Colombian Counterpoint: Transculturation in Sibundoy Valley Ethnohistory
| dc.contributor.author | Glass, Rowan F. F. | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2022-11-11T00:38:49Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2022-11-11T00:38:49Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2022-05 | |
| dc.description | Winner of the Libraries' Award for Undergraduate Research Excellence: (2022). 55 pages. | en_US |
| dc.description.abstract | Anthropological and historical scholarship on cultural change in colonially subordinated cultures has often stressed deculturation—cultural loss and degradation—as a consequence of colonialism. This paper disputes that narrative by presenting the case of Indigenous cultural change in the Sibundoy Valley of southwest Colombia from an ethnohistorical perspective. Drawing on historical, ethnographic, and theoretical texts, and relying on the concept of transculturation—understood as a complex process of partial loss, partial gain, and the creation of new cultural phenomena from intercultural encounters—as a more nuanced alternative to deculturation, I outline the history of cultural change in the valley from the prehispanic period to the present. While recognizing that colonialism was experienced as a catastrophe for the Indigenous communities of the valley, I suggest that the latter’s deep historical experience of transculturation in the prehispanic era enabled the preservation and rearticulation of core elements of their native cultures in the post-contact period. That experience allowed for the incorporation of foreign, colonially imposed cultural elements into the pre-existing cultural framework of the valley. The historical continuity of the transcultural experience in the valley demonstrates that its Indigenous communities have not been passive subjects of colonial power, but active agents in negotiating and mitigating its deculturating effects. This approach emphasizes the historical agency of Sibundoy Valley natives and positions them as the central protagonists of their own history, suggesting the applicability of this perspective to other situations of cultural change in colonial contexts. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://hdl.handle.net/1794/27820 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | en_US |
| dc.publisher | University of Oregon | en_US |
| dc.rights | Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0-US | en_US |
| dc.title | Colombian Counterpoint: Transculturation in Sibundoy Valley Ethnohistory | en_US |
| dc.type | Thesis / Dissertation | en_US |