A hitchhiker's guide to 'slowing down' heritage engagement? Archaeological ethnography, Indigenous heritage and decoloniality in the southcentral Andes

The chapter outlines archaeological ethnography as an undisciplined source for decolonising hierarchical classifications and state-authorised discourses about heritage, indigeneity and rights. Two vignettes describe how consultation and consent-seeking processes with Indigenous governance bodies have influenced the definition of common terms of collaboration and my own participation in and understanding of heritage politics at the World Heritage Site of Tiwanaku (Bolivia) and the Sacred City of Quilmes (NW Argentina). Adopting a hitch-hiker’s perspective as a kind of “walking methodology” helped me to notice what was slowing down consultation with local communities and turn it into a source of inquiry. Through multi-site ethnography, counter-mapping of meeting places, and interviews with Indigenous leaders and community authorities, these interactions and materials challenge mainstream conservation and development regimes by foregrounding indigeneity as an alternative to state self-determination and neoliberal multiculturalism. The affirmation of a space for the co-creation of knowledge and the commitment to return the results of the research puts politics back into community consultation and participatory ethics, revealing the generative and transformative capacities of anthropological engagements with decoloniality. Archaeological ethnography renews the complexities of collaboration and discloses alternative ways of linking Indigenous heritage and rights beyond disciplinary frameworks and the entrenched coloniality of modern nation-states.