Alienation in the Andes: Labor and Cultural Disenfranchisement in Colonial Peru, 1570-1640
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Alienation in the Andes: Labor and Cultural Disenfranchisement in Colonial Peru, 1570-1640 By Dexter James Zavalza Hough-Snee A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures and the Designated Emphasis in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Ivonne del Valle, Chair Professor Emilie Bergmann Professor Todd Olson Fall 2017 Alienation in the Andes: Labor and Cultural Disenfranchisement in Colonial Peru, 1570-1640 © 2017 Dexter James Zavalza Hough-Snee 1 Abstract Alienation in the Andes: Labor and Cultural Disenfranchisement in Colonial Peru, 1570-1640 by Dexter James Zavalza Hough-Snee Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures and the Designated Emphasis in Renaissance and Early Modern Studies University of California, Berkeley Professor Ivonne del Valle, Chair This dissertation locates a pre-history of modern material alienations in colonial Spanish America. Alienation is often understood as a modern phenomenon, the byproduct of exploitation under industrial labor or the crisis of the individual in the face of the strictures of modern society. Colonial actors, however, sensed, internalized, and expressed an understanding of and frustration with their material marginalization in the face of an ever-intensifying colonial economy that rewarded the landowning benefactor class at the expense of the diverse residents of the colonial world. Focusing on the literature, visual culture, and hagiography of mid-colonial Peru, these alienations appear and reappear in varying discourses of isolation, marginalization, and outsideness (enajenación in early modern Spanish) extending to indigenous, Spanish, and Afroperuvian subjects. In each case, land and labor are at the center of these forms of primitive alienation, causing diverse subjects to feel that the economic climate and conditions of work and worship have led the world around them to become unrecognizable, unfamiliar, and ultimately meaningless. Reading the works of Spanish colonial chroniclers, satirist Mateo Rosas de Oquendo, indigenous chronicler Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, and the hagiographers of Afroperuvian saint Martín de Porres as expressions of enajenación that anticipate later theorizations of alienation, I argue that as primitive accumulation anticipates capitalism, diverse colonial primitive alienations (from lands, community, spirituality, and history) arise in anticipation of the alienation of the industrial worker. This pre-history makes patent the modernity of colonial subjectivities to suggest that affective responses to the colonial enterprise mark the onset of the modern individual. i Dedication For Claudia, Elvita, the little one on the way, and my entire family, whose constant smiles, infectious laughter, and supreme sense of humor render every day all too enjoyable! ¡Para Claudia, Elvita, la pequeña que pronto nos llega y toda mi familia, cuyas sonrisas constantes, risas imparables y divinos sentidos de humor hacen cada día demasiado divertido! …And for everyone who has ever felt outside of themselves… …Y para todos que han tenido la sensación de estar fuera de sí mismos… ii Table of Contents Acknowledgments iii Introduction: 1 Men at Work: Foundation and Alienation Part I. Definitions Chapter 1: 26 Work: The Economy in Colonial Peru, 1570-1640 Chapter 2: 55 Defining Alienation and Reading Affect in the Colonial Andes Part II. Interventions Chapter 3: 94 “Pues ya me desencanté”: Mateo Rosas de Oquendo and the Poetics of Primitive Alienation Chapter 4: 147 Alienation in the Andes: Andino Dignity and Disenfranchisement Chapter 5: 185 Withdrawing from the World: Heavenly Labor in the Hagiography of San Martín de Porres Epilogue: 221 Primitive Alienation and Colonial Modernity iii Acknowledgments The academic world is interesting for its ability to manipulate time. For as one finds a rhythm in the calendar cycles of publications and presentations, fellowship and grant applications, and actually completing the work that these endeavors support, it is apparent that the academic never really lives in the present, but rather, always in the future. Many an academic would acknowledge that while we write and teach in the present, we are never really present. That is because there’s always another article submission for this date, a conference proposal for that date, an upcoming trip for that research project, and some other forthcoming publication for a future date. In a profession that would, ideally, be characterized by mindful study in the present, we come to live six, twelve, eighteen months out, planning our work from calls for papers through final revisions and publication dates. Within this prevailing mode of work, it is rare to find a moment for reflection. But, in rounding out a period of many rewarding life experiences that coincided with my doctoral studies, I find it appropriate to pause my thinking and working towards the next