Vanscheeuwijck, MarcReich, Natalie2021-11-232021-11-232021-11-23https://hdl.handle.net/1794/26884In colonial Peru, the Spanish crown relied on religious orders, most notably Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits, for accelerating processes of colonization. The dissemination of Christian art, architecture and music, and most of all the agency of indigenous people in their production played a key role in facilitating the acceptance of the new religious and political system. Previous research on Peruvian colonial music culture and its role as a vehicle for colonization focused on practices in urban centers. The lack of (written) primary sources seems to turn rural areas into a less attractive research territory for musicologists.In this dissertation, I advocate for a more inclusive approach. By investigating seventeenth-century pipe organs as material remains of Franciscan missionary music culture, I will show how reactions to colonial forces and Christianization in rural Andean locations could follow tendencies different from those in urban areas. Indigenous musicians in cities tried to “fit” into the European system in order to be accepted by the ruling Spanish elite. By contrast, the indigenous-built pipe organs at my fieldwork-site in the Peruvian Colca Valley show distinctly native-Andean influences. I argue that this syncretism can be interpreted as a means of the colonized to advance reactionary politics and to create spaces for re-negotiation of indigenous identity. Not only does my dissertation show the necessity of considering rural Peruvian music history in modern scholarship for arriving at a more complete picture of colonial culture; it will also evidence the advantages of a mixed- methodology approach. Organology proves to be a useful tool in the absence or scarcity of written primary sources, but it is not sufficient by itself. The methodology I propose combines methods from historical musicology and organology with concepts and approaches from ethnomusicology, anthropology, and post-colonial studies. I have termed it archeo-ethno-organology.en-USAll Rights Reserved.Christian missionscolonialismcultural hybridityethnomusicologypipe organElectronic Thesis or Dissertation