They All Want to Be Indiana Jones: Tales of the Andes Mountaineering Industry

“They all want to be Indiana Jones”: Tales of Life, Death, and the Mountaineering Industry in the Argentine Andes

What is Aconcagua? Although a geographic coordinate on the map of Incan and Spanish empire building, of General José de San Martín's heroic advance to continental independence, and of Charles Darwin's youthful scientific exploration of South America, Mt. Aconcagua is most recognized today as a location for international mountaineering and adventure tourism.

In Aconcagua: the Invention of Mountaineering on America’s Highest Peak I trace how the mountain has been used and defined by the region’s indigenous peoples, by European scientific explorers, by international adventure seekers, and by Mendoza’s own tourism industry. For this talk I will focus on the diversity of narratives that make up the social history of Aconcagua as a mountaineering site. In other words, I will discuss how a headless horseman, an Austrian ghost, discarded underwear, and Indiana Jones tell the stories of life and death on this mountain.

Joy Logan is a professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at UH Mānoa. Her research and publications have focused on issues of gender and ethnic identity construction, especially with respect to creative and narrative expression in the Southern Cone. Most recently her interests in tourism studies have taken her to central west Argentina where she has conducted field research on adventure and high altitude mountaineering. She is the author of Aconcagua: The Invention of Mountaineering on America’s Highest Peak (University of Arizona P, 2011).

Event Sponsor
Center for Biographical Research, Mānoa Campus

More Information
956-3774, biograph@hawaii.edu, http://www.facebook.com/CBRHawaii

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