step and the next project and the next job in order to reflect on the past. While academia can be a cloistered vocation, it is also full of people—professors, colleagues, friends—who break the silences, carry conversations, and ensure that there is joy in the present, that the past is appreciated, and that there is (God, politics, and budgets willing) a future to look forward to. In looking back, I also look forward to sustaining professional relationships with the following people who have so contributed to my intellectual growth, graduate studies, and professionalization by enabling the realization of this project among many others. I must begin with a tremendous expression of gratitude to Ivonne del Valle. I showed up at Berkeley intent on working on colonial Latin American literatures while also trying to balance an ambitious agenda of writing as much as I could about surfing(!) and contemporary Peru. I also generally insisted on working on many things that I was neither prepared to work on nor that I had spare time to dedicate to during my graduate studies. Yet as the resident scholar of colonial Latin America and my chosen advisor from day one, Ivonne supported me in my stubborn, hyperactive, and multitudinous efforts. As one can imagine, she has shown tremendous patience with me as a pupil, as I am veritably her polar opposite. Where she is characteristically rigorous, meticulous, thoughtful, introspective, and generally brilliant, I was almost none of these things, at least not by nature. So first, I must thank her for her patience and willingness to mentor an obstinate, blue- collar surf rat through years of coursework, dozens of applications, hundreds of proposals, several time-consuming publications, and, finally, this dissertation. If there is one thing that Ivonne and I have shared since my arrival to Berkeley, it is our political convictions. The remarkable distinction between our ideals, though, is that hers tend to be rooted in a transcendent mastery of Western philosophy and mine are basically born of a lifetime of listening to bad-to-okay punk rock music and being from a proud union family. In spite of the differing origins of these shared principles, I am particularly grateful to have worked with a person who makes patent the connections between scholarly work and activist work and carries the struggle into the classroom and back to the streets. Thank you. Since 2011, Emilie Bergmann and I have shared several, maybe even dozens, of conversations that started as brief updates on my progress or quick questions and turned into hour- long conversations about all angles of our work and the profession more generally. While we both walked out of many of those conversations with the biting sense that we had just spent precious time conversing instead of advancing on the discussed work, I found many of those timely iv conversations tremendously supportive, informative, and inspiring. But what can be inspirational about discussing the minutiae of book proposals, cultivating relationships with academic presses, the pains of indexing, and other similarly tedious academic protocols? While we tended to talk research, publishing, and family—always family!—I found my greatest inspiration in our conversations to be pedagogical. As a teacher and unfailing advocate of each of my own students, I saw in those conversations Emilie’s generous commitment of her time and knowledge to a young person’s growth. She, alongside many of the faculty at Berkeley and San Diego State, has inspired me to live out my career with an open door, an open ear, and the sagest advice that I can muster for every student and colleague that crosses the threshold of my office or classroom. Though our work is always in the future before drifting into the past, it is, after all, in these human relationships that we most actively return to the present. Speaking of those relationships that I most cherish, I would like to thank the professors, colleagues, and friends who have accompanied me in recent years. Natalia Brizuela, Ignacio Navarrete, Michael Iarocci, Estelle Tarica, Dru Dougherty, Todd Olson, and Lisa Trever all challenged me in their teaching and their mentoring. I am grateful for every conversation, comment on my writing, email exchange, letter of support, and introduction to new material(ities) and new perspectives. In getting to Berkeley and cutting my scholarly chops, I am particularly grateful to William Acree, Alda Blanco, Mario Martín-Flores, Rodrigo Montoya Rojas, and Alex Sotelo Eastman. I would have never imagined a scholarly career if it weren’t for Alda, Billy, and Mario’s encouragement at a time when I had hedged my bets on dying with my boots on. Rodrigo Montoya’s sense of humor, hospitality, and generosity facilitated my early research in Peru. His voluminous writings have also helped my own work to cross disciplinary boundaries and provided me great perspective in writing about Peru. Collaborating with Alex on a several-year project never once felt like work and I count him among the closest of friends.