ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a brief overview of ways lo andino—how scholars have sought to define characteristics of what could be called “Andean,” as well as how that which constitutes and has been considered essentially “Andean”—has been critiqued. In a markedly different effort to arrive at what might be generalizable about the Andean region, more scholars have argued that the violence visited on Andean communities and peoples in the 1980s refocused interrogations of what it means to be “Andean.” The Andean World has also been crafted with an eye to demonstrating the relevance of learning about the Andes in light of more contemporary conflicts, debates, and events. General agreement exists that the word “Andes” may derive from the Quechua Anti, which referred to forest-dwelling peoples who lived in Antisuyo, or the southeastern quadrant of the Inca Empire.
