¿Un cine interrogante?: Film, hegemonic cultural discourse and visions of (making and remaking of) indigeneity

Session Submission Type: Panel

Abstract

This panel addresses Latin American film’s relationship with indigenous subjects and hegemonic cultural discourses of indigeneity. These debates about how indigenous communities do or do not fit into an Occidentalized, non-indigenous society are rooted in the European conquest and national-cultural projects by non-indigenous intellectuals and cultural and political elite (Manuel Gamio and José Vasconcelos in México, José Carlos Mariátegui in Perú, and Alcides Arguedas in Bolivia, for example). There is a wide range of films concerned with indigeneity and their perspectives are equally diverse, extending from nationalist films imbued with assimilationist discourses to decolonial documentaries concerned with self-representation. While studies on discreet film genres, corpuses and themes regarding indigenous communities do exist (Hershfield and Maciel, 1999; Schiwy, 2009; Taylor, 2009; Tompkins, 2018; Wood, 2018), much has yet to be said about how Latin American film has struggled historically—and continues to grapple—with hegemonic discourses about indigeneity. Both fiction and non-fiction films have troubled dominant discourses surrounding indigeneity and indigenous communities, pushing back against notions of indigenous peoples’ gender, participation in the workforce and/or capitalist society, and citizenship, among other ideologies. Drawing on film and media studies, decolonial studies, gender studies, history and cultural studies, this panel takes an interdisciplinary approach to discussing film that situates it squarely within the field of Latin American Studies.

Sub Track

• Film, Performance, and Culture

Session Organizer

• Julia Brown, University of California - Santa Barbara

Chair

• Julia Brown, University of California - Santa Barbara

Discussant

• Marie-Eve Monette, University of Alabama

Individual Presentations

• Confounding expectations? Indigenous filmmaking, language politics and the (re)constitution of Latin American Film - Charlotte E Gleghorn, University of Edinburgh

• The Colonization of Desire and Male Indigeneity in Mexican Cinema - Mónica García Blizzard, Emory University

• Refusing maternity and marginality in Julián Pastor’s "Los pequeños privilegios" (1978) - Julia Brown, University of California - Santa Barbara

• «Esas son leyendas». A Rhizome Approach to the Representation of Indigeneity in Guatemalan Cinema - Arno J Argueta, California State University, Bakersfield

• Maya Forest Gardens on Film: Competing Discourses of Indigeneity and Agroforestry - Analisa Taylor, University of Oregon