SPAN20270 Indigeneity in Latin America

Academic Year 2022/2023

In this module, students are introduced to the topic of indigeneity in Latin America and the many
issues. The constant question that runs through this module is: What does it mean to be
‘Indigenous’?

By looking at a wide range of topics, students will obtain an interdisciplinary understanding of
how indigeneity is imagined and defined, policed and brutalised, accepted and challenged. To
flesh out our understandings of indigeneity, we will explore a vast range of sources, including
food, theatre, film, media, fashion, the internet, legal instruments, poverty and economics,
advertisements, outbursts of violence and ongoing conflict, language politics, and the outcomes
of genocide. We will engage in questions of race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, nation and
belonging, sustainability and consumerism, neoliberalism and the politics of dispossession. We
will also look at the topic of language shift towards Spanish, and how indigenous communities
are reacting to this language emergency.

Our main focus will be Indigenous identities in Central and Southern America, but students will
also look at cases from North America, as well as Guanche identity in the Canary Islands.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

- Understand, explain, and identify issues and factors at play in indigenous contexts within
Latin America
- Be aware of the past, current, and future problems that indigenous peoples face, whilst
also recognising ways of resisting colonialism and dispossession
- Deploy an array of theoretical tools and analyses to understand the ever-changing topic of
indigeneity within Latin America
- Gain confidence in engaging with topics of indigeneity within a Latin American context
- Develop an individual approach to the topic of indigeneity through self-guided learning

Indicative Module Content:

Week by week content:

Week 1: Indigenous Histories before, during, and after 1492

We will begin by exploring the two stages that make up the conquest of the Canary Islands,
focusing on factors that set in motion what would later be understood as expansive colonialism
and genocide. From there, we will begin to chart out the evolution of ideologies of conquest.
This start will help us frame the further refinement of colonisation processes in the Americas
from first encounter to total subjugation.
We will look at several major indigenous civilisations (the Aztec/Triple Alliance, Tlaxcala, the
Post-Classical Maya, the Inca Empire) that were dominant in Central and Southern America
when the European powers first arrived, as well as the key indigenous figures who represent the
different agendas and tensions within each civilisation. Using our knowledge on colonial
processes, we will look at how each of these civilisations were seen by the Spaniards and how
Europeans went about destroying these civilisations.
Students may wish to read the digital comic book series, ‘Aztec Empire’, to learn more about the
Aztec / Nahua Triple Alliance and its first contact with the Spaniards:
https://www.bigredhair.com/books/aztec-empire/about/
Transnational Perspectives on the Conquest and Colonization of Latin America (2019)
Spanish Colonization to 1650: Oxford Biblographies

Week 2: Indigenous Resistance and Compliance

This week will be focusing on indigenous resistance movements and indigenous individuals who
rose up against the European colonial powers. Turning our attention to textual resistance, we will
also look at indigenous individuals, such as Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (1535-1616) and
Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539-1616), both of whom played defining roles in documenting
European colonisation and its brutal nature.

Weeks 3 and 4: Indigeneity and Theory

To enable a better understanding of indigeneity, we need to look at the theories that help us
understand the actions of indigenous people and how they (de)construct, articulate, and perform
their identities. Worldmaking, the theory that turns its attention to how human actions create
‘worlds’ (in all senses: physical, imaginative, literary, social ,linguistic .etc.), will serve as a vital
tool for analysing the work of contemporary indigenous directors, performers, writers, politicians
and more. We will then move on to frame worldmaking as a restorative practice by looking at the
Said’s Politics of Dispossession and how indigenous communities can survive by re-imaginging
their worlds.

Bhabha’s concept of the ‘Third Space’ will equip students with the necessary tools to consider
and map out hybrid identities in the Americas that have come into being through contact between
European and Indigenous peoples. This will be supplemented with more contemporary
reflections on mixed race identity in North America. The Third Space carries with it a confusing
cocktail of politics and narratives, and we will try to unravel some of these complications by
linking it back to other theoretical contributions.
Goodman (1978) - Ways of Worldmaking
Saïd (1994) - The Politics of Dispossession
Engeström (2001) - All worlds come from previous worlds
Homi Bhabha (2004) - Third Space
Teresia Teiewa (2014) - The Ancestors we get to choose: White influences I won’t deny
Atwood (2014) - the concept of Ustopia
Syncretism
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/14/margaret-atwood-road-to-ustopia
https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/vlambropoulos/wp-
content/uploads/sites/718/2019/05/lambropoulos_2001_syncretism-as-mixture-and-as-
method.pdf

