The book is a remarkable attempt by students and alumni of the Catholic University of Lima to “trace a map of popular mentalities in present-day Peru.” Working together in TEMPO (Taller de Estudios de las Mentalidades Populares) and advised by Gonzalo Portocarrero, the group put together 19 articles under the topics of work, political culture, religion, art and culture, youth, and communication and change. The individual contributions are based on interviews conducted by the authors. Frequent group discussions of the interviews and of each work in progress accompanied the project. TAFOS (Taller de Fotografía Social del Cusco) enriched the volume by providing a series of rather persuasive photographs of everyday scenes from Lima and Cuzco taken by members of the popular sector themselves.
Although not all the contributions show the same degree of quality, the collection as a whole demonstrates a high level of conceptualization, creativity, and analytical thoroughness. The wide spectrum of demanding subjects addressed, from the Andean roots of the work ethic among Lima’s populace to the ethnic identities of Lima’s youth, makes the volume a fine reader on Peruvian urban popular culture that allows students to draw some generalizations for Latin America in general.
In his introduction, Portocarrero presents an interesting discussion of what TEMPO means by popular culture and of the characteristics of popular mentalities. Surprisingly, the editor claims that lo popular has been “denigrated” for a long time and that the book is meant to be a contribution to a “fairer and more balanced assessment” of the popular sector as a social, economic, and political force. A lot still needs to be done, no doubt; but fortunately, the urban populace has received more attention in the literature on contemporary Peruvian history than Portocarrero admits.
Almost all the articles deal with the relationship between lo criollo and lo andino and with what the authors call the modern and the traditional worlds as key elements of Lima’s popular culture. Unfortunately, however, after studying the book, the reader is left with such questions as, Does the presence of Andean traditions in that popular culture, along with the city’s diverse ethnic composition, make Lima different from other urban centers in Latin America? This and other questions should have been addressed in a brief conclusion, which also could have put the articles in a broader perspective.
Still, TEMPO deserves much credit for making serious contributions to a complicated field of study and for presenting a reader that nobody interested in Latin American popular culture should overlook.
