Download IDENTITY, AUTHENTICITY AND EXPERTISE

IDENTITY, AUTHENTICITY
AND EXPERTISE
Quechua literacy regimes in the Peruvian Andes
Prof. Virginia Zavala
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Based on ethnographic research about a language regime
favoring Quechua in Apurímac in the southern Peruvian Andes,
this paper will address the disconnect between how the region
is being imagined as a community of apurimeños at the level
of official documents and how power relationships emerge
when social actors interpret them. In this talk, I will analyze
the way Quechua literacy is implicated in the construction of
hierarchical relationships and in the formation of exclusive
identities and subjectivities within the Quechua-speaking
population itself. Using a social practice perspective of literacy,
the field of language ideologies, and a view of bilingualism (and
biliteracy) as ideology and practice, I will analyze three tactics
of intersubjectivity (Bucholtz 2003) or three different types
of identity work done by a community of practice of Quechua
“experts”. First, they construct an ethnic division within the
region based on relations of similarity and difference and they
extrapolate this to a distinction made between two types of
Quechua alphabets. Second, they construct their authority based
on their “grammaticalized” expertise with Quechua writing in
order to differentiate themselves from other Quechua speakers.
And third, they construct Quechua literacy as an ancestral
emblem of identity, through which people can “remember”
endangered cultural practices, a tactic that also excludes the
“impure” and more urbanized Quechua speaking people and
positions the rural speaker as the authentic and genuine.
Professor Virginia Zavala, received her Ph.D. from Georgetown
University and works as Professor of Linguistics and Director
of the MA program in the Departamento de Humanidades, of
the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. She has published
several books on multilingual literacies, education and discourse
analysis including:
• 2014 Qichwasimirayku: Batallas de una política lingüística.
Lima: Fondo Editorial de la PUCP.
• 2014 Dilemas educativos ante la diversidad (with Lucy
Trapnell). Volumen XIV de la Colección del la Historia del
Pensamiento Educativo Peruano. Lima: Derrama Magisterial.
In press.
• 2010 (with Gavina Córdova). Decir y callar. Lenguaje, equidad
y poder en la universidad peruana. Lima: Fondo Editorial de
la PUCP. 186 pp.
• 2007 (as regional coordinator of the project). Avances y
desafíos de la Educación Intercultural Bilingüe en Bolivia,
Ecuador y Perú. Lima: CARE and IBIS. 304 pp.
• 2004 (with Víctor Vich). Oralidad y poder. Herramientas
metodológicas. Bogotá: Norma. 131 pp.
• 2002 (Des)encuentros con la Escritura: Escuela y Comunidad
en los Andes Peruanos. Lima: Red para el Desarrollo de las
Ciencias Sociales en el Perú. 236 pp.
February 26 | 4:30pm | Giant Eagle Auditorium
Sponsored by Dietrich College Office of the Dean, Modern Languages, English, Global Studies CMU and Instruction and Learning, University of Pittsburgh