Transcultural Performance Negotiating Globalized Indigenous Identities

Transcultural Performance draws upon a multi-sited ethnography of Ecuadorean folkloric musicians and their families to illustrate how these individuals negotiate languages, gender and ethnicity at home and abroad. Beginning with a cohesive and critical review of globalization and identity theories, the book offers an important interdisciplinary response to work on language, identity and globalization. With detailed discourse analyses of gender, ethnicity, and language, the chapters offer a valuable counterpoint to more traditional analyses of the impact of multilingualism on indigenous languages, which are frequently negative in their assessment of the future of these languages. Through an examination of beliefs and practices, this book demonstrates both the persistent role of essentialist ideologies in beliefs about language, as well as how transcultural practices can enhance the use and maintenance of minority and indigenous languages.

Michele Back is an Assistant Professor of Spanish Linguistics at George Mason University, USA. Her research examines how multilingual individuals negotiate and construct identity in transnational and online contexts. She has published articles in The Modern Language Journal, Language Learning and Foreign Language Annals.

1. Introduction: Globalization, Indigenous Languages, and the Runa Takiks
2. Globalized or Glocalized? Transnational or Transcultural? Defining Language Practices in Global Spaces
3. Theorizing Transcultural Language Practices
4. Gender and Beliefs about Language
5. Transcultural Performances of Gender
6. Transcultural Performances of Ethnicity
7. Transcultural Performance and Legitimacy: Seven Years Later
8. Conclusions and Implications for Indigenous and Minority Languages