ABSTRACT
Scholars have explored race/ethnicity in the Andes through labels such as “indio,” “cholo,” and “mestizo,” among other categories. In this framework, the frequent assumption is that ethnicity is a gradient phenomenon, in which the outcome will be “mestizaje.” That is, the assimilation of “indians” to the “national” mainstream culture will solve racism against indigenous people, particularly in Peru. Moving beyond this framework, I examine labeling, ideologies about Quechua language, and the use of the articulatory style in both Quechua and Spanish as the basis to identify and classify interlocutors into discrete categories, as well as to stereotype racially Quechua-dominant speakers. Individuals who have access to Quechua or Spanish natively identify their interlocutors’ linguistic background tacitly by resorting to their vowel system in everyday interactions. Such judgments are qualitative, rather than existing on a gradient, thereby falsifying the standard claim in the Andean social science literature that social identification is made along a gradient.
