Show/hide contentOpenClose All
Curricular information is subject to change
- 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
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 Type | Hours |
---|---|
Lectures | 24 |
Specified Learning Activities | 34 |
Autonomous Student Learning | 52 |
Total | 110 |
Not applicable to this module.
Description | Timing | Component Scale | % 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 |
Resit In | Terminal Exam |
---|---|
Spring | No |
• Feedback individually to students, on an activity or draft prior to summative assessment
• Feedback individually to students, post-assessment
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.
Name | Role |
---|---|
Dr Richard Huddleson | Lecturer / Co-Lecturer |