During our
time spent in the north of Peru we have heard a lot of thoughts and ideas
considering archaeology, cultural heritage and its impact on the village of San
José de Moro and the villages surrounding
Chotuna Chornancap. We went door knocking, and the local community
members that we spoke to were very helpful and gladly answered our questions. Most
of them had many interesting ideas and perspectives which made it difficult to stick
to the short survey questions (which we were going to use for a quantitative analyze).
We realized rather quickly that it would not work to perform the 60
questionnaires. Therefore, we decided to make the most of the situation by making
fewer but more profound interviews to let the persons we met tell us their story
and their thoughts about the archaeological projects. We ended up with eleven
stories and perspectives from San José de Moro and parts of these we will
present here later on. Some of the persons that we interviewed preferred to
remain anonymous and their answers will be presented without photos.
As can be expected, the narratives that we got the opportunity to listen to varied to an extent. However, we have already been able find some common thoughts about how the archaeological project has affected the village and its inhabitants. Without any deeper analysis of the material collected, we can mention some of the common traits that were expressed in San José de Moro:
- The archaeological project has, at least to an extent, affected the children’s education in a positive manner.
- Looting has decreased to a great extent in San José de Moro.
- Due to a wider knowledge of the archaeology and the history of the site, people value their cultural heritage a lot more than before the archaeological project begun.
- People do not think that all the inhabitants of the villages have the same opportunity to partake in the positive outcomes of the archaeological project.
In Chotuna
Chornacap, outside of Lambaqeque, we performed an identical information
collection as in San José de Moro. We will write about Chotuna Chornacap and
our experience in the surrounding villages in the upcoming posts.
The next
step for us is now to transcribe and translate all the interviews to be able to
wider analyze and discuss the results of the study.
