Organizers: José M. Capriles and Nicholas Tripcevich

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The deadline for participants to register, pay, and submit their abstracts is two weeks away (April 11) in order to give us time to assemble the talks into a session by the AAA deadline. Anyone potentially interested should not hesitate to contact us. Also recipients are encouraged to forward this announcement to ethnographers and others.

The landscape of the highland Andes provides an enduring record of the practices of generations of camelid pastoralists reflecting long-term environmental and social relationships that inform anthropological studies of ancient and modern herders.

As the mobile component of many Andean communities, the cyclic movement of herds and caravans not only facilitated linking dispersed communities and exchanging goods and information but also with negotiating borders and crossings, and their associated political structures. This session draws together recent theoretical and methodological research on Andean herding and its variability through space and time. From camelid domestication and the development of specialized forms of animal husbandry to the impact of the introduction of Old World livestock and the current state of pastoralist communities as they increasingly articulate with the global market economy, this symposium will feature archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic case studies. Themes include construction of pastoralist landscapes (territoriality, landscape modification, temporality, and ritualization), mobility (seasonal residential mobility, long-distance transport by means of caravans), political economy (changing production and distribution strategies), and recent transformations (acculturation, loss of traditional knowledge, impact of climate change). The symposium will provide a broad survey of research and promote interdisciplinary dialogue by emphasizing the engagement of Andean herders (camelid and Old World species) with their cultural and environmental surroundings.

The session will be presented at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting (AAA), San Francisco, November 14-18, 2012. More info http://www.aaanet.org/meetings/

To participate of the session, presenters need to register for the AAA and pay the meeting registration by Wednesday April 11 so that we can assemble the talks into a session. Estimated membership and meeting registration fees depend on country of origin and professional status. Scholars who require financial support can solicit discounts during registration, but please consult the AAA webpage for specific information. Registration, paper titles, and abstracts are due by Wednesday April 11^th, 2012.