “early” Inka period is also characterized by ceramics that share distinct
formal, stylistic and technological attributes. Kosiba is still awaiting results from radiocarbon assays, which
will place this relative stratigraphic and architectural information within an absolute historical trajectory.
33
carried out this strategy by displacing and dispersing ceremonial feasting and mortuary
activities among a series of newly established places. In other words, the early Inka
period entailed a different claim of sovereignty, one in which the ancestors may have
been detached from particular places in order to signify that they represented an abstract,
as well as local sense of community (Cusco as an abstract whole). In short, this claim to
sovereignty entailed a shift in corollary political practices like ancestor veneration; a shift
from a vertical claim linking people and place to a more horizontal claim linking people
and polity through place. Using the heuristics outlined above, we conceptualize this shift
from late LIP to early Inka as a shift from an idiomatic viral hegemony to a strategic viral
hegemony.
In sum, we argue that changes in the content, meaning and spatiality of ancestor
propitiation practices were intimately linked to politicized practices of landscape
conversion and place-making throughout early Inka state formation in the Cusco area of
Perú. A comparison of pre-Inka and Inka ancestor propitiation practices in the Cusco area
offered an analytical entrée into how preceding localized claims to sovereignty produce
an idiomatic viral hegemony—a set of symbols, practices, objects and places that are
generally recognized as authoritative or politically salient. Such an idiomatic viral
hegemony may become essential to a subsequent governmental strategy of viral
hegemony, thus conditioning the very possibility and acceptability of state formation.
More particularly, instead of assuming continuity in political practices throughout the
Andes, it is necessary to consider how similar practices may have been attached to
different kinds of meanings throughout conceptually and temporally separate ideological
34
projects, such as: (1) localized pre-Inka claims to authority, and (2) Inka regional claims
to sovereignty.
35
36
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