"...los mitimaes temían a los naturales y los naturales a los mitimaes": políticas de reasentamiento y la construcción de la diferencia en el Estado inca

Abstract

In this article, it is tried to understand the mechanisms of the Inca state starting from the institutionalization of the mitimaes. The displacement of groups of people and their settlement to specific spaces, which is represented in rituals like the Situa, were so strategic, that the Inca state may be considered as a “mobile state”. A policy of specific resettlement led to the fact that its area of influence could extend very quickly. The different specific social relationships of dependency in the Inca state will be contoured, as well as the respective integrations of the groups in the local communities, in order to define the class of the mitimaes in this context. Then, the institutionalization of the mitimaes will be worked out within a historical perspective, which extends to the colonial era of the 17th and 18th centuries, but also up to actual problems in which the institution of the mitimaes is involved.