Latin American Indigeneities: Resistance, Resilience, Renewal

Catalog description

This course focuses on what is today Latin America and provides an overview of Indigenous communities prior to the 16th century Spanish Conquest. It then analyzes colonization and its effects as well as the impacts stemming from 19th century French and British imperialisms and from 20th century relations with the USA. Latin American nation-state formation and the institutionalization of racial hierarchies will be analyzed, as well as the rise of indigenous resistance movements historically and in the present. The course will focus on the region's most notable indigenous social movements, highlighting their enduring impact not only on the political sphere but also on cultural values, in particular those relating to environmental justice. To cover this content the course is organized in five overarching themes: 1) Prehispanic Societies and Cultures; 2) Conquest and Colonization; 3) Nation States and Indigenous Peoples 4) Resistance, Resilience and Renewal; 5) Indigenous Knowledge, Cosmopolitics and Academia. We will critically discuss and assess what scholars from the disciplines of History and Anthropology as well as other fields of knowledge have written about these matters. There will be a special focus on voices from the South which means engaging with knowledge produced by Latin American scholars as well as indigenous intellectuals and activists. Thus, the analysis of conventional academic texts will be accompanied by viewing and commenting on an array of media (ranging from film to social media).