Regarding the debates about cultural performativity, this paper analyze the power of the cinematographic image for producing guided social subjects and insubordinate political agencies. By analyzing Ecuadorian indigenist documentaries, the impasse of nationalist discourse sustained by mestizo intellectuals until the 80s is raised. Taking as case of studies Chimborazo. Testimonio campesino de los andes ecuatorianos (1979) by Fredy Elhers and Los Hieleros del Chimborazo (1980) by Gustavo Guayasamín, two paradigmatic documentaries of the period, this study aims to outline the social and political contradictions within the filmic text. The essay attempts to confront the denunciation proposed by documentaries tutor text with the claims of Indians that can be heard in the interstices of the account. By means of this confrontation, the essay tries to reveal the ambivalence of the indigenist discourse.
Poscolonial criticism, cinematographic performativity and indigenous resistance. Notes for an analysis of the crisis of the indigenist documentary in Ecuador.
Abstract in spanish
Keywords: Cinema,Documentary,indigenism,performativity,poscolonialism.
Author: Christian León. Licenciado en Sociología por la Universidad Central del Ecuador (UCE), Magíster en Estudios de la Cultura por Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar y doctorando en Ciencias Sociales por la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA).
E-mail: c1leon@yahoo.com
Received: June 23th, 2007,
Accepted: August 06th, 2007
Revista Chilena de Antropología Visual - número 10 - Santiago, diciembre 2007 - 85/108 pp.- ISSN 0718-876x. Rev. chil. antropol. vis.