Domenico Branca

• PhD
• Researcher at University of Sassari

In recent decades, the mountains of Latin America have undergone massive rural–urban change. In Peru, this has led to strong growth of population and settlement on the spatially limited valley floors of the Quechua elevational zone, which is part of a sophisticated vertical land use system that includes the adjacent slopes (Suni elevational zone) a...

The article explores the figure of the kharisiri through a historical and ethnographic lens. The kharisiri is a character from Andean folklore notorious for extracting fat from people, which leads its victims to fall ill and die. Subject to extensive analysis by Andean ethnography, this paper argues that the kharisiri denotes an indigenous represen...

This chapter explores the “mountain farmscape” concept within rural mountain environments, highlighting its importance in understanding the complex interplay of natural and cultural elements. A montological perspective sheds light on the intricate connection between these elements, offering valuable insights into sustainable practices and the prese...

Este artículo examina algunos procesos urbanos contemporáneos en la ciudad peruana de Cusco. En particular, se estudia el caso de un área protegida privada situada dentro de la ciudad, la Servidumbre Ecológica de Santa María, analizando los fenómenos de turistificación y de urbanización planetaria. Todo ello en el marco del contexto socioespacial d...

Recensione di Gabriella D’Agostino, Vincenzo Matera, a cura di, Storie dell’antropologia, Milano, UTET, 2022, pp. 635.

Under the influence of concentrated and extended urbanization, Andean cities and the different altitudinal zones of their “hinterlands” are experiencing profound changes in land cover — from the central plazas up to the highest peaks. The complex regional-geographic characteristics of these socioecological systems, such as the vertical complementar...

As a geocultural and temporally defined form of production, science fiction is fully within the scope of anthropological analysis. In this article, I aim to analyze the representation of the notion of humanity in Latin American science fiction. Specifically, I examine four narratives by Peruvian authors that offer a critical political lens on conte...

Protected areas are no longer focused solely on conservation and protection needs but play a central role in promoting sustainable development in local socio-territorial systems. The Tepilora Natural Regional Park (TNRP) in Sardinia offers an example of this phenomenon. This paper highlights the significance of the TNRP in balancing conservation ne...

There is consensus to advance science with unorthodox narratives generated with new discoveries, different perspectives, or challenging innovation altogether. However, it is also consensual that these mountain narratives, like the waves in fluid water or air, move along the time scales with different dynamics and distinctive rhythms, generating a s...

Mountains are commonly considered a rural or even wild counterpart to cities. But, is this view still relevant in times of “planetary urbanization”? What is actually “wild,” “rural,” and “urban,” and how do these categories differ in structural and/or functional terms? Are there urban specificities in mountains? Drawing on the concepts of planetary...

This article examines selected contemporary urban processes in the Peruvian city of Cusco. In particular, it studies the case of a private protected area located within the city, the Santa Maria Ecological Servitude (Servidumbre Ecológica), analyzing the phenomena of touristification and planetary urbanization and framing it within the socio-spatia...

Las montañas son vistas por lo general como el opuesto rural o incluso «silvestre» de los espacios urbanos. Pero, ¿se puede seguir justificando esta visión en tiempos de la «urbanización planetaria»? ¿Qué es realmente «silvestre», «rural» y «urbano», y en qué se diferencian estas categorías en términos estructurales y funcionales? ¿Existen caracter...

As a result of the global effort for sustainable management of natural resources, the spatial scale, holistic concept, and/or integrative approach of “landscape” is increasingly used in collaborative environmental planning and governance. However, it is often overseen that “landscape” is just one possible way to see and interpret the human environm...

The sustainable development of mountain regions requires inter- and transdisciplinary knowledge. The Institute for Interdisciplinary Mountain Research contributes to this global endeavor as part of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and as a member of international scientific networks, together with local partners and stakeholders. As a joint effort...

Las ciudades de montaña especializadas en turismo intentan, cada vez más, destacar la importancia de su patrimonio cultural y natural. Esto para poder subsistir en la competencia por la atención mundial. En este contexto, la urbanización posmoderna de las montañas desempeña un papel crucial: es así que, al ser impulsada por procesos turísticos, est...

The creation of protected mountain areas is often preceded by conflicts over access and use of natural resources. The case of the Cerro Khapía in the Peruvian Andes, however, points to mountains as not just nature but also culture. More than a decade ago, different ontologies and opposing views on mountains led to protests of the Aymara people agai...

The creation of protected mountain areas is often preceded by conflicts over access and use of natural resources. The case of the Cerro Khapía in the Peruvian Andes, however, points to mountains as not just nature but also culture. More than a decade ago, different ontologies and opposing views on mountains led to protests of the Aymara people agai...

Review of: Visiones de los Andes: Ensayos críticos sobre el concepto de paisaje y región [Visions of the Andes: Critical essays on the notion of landscape and region]. Edited by Ximena Briceño and Jorge CoronadoLa Paz, Bolivia: Plural Editores and University of Pittsburgh, 2019. 218 pp. Hardcover: US$ 11.00. ISBN 978-99954-1-901-1.

Mountain cities specializing in tourism increasingly aim at valorizing cultural and natural heritage to compete for global attention. In this context, the postmodern urbanization of mountains plays a decisive role: driven by touristification processes, it alters the sociospatial and economic configuration of mountain cities and their hinterlands, w...

This final report summarizes the outcomes of the Smart Altitude project. The Smart Altitude project ran from June 2018 to April 2021 and was carried out by ten partners from six different countries in the Alpine Space (Austria, France, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, and Switzerland). The project was co-financed by the European Union via Interreg Alpine...

