Remaking Kichwa: Language and Indigenous Pluralism in Amazonian Ecuador

Description

Investigating the efforts of the Kichwa of Tena, Ecuador to reverse language shift to Spanish, this book examines the ways in which indigenous language can be revitalized and how creative bilingual forms of discourse can reshape the identities and futures of local populations. Based on deep ethnographic fieldwork among urban, periurban, and rural indigenous Kichwa communities, Michael Wroblewski explores adaptations to culture contact, language revitalization, and political mobilization through discourse. Expanding the ethnographic picture of native Amazonians and their traditional discourse practices, this book focuses attention on Kichwas’ diverse engagements with rural and urban ways of living, local and global ways of speaking, and indigenous and dominant intellectual traditions. Wroblewski reveals the composite nature of indigenous words and worlds through conversational interviews, oral history narratives, political speechmaking, and urban performance media, showing how discourse is a critical focal point for studying cultural adaptation. Highlighting how Kichwas assert autonomy through creative forms of self-representation, Remaking Kichwa moves the study of indigenous language into the globalized era and offers innovative reconsiderations of indigeneity, discourse, and identity. Cover Half Title Series Title Copyrights Content List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Notes on Orthography and Transcription Introduction: Language, Indigeneity, and Pluralism in Amazonian Ecuador 1 The Tena Kichwa Sociolinguistic World 2 Language Revitalization, Nation-Building, and Code Choice 3 Bilingualism, Racialization, and “Poorly Spoken Spanish 4 Intercultural Memories: Ritual Activism in Discourses of the Past 5 Intercultural Futures: Urban Media and the Predicaments of Translation Conclusion: Discourse and the Remaking of Indigeneity in Amazonia Notes References Index