Weeks 5: Indigeneity on Stage: Storytelling, Theatre, and Performance

These two weeks will be dedicated to exploring the potential of the theatre and performance for
telling the stories of indigenous groups. We will focus on histories of dispossession, outcast
identities, linguicide, and cultural affirmation.
We will consider the following:
Adios, Ayacucho (1990)
Pedro Lemebel, Performance, and the HIV/AIDS crisis in Chile
El lenguaje de las Sirenas (2012), by Mariana de Althaus (Perú), and its English-language
translation (2018) by Mary Ann Vargas.
Ka kiñe, ka kiñe (2018) by Teatro a lo Mapuche
https://www.centrocultural.coop/revista/2/teatro-mapuche-notas-sobre-una-teatralidad-invisible

Week 6: Indigeneity on Screen: Authenticity, Problems, and Tired Tropes
This week will be looking at Mexican indigeneities on screen, paying attention to their portrayal,
evolution, and reception. The main films of our investigation include: The Other Conquest
(2000); Apocalypto (2007); Silvestre Pantaleón (2012); I Dream in Another Language (2017);
Lupita (2020).

Students will be divided into groups to focus on one of these films and will be expected to report
back to the group on their findings.

Week 7: Food and Indigeneity
By addressing the issues of food and eating in the Americas, this section of the course considers
the ways in which food habits change through colonisation and reflects on how social and
cultural identities are formed around food, whilst also considering the contemporary health risks
that indigenous people are faced with as their food choices change because of a complex system
of interlocking oppressions. Whilst considering food as way of storytelling and identity
formation, we will also explore the newly-minted concept of ‘Gastrocolonialism’ and how it
commercialises indigenous identities.
Going Native? Settler Colonialism and Food (2022)
Lisa Markowitz, Spanish Settlers and Andean Food Systems
Lorenzo Veracini, The Predicaments of Settler Gastrocolonialism
Que vivan los tamales! Food and the Making of Mexican Identity (1998)
Elizabeth Morán, Sacred Consumption: Food and Ritual in Aztec Art and Culture (2016)
Mexican-Origin Foods, Foodways and Social Movements: Decolonial Perspectives (2017)
Christine Hastorf, The Social Archaeology of Food: Thinking about Eating from Prehistory to
Present (2017)

Week 8: Reading Week
Students will be allowed to use this time to focus on Assessment Task One: Cultural Artefact
Analysis and Criticism, which counts towards 40% of the module marks.
Students should also use this time to reflect on the material covered so far in the course and make
sure they use the time to further develop their Reflective Learning Journal, which counts for
60% of the module marks.

Week 9: Indigeneity, Gender, and Sexuality
Kinship is a key part to understanding any identity, and indigenous societies are often built
around systems and understandings that differ greatly from Western ones. This week will be
focused on gender and sexuality and their relationship with indigeneity.
We will consider matriarchal and matrifocal societies across Latin America, their ongoing
challenges to be accepted within the modern Latin America state, and the realities of gender-
based violence and the forced disappearance of indigenous women. We will also look at the third
gender identity that exists in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the Muxhe, and we will consider some
of the cultural artefacts that are used by this group to identify themselves.
Laura Rival, L (1998). Androgynous Parents and Guest Children: The Huaorani Couvade. The
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4(4): 619-642:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3034825#metadata_info_tab_contents

Week 10: Contemporary Indigeneity and the Latin American State

During this session, we will look at how indigenous peoples interact with the contemporary
states in Latin America, moving from a macro perspective to specific case studies from Bolivia
and Chile. Historically-speaking, the State and its supporters (the self defined ‘gente de razón’)
have often seen indigenous peoples as backwards, a problem, or as eye candy for luring in tourist
money. This leads to various struggles for land, resources, and the recognition of various rights,
and from the tension therein is the potential for violence.
We will also look at the complex issues surrounding uncontacted indigenous peoples (sometimes
misleadingly labelled as ‘lost tribes’), and the development of different legal instruments that
should protect them from harm and abuse.
Recommended reading:
Santo Luzbel (1996) trailer: https://youtu.be/Mi2Jrievn1I
UN draft guidelines for the Protection of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation (2009):
https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/659795
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights - Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and
Initial Contact in the Americas (2013): http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/indigenous/docs/pdf/report-
indigenous-peoples-voluntary-isolation.pdf
Canessa, A. (2014). Conflict, claim and contradiction in the new ‘indigenous’ state of Bolivia.
Critique of Anthropology 34(2): 153–173.
Gardner J.A., and Richards P. (2019). Indigenous Rights and Neoliberalism in Latin America. In:
Ratuva S. (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.
Loncon, E. (2020): La coexistencia entre Chilenos y Mapuche. Chile, Estado plurinacional e
intercultural. ARQ (Santiago), (106), pp. 150-152