Nestling in the South American Andes, the Peruvian city of Cusco is one of the most emblematic metropolises of the continent. An impressive example of pre-Columbian urbanism, the capital of the former Inca empire developed into one of the most representative cities of the Spanish colonial realm—today a UNESCO World Heritage Site—and, since the 1920...

The aim of this article is to reflect on Aymara self-representation in the Peruvian context. The issue of language has a fundamental importance in global political-identity claims, as it represents a communicative tool that belongs primarily to a personal intimacy and, at the same time, to the idea of being part of a wider group. Anthropology has t...

Para asegurar el desarrollo endógeno sostenible de la región andina, la investigación sobre y para la cadena montañosa dominante de América del Sur tiene una importancia crucial. A partir de 2021, la Revista de Investigaciones Altoandinas - Journal of High Andean Research adopta una política editorial reformada y presenta un relanzamiento de su por...

Las regiones de montaña se enfrentan con retos decisivos, no solamente para su desarrollo sustentable sino para su misma reproducción. Estos retos tienen que ver con el impacto cada vez más serio del cambio climático y ambiental, la incidencia que la globalización socio-económica y cultural tiene en las poblaciones de montaña y en los ecosistemas q...

This paper is the introduction to the translation of Human, all too human by Philippe Descola-Anthropocene; Capitalocene; Latin America; Nature-culture; humanity

This article describes and analyzes important aspects of the relationship between the urban and the rural in the south of the Peruvian department of Puno. The author argues that the assumed arbitrariness of the border between the countryside and the city, between the urban and the rural, is extremely widespread and that Andean peasant communities a...

p>El propósito del presente artículo es discutir, a partir de una investigación etnográfica, el papel del Día de los Muertos en el altiplano aymara peruano, conectándolo con la identidad vivida por los y las actrices sociales involucrados. La investigación etnográfica tuvo lugar en la comunidad de San Miguel de Alpaccollo (en ese entonces, 2013 y 2...

In this paper I suggest the possibility of exploring — diachronic and synchronic — the evolution of the notion of humanity in the kharisiri’s representations. Usually, this figure steals the fat from its victims, making them sick and leading them — in the overwhelming majority of cases — to an almost certain death. Through an analysis of historical...

En el presente artículo sugiero la posibilidad de explorar la evolución de la noción de humanidad a través del estudio —diacrónico y sincrónico— de las representaciones del kharisiri. Por lo general, dicha figura saca la grasa de sus víctimas, haciéndolas enfermar y conduciéndolas —en la abrumadora mayoría de los casos— a una muerte casi cierta. Me...

This article analyses from an anthropological and literary intedisciplinary perspective De cuando en cuando Saturnina. Una historia oral del futuro, science fiction novel written by Alison Spedding in 2004. In particular, it is demonstrated the presence of an axis that crosses the whole work: the intersection between class, race, and gender. From t...

This is an Italian and Spanish translation of Alfred Métraux’s “Notes of aymara ethnography”, originally published in French in the Journal de la Société des Américanistes in 1954. The text is the first of a series of short articles related to a research the author conducted for the United Nations in the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes in the 50s, nota...

Review

Book review of Walter D. Mignolo, L’idea di America Latina: Geostoria di una teoria decoloniale, Milano-Udine, Mimesis, 2013, pp. 224.

Book review of Ugo E.M. Fabietti, L’identità etnica: Storia e critica di un concetto equivoco, Roma, Carocci, 2013, pp. 229.

Portocarrero, Gonzalo (ed.). Perspectivas sobre el nacionalismo en el Perú. Lima: Red para el Desarrollo de las Ciencias Sociales en el Perú, 2014. 319 pp. Perspectivas sobre el nacionalismo peruano, editato por Gonzalo Portocarrero, es un texto importante para entender los actuales procesos de construcción de la nación en el Perú. El libro es el r...

El Autor analiza dos categorías fundamentales de los estudios críticos actuales en América Latina, pero que tienen un fuerte eco en otros contextos, con especial referencia a la colonialidad y a la trans-modernidad, las nociones desarrolladas respectivamente por el sociólogo peruano Aníbal Quijano y el filósofo argentino Enrique Dussel. También se...

A partir de un enfoque que rechaza las identidades sociales y étnicas como esencias ontológicas puras y ahistóricas, y considerándolas, al contrario, como construcciones cronológicamente ubicables, resultado de procesos complejos de larga duración, se discutirá el papel que juega el idioma en la autoidentificación de los aymara peruanos. Se dividir...

Book review of Donatella Schmidt e Francesco Spagna, eds, 2012, Etnografie collaborative e questioni ambientali: Ricerche nell’America indigena contemporanea, Padova, Cleup, pp. 284.

This article analyses the debate about globalization as cultural uniformity. The interconnection between places, people, technology, economy, information, is commonly considered as a process of cultural levelling. This point of view asserts that cultural and social diversities will disappear inexorably in a brief period of time, because of Western...

59 "Serás eterno como el tiempo y florecerás en cada Primavera". La squadra di calcio come fenomeno identitario Abstract The following article analyses the football game as an identity phenomenon. Football has ceased to be simply a sport to become something extremely complex and articulated, from a politic, economic, social, and cultural point of v...

This essay is the result of multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork on Halloween’s celebrations conducted in Sardinia – precisely in the historic region of Gallura – and in the city of Derry, in Northern Ireland. In the introduction, I present the theoretical framework of my work, arguing that globalization is not irremediably leading to the disappearan...