Marcia Stephenson contextualizes recent fascinations of non-Andean people with llamas and alpacas, unique, high-altitude animals, through a series of case studies spanning 1568 to 1960. Stephenson unveils itineraries camelids would have experienced as they were located, examined, extracted, utilized, and transformed. Much like the devastating impacts of European colonialism on the people and environments of South America, “camelid extractions” resulted in massive mistreatment and death of these animals. Drawing on Mary Louise Pratt’s concept of “contact zones,” Stephenson explores how Europeans also interacted with Indigenous Andeans. By interrogating “intercultural camelid contact zones” through a wide variety of written and visual sources, she provides a fresh perspective into the complicated and violent history of colonization and spread of global capitalism in the Andes.
Stephenson organizes her book chronologically and thematically. Chapters 1 and 2 document encounters that focused on camelid bodies through the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Stephenson begins with how...
