In Llamas beyond the Andes, Stephenson examines the extraction of llamas and other camelids (alpacas, vicuñas, and guanacos) from the Andes, their introduction into European and global economies, and the significant role these animals played in the construction of knowledge from the colonial period to the mid-20th century. Stephenson ...
In Llamas beyond the Andes, Stephenson examines the extraction of llamas and other camelids (alpacas, vicuñas, and guanacos) from the Andes, their introduction into European and global economies, and the significant role these animals played in the construction of knowledge from the colonial period to the mid-20th century. Stephenson argues that camelids became sites of colonial negotiation and confrontation, facilitating the exchange of scientific and commercial knowledge between colonizers and the colonized through the commodification of these animals as medical, commercial, scientific, and aesthetic artifacts. Camelid bodies thus became “contact zones” (Pratt, 1992) between Andean pastoralists, European scientists, colonial administrators, and traders, where each group could exercise a degree of agency in constructing knowledge.
