Indigeneity and Writing: Rethinking Indigenismo in Early 20th Century Latin America

Presented by Jorge Coronado, Professor of Latin American and Andean Literatures, Co-Director, Andean Cultures & Histories at Northwestern University.

In this talk, Professor Coronado reconsiders the scholarly frameworks within which we locate indigenista literature, arguably the broadest literary movement in the Latin American 20th century. His goal in doing so is to understand a separate body of lettered practices whose origins cannot be accounted for without considering the role of indigenismo. These ‘other’ lettered practices are mostly, but not solely, created by indigenous peoples. As importantly, accounting for this body of literature involves articulating a notion of indigeneity that does not arise exclusively as an expression of an indigenous identity or culture, but rather as the product of collaborations and exchanges between indigenous and non-indigenous actors in a wide, or widened, discursive field.