With the goal of carrying out a critical revision of what is beginning to appear as an emerging Peruvian visual anthropology, I propose to answer the question of why interest for visual culture has come so late and the tradition of indigenous video is practically nonexistent in a country with a long tradition of visual manifestations that are both dynamic and diverse and with a large indigenous population. In order to achieve this, I propose to discuss three issues that I consider relevant with respect to the conformation of ethnographic imagination in Peru: (i) the predominance of a dichotomous scheme for understanding Andean society, based on the distinction between literacy and orality; (ii) the nonexistence of peasant movements with an agenda of ethnical-political affirmation; and (iii) the scant attention paid to Amazonian groups as part of national society.