Are we one?: Quechua-Aymara contact and the challenges of boundary maintenance in Puno, Peru

This article investigates the impact that opposing scale-making projects of boundary maintenance have on multilingual histories of indigenous Quechua and Aymara speakers in Puno, Peru. Quechua and Aymara speakers perpetuate discourses of strict ethnolinguistic difference, which correspond to scale-making projects that regiment ethnolinguistic boundaries and erase histories of indigenous multilingualism. These projects are challenged by opposing scalar projects that promote a common indigenous heritage. I will examine how indigenous puneños regiment ethnolinguistic boundaries through three case studies: inter-indigenous marriage, indigenous language radio programming, and a language revitalization program. In each site, puneños work to maintain ethnolinguistic boundaries, but are simultaneously confronted with scalar projects that attempts to reconfigure Quechua-Aymara multilingualism in the past, present, and imagined future.