Play has been underrepresented in studies of Andean communities, together with the children who are its protagonists. This article, part of a larger ethnographic study, reviews and analyzes manifestations of play in rural localities of the province of Yauyos. It aims to interpret the role of play and reevaluate its importance. With the support of numerous descriptions of places of play, toys, the actors, their motivations and relations, it examines the presence of a “rhetoric of progress” and a “rhetoric of power” in Yauyos children’s play. Play constitutes a dominion where the agency of boys, girls, and adolescents emerges with special clarity. The result is the structuring of a child’s society that incorporates alliances and cooperation as well as conflicts and exclusions.

Play has been underrepresented in studies of Andean communities, together with the children who are its protagonists. This article, part of a larger ethnographic study, reviews and analyzes manifestations of play in rural localities of the province of Yauyos. It aims to interpret the role of play and reevaluate its importance. With the support of numerous descriptions of places of play, toys, the actors, their motivations and relations, it examines the presence of a “rhetoric of progress” and a “rhetoric of power” in Yauyos children’s play. Play constitutes a dominion where the agency of boys, girls, and adolescents emerges with special clarity. The result is the structuring of a child’s society that incorporates alliances and cooperation as well as conflicts and exclusions.

Play has been underrepresented in studies of Andean communities, together with the children who are its protagonists. This article, part of a larger ethnographic study, reviews and analyzes manifestations of play in rural localities of the province of Yauyos. It aims to interpret the role of play and reevaluate its importance. With the support of numerous descriptions of places of play, toys, the actors, their motivations and relations, it examines the presence of a “rhetoric of progress” and a “rhetoric of power” in Yauyos children’s play. Play constitutes a dominion where the agency of boys, girls, and adolescents emerges with special clarity. The result is the structuring of a child’s society that incorporates alliances and cooperation as well as conflicts and exclusions.

El presente libro contiene los trabajos presentados en el IV Congreso Nacional de Investigación Antropológica que se ha realizado en Lima en el mes de agosto del 2005. En este trabajo se ha buscado hacer un balance, lo más detallado posible, de los más de 60 años de desarrollo de esta disciplina en el Perú. Lo que a su vez muestra su carácter reflexivo y evaluativo. Estamos convencidos que los cambios económicos, sociales y culturales que se vienen experimentando en nuestras sociedades requieren que haya un análisis y una reflexión, cada vez más acuciosos, sobre el sentido de lo que estos cambios implican y cómo inciden en las dinámicas individuales y sociales. En esta labor es importante generar espacios para evaluar el camino trazado por cada disciplina, y poder explicitar así sus tensiones, avances y retos. En este esfuerzo queremos resaltar el trabajo realizado por el D...