Andean Meltdown: A Climate Ethnography of Water, Power, and Culture in Peru

Andean Meltdown examines how climate change and its consequences for Peru's glaciers are affecting the country's water supply and impacting Andean society and culture in unprecedented ways. Drawing on forty years of extensive research, relationship building, and community engagement in Peru, Karsten Paerregaard provides an ethnographic exploration of Andean ritual practices and performances in the context of an altered climate. By documenting Andean peoples' responses to rapid glacier retreat and urgent water shortages, Paerregaard considers the myriad ways climate change intersects with environmental, social, and political change. A pathbreaking contribution to cultural anthropology and environmental humanities, Andean Meltdown challenges prevailing theoretical thinking about the culture-nature nexus and offers a new perspective on Andean peoples' understanding of their role as agents in the shifting relationship between humans and nonhumans.