Colonialità e rappresentazioni sociali sulle Ande: Etnografia e storia del kharisiri

The article explores the figure of the kharisiri through a historical and ethnographic lens. The kharisiri is a character from Andean folklore notorious for extracting fat from people, which leads its victims to fall ill and die. Subject to extensive analysis by Andean ethnography, this paper argues that the kharisiri denotes an indigenous representation, encompassing both Quechua and Aymara perspectives, of subaltern dynamics with colonial origins that persist today in other forms. Using Aníbal Quijano’s framework of coloniality as a theoretical backdrop and applying it to an empiric example, the article posits that the kharisiri reflects the evolution of alterity and represents, from an indigenous viewpoint, colonial and postcolonial dynamics. This highlights how changes in its representation illustrate an indigenous perspective on colonial history and relations of coloniality in contemporary Peru.