Constitutive Visions: Indigeneity, Visual Culture, and the Rhetorics of Ecuadorian National Identity

Abstract

Chapter four, "Performing Indigeneity," considers how indigeneity itself serves as a powerful topos in the constitution of Ecuadorian national publics. The chapter pays particular attention to an increasing emphasis on indigeneity as a corporeal matter over the course of the twentieth century. The chapter uses petitions, "customs and habits" paintings, newspaper articles, and photographs to argue that indigeneity has served as an embodiable topos for establishing legitimacy and authenticity in political contexts. It traces how non-indigenous actors have taken on a performed indigenous subjectivity in their efforts to establish a claim to social place even while marginalizing actual indigenous participation. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).