Transcultural Performance

Negotiating Globalized Indigenous Identities

Michele Back

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781349489572, 9781137412423
• eBook ISBN: 9781137412430
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Social Sciences

Featuring interviews, conversations and observations from a multi-sited ethnography of Ecuadorean musicians and their families, this book offers an innovative response to previous analyses of globalization and indigenous languages, demonstrating how transcultural practices can enhance the use and maintenance of indigenous and minority languages.

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Introduction: Globalization, indigenous languages, and the Runa Takiks

Rationale

In this book, I propose an intersection, and perhaps even a compromise, between discussions on indigenous language maintenance and the so-called ‘threat’ of globalization. Today, increasing linguistic and cultural contact as a result of travel, migration, and other transnational flows has become the rule rather than the exception. Although some would argue that globalization has existed for as long as human civilization, the increasing role of technology, along with more affordable travel, has accelerated the contact between cultures exponentially. Even as many scholars cry impending doom for indigenous languages as a result of this increased contact, their words are often ignored as the speakers of these languages attempt to negotiate new roles for themselves in globalized contexts.

Rather than turning up the volume on the doomsayers, I offer a closer look into these negotiations and how they could contribute to conversations on language maintenance in the face of globalization. I take the particular case of members of a multilingual Ecuadorian indigenous community well known for their transnational activities and examine how their interactions have opened up new spaces from which to negotiate their roles as globalized citizens. At home and abroad, these individuals work simultaneously with conflicting notions of what it means to be indigenous transnationals, assuming some roles while actively resisting and recreating others. For many of them, the question is not so much whether or not their native language and culture can be maintained, but the roles that language and culture will play in the ever-changing spaces and contexts of their lives. Like many transcultural situations, these individuals’ desires for maintaining ‘authentic’ aspects of their language and culture are often uncomfortably juxtaposed against the practical aspects of their daily interactions. It is precisely how they navigate this juxtaposition that interests me and which could contribute a rich perspective to the debates surrounding language, culture, and globalization.

The objectives of this first chapter are threefold: to give an overview of the community under study; to define a few key terms; and, of course, to lay the groundwork for the chapters to come. In offering an introduction to these individuals, I hope to underscore the particularities of this ethnic group so that readers might make informed comparisons to other cases of indigenous language maintenance. Moreover, this book is first and foremost about them, and the details below both paint a clearer picture of this group and highlight my desire to take a participant-relevant perspective on the analyses in subsequent chapters. Second, many of the terms I use are either unfamiliar or have multiple definitions in the field of applied linguistics; thus my goal is to illustrate specifically how these terms are used in this book. Finally, this book combines theory, previous literature, and analyses of new data, frequently in the same chapter, and it is important for me to outline a clear path in order to illustrate how these areas interrelate.

It is my hope that this book will be a catalyst for further discussions on language maintenance and globalization by taking a descriptive, rather than prescriptive, approach to these issues. In examining the what and how of transcultural interactions among these individuals, we can move closer to practical, realistic solutions to the particular challenges of indigenous language maintenance in globalized contexts.

The Runa Takiks and the Otavalos: A brief history

The data for this book come from a multi-sited ethnography spanning seven years and two continents. The participants are members of an Andean folkloric music band and their wives, mothers, and children. The pseudonym for the band—‘Runa Takiks’—is a hybrid of the group’s primary languages, Quichua and Spanish, and means ‘people who play music’. This name is not only used for the sake of confidentiality, but also indexes the translingual nature of the band’s interactions. Moreover, it reflects the group’s actual name, which contains a similar blend of Quichua and Spanish morphology.¹

The Runa Takiks belong to an indigenous ethnic group known as the Otavalos. The main indigenous group in Imbabura, a province in Northern Ecuador, the Otavalos are well known for their extensive transnational activities. Thousands of Otavalos reside around the world in ‘every continent except Antarctica’ (Meisch 2002, p. 1). Although many Otavalos have taken up permanent residence in other countries, the vast majority return home annually to the city of Otavalo or surrounding towns, such as Peguche or Agato, after six to nine months of working abroad. This return is an integral part of local and community practices, as portrayed in Wibbelsman (2009).

