Politics of Cultural Representation Afro-Ecuadorian Narratives in a Plurinational Framework

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Abstract/Contents

Abstract: The thesis presents a historical as well as theoretical analysis of what Afro-Ecuadorian identity is—that is not a set of innate characteristics but rather actively constructed representations, in this case created by artists and musicians in relationship to their personal lives as well as the active discourse of their positions and shared experiences in relationship to broader Ecuadorian society. Furthermore, I suggest that Afro-Esmeraldeñan artists, particularly musicians and dancers, are an important part of the creation of cultural representations that travel and are shared with people across different spaces. As one artist elaborates, they are the ‘material authors’ of their identity and without their work, their expressions and the knowledge communicated through them would not exist—whether that be an explicit politics of resistance or a choreography that has been danced a million times that tells an ‘ancestral story’ (Interview, July 18, 2014). Marimba as a form of musical expression and dance to the rhythm of marimba cannot be dismissed as merely superficial understandings of ‘a people’ or merely a stereotype, but as a space in which a broad range of people interact, interpret and create meaning about their own identities and what it means for them in relationship to ‘Afro-Ecuadorian’ identity.

Type of resource	text
Date created	May 2015

Author	Hale, Andrea
Advisor	Thiranagama, Sharika
Degree granting institution	Stanford University, Department of Anthropology

Subject	Ecuador - Social life and customs
Subject	race
Subject	performance
Subject	Esmeraldeñan culture
Subject	cultural representation
Subject	ethnicity
Subject	marimba
Subject	Afro-Ecuadorian identity
Subject	Stanford University Department of Anthropology
Genre	Thesis

Location	https://purl.stanford.edu/qz826pn3100

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License: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC-ND).

Preferred Citation: Hale, Andrea. (2015). Politics of Cultural Representation Afro-Ecuadorian Narratives in a Plurinational Framework. Stanford Digital Repository. Honors Thesis. Stanford University Department of Anthropology. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/qz826pn3100

Undergraduate Research Papers, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University.

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