Voice and Nation in Plurinational Bolivia Aymara Radio and Song in an Age of Pachakuti
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Karl Swinehart is Associate Professor in the Department of Comparative Humanities at the University of Louisville, USA.[T]his is a unique and detailed piece of scholarship that presents a comprehensive view of Aymara cultural production at the end of the first decade of the 2000s. This book will be of interest to scholars of Latin America and in particular those interested in indigeneity, media, language, and the contradictory processes of nation-building.
Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology
Demonstrates how Aymara is a modern language in Bolivia, one that addresses very contemporary political and cultural challenges. Indigenous languages are in danger across the world but Voice and Nation shows how Aymara is vibrant, edgy, challenging, and socially and politically relevant in a modern world. - <i>Professor Andrew Canessa, University of Essex, UK. </i>
This book offers ethnographic accounts of Aymara language media activism in Bolivia during the presidency of Evo Morales (2006–2019). It draws on research conducted among Aymara language radio broadcasters, hip hop artists, and community members during a period of radical social change and Indigenous political resurgence (pachakuti) in South America’s most Indigenous republic.
The Plurinational Republic of Bolivia counts Aymara among its official languages, but Aymara’s social status and transmission to newer generations raise concerns about whether, despite being one of the most widely spoken Indigenous languages of the Americas, the threat of language obsolescence persists. This ethnographic account of Indigenous language activism shows how Aymara media and cultural workers combat this threat by making the language audible in diverse corners of Aymara life and examines the role Indigenous multilingualism plays in Bolivian politics. Through interviews and analysis of Aymara media texts, this study shows how language professionals determine how “the voice of the people” should sound. By introducing neologisms and archaicisms to avoid mixing Aymara with Spanish, Aymara language professionals disseminate a register of dehispanicized Aymara over the airwaves. The study reveals how these language professionals approach cultivating Aymara as more than a question of linguistic competence, but also of political commitment and anti-racist practice.
Organized into two sections, one on radio and one on song, and including clear explanations and illustrations of key concepts in linguistic anthropology, this book listens to Aymara language advocacy from devout Catholics, union militants, and hip hop artists and fans, who hear in their language both the past and the future of Bolivia’s Aymaras.
Offering ethnographic accounts of Aymara language media activism in Bolivia during the presidency of Evo Morales (2006-2019), this book wrestles with the paradoxes and possibilities for Indigenous language politics in South America’s most densely Indigenous republic.
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Transcription Conventions
1. Introduction
Part I: Radio
2. Redemption Radio: Dehispanicized Aymara at Radio San Gabriel
3. Ayllu on the Airwaves: Mediatized Metapragmatics at Radio Pacha Qamasa
Part II: Song
4. Tupak in their Veins: Race, Nation and Memory in Aymara Hip-hop
5. Singing the National Anthem in Jesus de Machaca
6. Conclusion
References
Index
Offering ethnographic accounts of Aymara language media activism in Bolivia during the presidency of Evo Morales (2006-2019), this book wrestles with the paradoxes and possibilities for Indigenous language politics in South America’s most densely Indigenous republic.
Presenting and exploring new and current approaches to discourse and culture, ‘Bloomsbury Studies in Linguistic Anthropology’ examines the most recent topics in this field. Publishing contemporary, cutting edge research, this series investigates social life through everyday discursive practices, making these practices visible and unveiling processes that would remain concealed without careful attention to discourse.
Titles focus on specific themes to advance the field both theoretically and methodologically, such as language contact dynamics, language revitalisation and reclamation, and language, migration and social justice. Positioning linguistic anthropology at the intersection with other fields, this series will cast light on various cultural settings across the globe by viewing important linguistic ethnographies through an anthropological lens. Standing at the frontier of this growing field, ‘Bloomsbury Studies in Linguistic Anthropology’ offers a balanced view of the current state of the discipline, as well as promoting and advancing exciting new directions for research.