The Otavalos are traditionally known as weavers of traditional handicrafts, but in recent decades playing Andean folkloric music has complemented and even overtaken the selling of these handicrafts. Having already engaged in extensive transnational activity as early as the 19th century, principally in the area of weaving, the Otavalos began to export Andean folk music worldwide in the late 20th century. Originally, as noted by Hill (2006), ‘mestizo [mixed-race indigenous and white] musicians appropriated indigenous music for political purposes and were the first to transfer it from its original contexts to staged performances and recordings’, most notably in the socialist Nueva Canción [New Song] movement in Chile and other parts of Latin America in the 1960s and 1970s (p. 9). In the 1970s, however, indigenous Ecuadorian groups such as El Conjunto Peguche, Runallacta, Ñucanchi Ñan, and Ñanda Mañachi began to pave the way for other Otavalo musicians to play and sell cassettes and, later, CDs abroad. The phenomenon ‘exploded in the 1990s into what locals call a “travel craze” or “sickness”’ and continues to this day (Hill 2006, p. 9). Indeed, Kyle (2000) wrote, ‘making music abroad, and all of the adventure that goes with it [. . .] has alsobecome a rite of passage for Otavalan men’ (p. 142).

One of the possible reasons for this travel craze is that music making is perceived as easier to learn, at least compared to weaving, and much more lucrative. Moreover, the cultural conception of music making among Otavalos is that ‘playing an instrument, singing, and dancing are considered abilities that everyone possesses’ (Meisch 2002, p. 132). It is this belief that may have led to the informal nature of Otavalo musical training: hardly any of my informants had ever taken formal music courses. Their training, similar to what Kyle (2000) noted, was ‘a combination of trial and error, hiring or cajoling an older “master” as teacher, and frequenting the peña [folk music] bars in Otavalo, where folkloric Andean music is played by Otavalans’ (p. 169). While in Otavalo, I noted a plethora of these peña bars, as well as musical instrument stores selling ‘teach yourself’ pamphlets and CDs for a variety of instruments—but no formal music training institutes. Through the apprenticeship efforts described by Kyle, my informants learned how to play and refine their preferences for string (guitar, charango [small guitar, a sort of middle instrument between a mandolin and a ukulele], mandolin, violin, and/or bass) or wind instruments (usually variations of the sikus [pan pipes] and quena [notched flute]), rarely deviating from these preferences. A band member was generally hired to play a particular type of instrument, either wind or string; one conflict that arose in the Runa Takiks during the year I was observing concerned a band member who had supposedly been hired to play wind instruments but insisted on playing rhythm guitar.

Figure 1.1 Some of the Runa Takiks at work in 2014. Instruments include guitar (electric and acoustic), electric bass, sikus, and charango.

In the past decade, however, the demand for Andean music abroad has faded considerably, especially in Europe and larger cities in the United States. Meisch (2002) stated that as early as 1995, a decline of interest in Andean music was caused by market saturation, combined with a reduction in the quality of music. José Luis Pichamba, formerly of the group Ñanda Mañachi, agreed in 2007 that the quality of recent transnational Andean music left much to be desired:

Ashtaka llaki kay otavalo llaktapipish tiyanchik shinagrupokunawan, mana pensarini músicokuna, [. . .] lo que quieran ña.

It’s very sad here in Otavalo. Groups like that, I don’t think they’re musicians. [They just play] whatever they want, you know?² (Interview 14 August 2007)

Both Meisch (2002) and Pichamba also mentioned illegal recordings and overall disrespect for intellectual property as one of the negative byproducts of the transnational Andean music boom. Pichamba explained:

Tunukunata na respetuta charinchik nachu, chaykuna sucidinajunchik asha kay otavalo llaktapi nachu? Na siquiera tapunkapak shamun, paykunaka takishpa, autorización [. . .] nima nachu, paykuna graban, y, chayka, a lo final paykuna creaciónpi llukshin entonces chaykunapi, respeto illan nachu?

