Artsoundscapes Seminar | Esteban, M.: Sensorial affectation and agentic realism in Central Colombia скачать в хорошем качестве

Artsoundscapes Seminar | Esteban, M.: Sensorial affectation and agentic realism in Central Colombia

This video is a summary of a talk that was delivered within the Artsoundscapes Seminar Series at the Prehistory and Archaeology Section of the University of Barcelona, Spain, on 21 April 2020. ARTSOUNDSCAPES is an ERC Advanced Grant project (ID: 787842) led by Margarita Díaz-Andreu, ICREA Research Professor at the University of Barcelona, Spain. It deals with sound, rock art and sacred landscapes among past hunter-gatherers and early agricultural societies around the world. SPEAKER: Dr María Fernanda Esteban Palma, Santo Domingo Centre of Excellence for Latin American Research / Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas / British Museum, United Kingdom TOPIC: “IF YOU CAN SMELL IT, HEAR IT AND FEEL IT, THEN YOU ARE INDIGENOUS.” Sensorial affectation and agentic realism as applied to the analysis of indigenous formation processes in Central Colombia ABSTRACT: In Colombia, the constitutional reformation of 1991 embraced multiculturalism after nearly 200 years of imposing a unifying discourse of cultural mestizaje. This cultural unification facilitated the formation of Colombia as a modern nation state, but at the expense of the Andean indigenous population that survived the colonial period, as they had to abandon their cultural identity to be able to settle in urban spaces. Paradoxically, urban indigeneities are recognized since 1991, but the members of indigenous groups are expected to demonstrate cultural difference vis-a-vis the majoritarian population. As a result, many of the indigenous people who are currently rebuilding their culture have been accused of inauthenticity and instrumentalism. The Muisca people from Bogota, for example, have built their difference around a sense of spirituality which the non-indigenous majorities frame as ‘invented’. But despite that the narratives surrounding Muisca spirituality seem unsuitable to legitimate its incorporation, practice and authenticity, Muisca people keep participating in ceremonies in their sacred house, or cusmuy, a dark circular space partially illuminated by a central fire. I use Gilles Deleuze’s approach to affect theory to analyse the sensorial affectations taking place in the cusmuy. Also, I apply the principles of agentic realism to explore the role of affectation in the formation of the assemblages that shape Muisca social life. My aim is to present a decolonial alternative to the totalizing discourses of cultural authenticity, exposing the cusmuy as the sensorial space where the Muisca-self is strengthened at the personal level, and where the Muisca group micro-politics are structured. Artsoundscapes email: [email protected]. Read more about the project: www.ub.edu/artsoundscapes/. Like and follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/artsoundscapes/.