1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910813712703321

Autore

Burns Kathryn <1959->

Titolo

Colonial habits : convents and the spiritual economy of Cuzco, Peru / / Kathryn Burns

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Durham, NC : , : Duke University Press, , 1999

ISBN

0-8223-9619-X

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xi, 307 pages) : illustrations, 1 map

Disciplina

985/.37

Soggetti

Convents - Social aspects - Peru - Cuzco - History

Convents - Economic aspects - Peru - Cuzco - History

Women - Peru - Cuzco - Social conditions

Mestizos - Peru - Cuzco - History

Social structure - Peru - Cuzco - History

Cuzco (Peru) Social life and customs

Cuzco (Peru) History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (pages [285]-296) and index.

Nota di contenuto

1. Gender and the politics of Mestizaje -- 2. The dilemmas of dominio : reconciling poverty and property -- 3. Forasteras become Cuzqueñas -- 4. Reproducing colonial Cuzco -- 5. Producing colonial Cuzco -- 6. Breaking faith -- 7. Surviving republicanism

Sommario/riassunto

In Colonial Habits Kathryn Burns transforms our view of nuns as marginal recluses, making them central actors on the colonial stage. Beginning with the 1558 founding of South America’s first convent, Burns shows that nuns in Cuzco played a vital part in subjugating Incas, creating a creole elite, and reproducing an Andean colonial order in which economic and spiritual interests were inextricably fused.Based on unprecedented archival research, Colonial Habits demonstrates how nuns became leading guarantors of their city’s social order by making loans, managing property, containing “unruly” women, and raising girls. Coining the phrase “spiritual economy” to analyze the intricate investments and relationships that enabled Cuzco’s convents and their backers to thrive, Burns explains how, by the late 1700s, this economy had faltered badly, making convents an emblem of decay and a focal



point for intense criticism of a failing colonial regime. By the nineteenth century, the nuns had retreated from their previous roles, marginalized in the construction of a new republican order.Providing insight that can be extended well outside the Andes to the relationships articulated by convents across much of Europe, the Americas, and beyond, Colonial Habits will engage those interested in early modern economics, Latin American studies, women in religion, and the history of gender, class, and race.