We [musicians] don’t have any respect for songs. That has been happening with us a lot in Otavalo, you know? They don’t even come to ask [permission to record a song], they play it, without [. . .] any authorization, they record it, and there it is, at the end it comes out as their own creation. So that shows a lack of respect, right? (Interview 14 August 2007)

The economic effect of the end of the Andean folkloric music boom is visible, sometimes painfully so, among the Runa Takiks; many of the band members frequently complained about how much less money they were making compared to previous years. One participant told me that at many events the band was ‘tocando para nadie’ [playing for nobody]. In 2012, this decline caused a significant reduction in the number of Runa Takiks working in the Pacific Northwest, resulting in only seven members making the trip up north during the high season, compared to 13 the previous year. However, the business was still lucrative enough to attract new prospects every year. Conversations with some of my informants also indicated that other markets, such as those in East Asia, have been much more profitable, with some musicians bringing home as much as $10,000 after six months in places like Japan or Korea—a significant sum in rural Ecuador. However, this profit often comes with travel restrictions similar to indentured servitude, with issues such as confiscated passports and high fees making work difficult for musicians choosing to travel to these areas. The language barrier in these countries can also be quite isolating for the musicians, who often prefer the United States and Europe due to the increasing presence of Spanish-speaking communities.

I discuss the history and perceptions of the Otavalos as an ethnic group in more detail in Chapter 6. For the purposes of this introduction, however, it is important to further explore how Otavalo musicians have been so successful in their transnational activities. Kyle (2000) noted that the Otavalos ‘traditionally use their centuries-old positive identity to help gain resources from a wide variety of external people and agencies’ (p. 196). This includes the procurement of tourist and work visas, which has been a relatively easy process for many Otavalos compared to other Ecuadorians (personal correspondence with Gilbert Zambrano, Consul General of Ecuador in Los Angeles 2006). The Runa Takiks were no exception; the leader of the group, Marco, was a US citizen and arranged work visas successfully for his group every year. This legal status allowed the Runa Takiks to work openly in the public spheres of farmers’ markets, shopping malls, and plazas, granting them a greater access and exposure to linguistic and cultural contact than those migrants living more in the shadows of the communities in which they work. At the same time, legal status granted the Runa Takiks a space to openly perform and negotiate their identities with interlocutors from various cultures and backgrounds.

The travel season for the Runa Takiks is April to October, which they spend in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, playing at festivals, fairs, and other seasonal events. During the months of November through March, most of the Runa Takiks live in or near the city of Otavalo. For reasons such as work visa issues and group dynamics, the members of the band can change from year to year, although there are a few core members. During 2007, the year that I first worked with the Runa Takiks, the group was composed equally of returnees and newcomers, for a total of 13 members. Nine of these members are the focus of this book, along with their families.

Many of the Runa Takiks are members of the bandleader Marco’s extended family (see Appendix 1 for a map of participants, relationships, and provenance). As is typical of most Otavalo bands, the Runa Takiks is made up exclusively of male members, with the wives and mothers remaining in Ecuador during the travel season. These women run their own sewing and weaving businesses from their homes. They also engage in other forms of commerce as the opportunity arises; for example, Marco’s mother, sisters, and nephew work together running a small weekend restaurant in Peguche, a town 15 minutes away by bus from Otavalo.

The Runa Takiks make their living by playing music and selling their CDs, as well as handicrafts made ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• 1  Introduction: Globalization, indigenous languages, and the Runa Takiks
• 2  Globalized or glocalized? Transnational or transcultural? Defining language practices in global spaces
• 3  Theorizing transcultural language practices
• 4  Gender and beliefs about language
• 5  Transcultural performances of gender
• 6  Transcultural performances of ethnicity
• 7  Transcultural performance and legitimacy: Seven years later
• 8  Conclusions and implications for indigenous and minority languages
• Notes
• Appendix 1: Participants and family relationship, by provenance
• Appendix 2: Transcription conventions used in Chapters 5 to 7
• Bibliography
• Index