Outlining Agents and Policies of Value in the Touristic Economy of the Sacred Valley of Cusco

Abstract

In this article, I draw from ethnographic and theoretical notes in turn of describing aspects of the tourist market in the Sacred Valley of Cusco, Peru. Guided by Victoria, I address the region’s productive chain composed of multiple actors, power arrangements, and vigorous production of difference embedded in historical circumstances. I highlight the actions of Victoria in the community of Accha Alta, the presence of World Vision, and The Centro de Textiles Tradicionales del Cusco as they aggregate value in the processes of coordinating exchanges in the tourism market. In view of this network of touristic production in the Valley´s circuit, I raise the questions: are women like Victoria being exploited and victimized by scalability and an oppressive market? Are exogenous projects and cultural transactions under the imperatives of the market the villains of Peruvian and much of Latin American histories? Although there is no easy answer to such massive entanglements, I argue that couched in the methodological lens of tourism it is possible to glimpse the extensive and multifaceted commercial chain in the Valley marked by developmental discourses and transnational authorizations.