Week 11: Indigeneity and Borders

Focusing on ghosts of the past and borders, we will turn our attention to Luis Edoardo Torres’
award-winning play ‘En la margen del río’ (the translation, ‘On the Edge’, by Stephen Brown

will also be made available to students), which was featured at DramaFest Mexico in 2016. This
hard-hitting play focuses on various issues along Mexico’s borderlands, all of which are relevant
to life there: Environmental change; Disappearances/Murder; and the so-called War on Drugs. It
shows how borders create both opportunities and perils for those who suddenly find themselves
living alongside them.
Content warning: The play discusses forced disappearances, murder, rape, sexual violence, child
sexual exploitation, suicide, and bodily harm.
This week will reinforce what we have already covered with regard to indigenous performance,
but will bring that knowledge into dialogue with borders (real and imaginary) that govern life
and death. We will also see how aspects of indigenous and mestizo culture come together in the
literary form to create meaning and poetic landscapes.
Students may want to consider how urban spaces, such as cities in the neoliberal State, contribute
to the ongoing dispossession and colonisation of indigenous peoples.
https://memoria.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/art_revistas/pr.7286/pr.7286.pdf

Week 12: Re-imagining, re-claiming, and restoring Indigeneity

Our inquiry starts with an Olmec basalt statue, the Wrestler, which was unearthed in 1933 in
Veracruz. This statue would trigger many great discussions as it was compared almost
immediately to the sculpture of Classical Greece, thus raising the profile of indigenous art in the
Americas. However, many critics doubted the statue’s authenticity, pointing out that it does not
seem to follow the established norms of Olmec art. We will ask the following questions: What
does it mean to compare a civilization from Central America with the Classical civilisations of
Europe? And, what ideologies lurk therein?
From there, looking at digital futurities, we will turn our attention to the indigenous worlds
presented through video-games and online worlds.
https://elcomercio.pe/tecnologia/videojuegos/videojuegos-inteligencia-artificial-bolivia-ia-
prison-x-el-videojuego-de-realidad-virtual-desarrollado-por-mujeres-indigenas-espana-mexico-
usa-noticia/
http://museodeljuego.org/colección/v%C3%ADdeos/jogos-mundiais-do-povos-indigenas/
https://newsweekespanol.com/2021/08/videojuego-conquista-mexico-triunfo-indigenas/
https://blogs.iadb.org/igualdad/es/los-pueblos-indigenas-la-ciencia-y-tecnologia/

Student Effort Hours: 
Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

24

Specified Learning Activities

34

Autonomous Student Learning

52

Total

110

Approaches to Teaching and Learning:
This module is built around enquiry-based learning and each week will start with a particular
case study to bring students to the heart of the debate.
Students are expected and encouraged to go beyond the materials covered in the course. This is
in order to establish new connections with materials that students find interesting and matters
that they are concerned about e.g. habitat loss, digital futures, linguicide .etc. This self-guided
learning is part of the assessment, and will be demonstrated through the learning journal, which
accounts for 60% of the module marks.
Given the limited availability of the texts needed for this course, Dr Riocárd Ó hOddail / Richard
Huddleson will provide students will the relevant materials in advance of each topic. The texts
indicated in this document are simply a starting point or a reference for students to consult as
they begin to prepare their reflective learning journal. 
Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Journal: Continuous assessment: During the course of the module, students will write short entries wkly on their reading and learning. Will be assessed on: Content, Engagement with Texts & Devpt of thought. Throughout the Trimester n/a Standard conversion grade scale 40% No

60

Assignment: Cultural Artefact Analysis and Criticism: Students select an indigenous cultural artefact (a statue, a
funerary mask, or piece of jewellery etc)
500 words (description) and 500-1000 words (context)
Unspecified n/a Standard conversion grade scale 40% No

40


Carry forward of passed components
Yes
 
Resit In Terminal Exam
Spring No
Please see Student Jargon Buster for more information about remediation types and timing. 
Feedback Strategy/Strategies

• Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment

How will my Feedback be Delivered?

