Qui’chi Patlan

This is a proposed ethnography of speaking concerning the production of verbal power and hemispheric indigeneity in Otavalo, Ecuador. I will explore why verbal art might play a central role in circulating knowledge and power across and within various social networks for an Andean family in the town of Otavalo, Ecuador. This Runa (Kichwa) family mostly resides in the villages northeast of Otavalo and their verbal art includes shamanic healing songs and prophecy narrations. By taking a discourse-centered approach (Sherzer 1987) in analyzing this family’s set of networks at home and abroad, and the differently distributed verbal art across them makes for a unique study that attends to both: (1) varied experiences of indigeneity in a current (post-) multiculturalist era in Ecuador, (2) a situated view into how different individuals use verbal art to exchange, acquire, or deny power and knowledge in novel and continuous political economies.