ABSTRACT
This chapter brings to the fore a new perspective on Andean metaphors on sexual violence against women, an aspect scarcely mentioned by any previous anthropological scholarship on Andean societies. Also, unlike previous research conducted on incestuous violence, this chapter discusses not what incestuous violence “is”, but rather the set of perceptions of social exchanges in relation to kinship that exists in a specific place at a specific time. This, in turn, allows me to explain how such exchanges become a strategic possibility (a Foucauldian concept) as opposed to a timeless prohibition. Even though sexual exchanges among certain relatives can be seen as a threat to the principle of exogamy, under certain conditions such exchanges might help to produce the very power relationships between men and women that the success of a new marriage in a specific context will partially depend on.