Further information on all of the assessment strategies, alongside examples of how to structure the journal, will be given in the first few weeks of class. Students will be given individual feedback in writing for both of these assessments. Feedback will be provided within three weeks of submission. Taking into consideration the ongoing reality of Coronavirus and its winter surge, students who prefer to complete the Cultural Artefact Analysis and Criticism component by submitting a pre-recorded video, text document, or soundbite are welcome to do so. Otherwise, students will be contacted about giving a presentation in the final weeks of term.

1) ‘Aztec Empire’, to learn more about the
Aztec / Nahua Triple Alliance and its first contact with the Spaniards:
https://www.bigredhair.com/books/aztec-empire/about/

2) Transnational Perspectives on the Conquest and Colonization of Latin America (2019)
Spanish Colonization to 1650: Oxford Biblographies

3) Goodman (1978) - Ways of Worldmaking

4) Saïd (1994) - The Politics of Dispossession

5) Engeström (2001) - All worlds come from previous worlds

6) Homi Bhabha (2004) - Third Space

7) Teresia Teiewa (2014) - The Ancestors we get to choose: White influences I won’t deny

8) Atwood (2014) - the concept of Ustopia

9) Lisa Markowitz, Spanish Settlers and Andean Food Systems

10) Lorenzo Veracini, The Predicaments of Settler Gastrocolonialism

11) Que vivan los tamales! Food and the Making of Mexican Identity (1998)

12) Elizabeth Morán, Sacred Consumption: Food and Ritual in Aztec Art and Culture (2016)

13) Mexican-Origin Foods, Foodways and Social Movements: Decolonial Perspectives (2017)

14) Christine Hastorf, The Social Archaeology of Food: Thinking about Eating from Prehistory to
Present (2017)

15) Laura Rival, L (1998). Androgynous Parents and Guest Children: The Huaorani Couvade. The
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 4(4): 619-642:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3034825#metadata_info_tab_contents

Films: Adios, Ayacucho (1990); El lenguaje de las Sirenas (2012), by Mariana de Althaus (Perú), and its English-language
translation (2018) by Mary Ann Vargas; The Other Conquest (2000); Apocalypto (2007); Silvestre Pantaleón (2012); I Dream in Another Language (2017); Lupita (2020).

Theatre: Ka kiñe, ka kiñe (2018) by Teatro a lo Mapuche; https://www.centrocultural.coop/revista/2/teatro-mapuche-notas-sobre-una-teatralidad-invisible

Santo Luzbel (1996) trailer: https://youtu.be/Mi2Jrievn1I

UN draft guidelines for the Protection of Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation (2009):
https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/659795

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights - Indigenous Peoples in Voluntary Isolation and
Initial Contact in the Americas (2013): http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/indigenous/docs/pdf/report-
indigenous-peoples-voluntary-isolation.pdf

Canessa, A. (2014). Conflict, claim and contradiction in the new ‘indigenous’ state of Bolivia.
Critique of Anthropology 34(2): 153–173.

Gardner J.A., and Richards P. (2019). Indigenous Rights and Neoliberalism in Latin America. In:
Ratuva S. (ed.), The Palgrave Handbook of Ethnicity. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore.

Loncon, E. (2020): La coexistencia entre Chilenos y Mapuche. Chile, Estado plurinacional e
intercultural. ARQ (Santiago), (106), pp. 150-152

Indigeneity through video games and online worlds:

https://elcomercio.pe/tecnologia/videojuegos/videojuegos-inteligencia-artificial-bolivia-ia-
prison-x-el-videojuego-de-realidad-virtual-desarrollado-por-mujeres-indigenas-espana-mexico-
usa-noticia/

http://museodeljuego.org/colección/v%C3%ADdeos/jogos-mundiais-do-povos-indigenas/

https://newsweekespanol.com/2021/08/videojuego-conquista-mexico-triunfo-indigenas/

https://blogs.iadb.org/igualdad/es/los-pueblos-indigenas-la-ciencia-y-tecnologia/

Name Role
Dr Richard Huddleson Lecturer / Co-Lecturer