Zoila Mendoza

Zoila Mendoza, an anthropologist by training, serves as Professor in the Department of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis, where she has also held the position of Department Chair. She earned her B.A. and Licenciatura in Anthropology from the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago. Joining UC Davis in 1994 as an assistant professor in the Department of Music, she has since contributed to the development of courses on Quechua language and Andean culture, the most widely spoken indigenous language in the Americas. Mendoza's academic career reflects her deep roots in Peru, where she grew up in Lima but was immersed in highland traditions through her parents' heritage from Andean towns.

Her research centers on the music, dance, and festivals of the Peruvian Andes, with a particular emphasis on mestizo ritual performances, sensorial and physical experiences in pilgrimage, and Andean cosmovision. Key publications include Shaping Society through Dance: Mestizo Ritual Performance in the Peruvian Andes (University of Chicago Press, 2000), which examines how dance troupes actively shape social structures during fiestas, and Creating Our Own: Folklore, Performance, and Identity in Cuzco, Peru (Duke University Press, 2008), exploring the development of folkloric arts in early 20th-century Cuzco. In 2021, she published Qoyllur Rit’i: Crónica de una Peregrinación Cusqueña, based on her participation in the Qoyllur Rit'i pilgrimage—a grueling three-day, 85-mile journey ascending from nearly 12,000 to 16,000 feet, undertaken by Quechua-speaking peasants and herders; Mendoza has completed this trek three times. Additional works encompass articles such as "The Musical Walk to Qoyllor Rit'i: The Senses and the Concept of Forgiveness in Cuzco, Peru" (Latin American Music Review, 2017), "Exploring the Andean Sensory Model" (2015), and contributions to dance studies and anthropology of Christianity. She received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship in 2010 and a grant from the American Philosophical Society to support her interdisciplinary research on pilgrimage experiences.

Professional Email: zsmendoza@ucdavis.edu