Electrolongo: Rethinking national identity through electronic music in postcolonial Ecuador

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Running Head: _ELECTROLONGO 1

‘Electrolongo’

Rethinking national identity through electronic

music in postcolonial Ecuador

Susan C. Martínez Herrera MA Thesis in Literary Studies

Dr. Suze van der Poll Dr. Krisztina Lajosi-Moore Graduate School of Humanities

University of Amsterdam July, 2018

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Abstract

How do we approach postcolonial national identity processes within our globalized societies? The following research builds from the premise that music can function as a diachronic narrative framework inside which national identity processes can be read and reinterpreted, within and beyond, colonial and postcolonial narratives. Here, I have focused on a new independent music scene in Ecuador characterized by a fusion between native/local music (EC-local) and electronic music, and which has been termed_Electrolongo, following one artist’s denomination of this music scene. I propose that the current independent EC-local—electronic music scene launched by Ecuadorian youths embodies a space of liminality where national identity is explored, subverted, and re-negotiated albeit without an explicit goal to challenge dominant discourses, yet accomplishing precisely this objective. To this end, I formulated an ethnographic and ethnomusicological research grounded on a series of interviews with the artists involved with _Electrolongo. The production of this ethnography relied on the principle of knowledge co-construction (Kvale, 1996). Hence, noting both parties are Ecuadorian, this study is intentionally oriented in a self-reflexive manner: the study reflects the experience of the researcher, to a lesser degree, and that of the artists, to a larger degree, while acknowledging their mutual influence in the process of meaning-making. Ultimately, I submit that the study of current national identity processes in countries with a colonial past different from the cases held in the postcolonial canon can prove valuable in the dedvising of newl theories that integrate the different postcolonial realities of other localities and the postcolonial developments of other regions.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my friends for offering their enriching perspectives on this and many other topics. My gratitude to my family for being the rock I need to go on through life — this is for you. Many thanks to my supervisor Suze van der Poll for allowing me the freedom to explore beyond any set boundaries and letting me do so at my own pace — I appreciate the trust. Finally, thanks to the cities — Quito and Amsterdam — for their hard lessons.

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Glossary

Amerindian: I make a distinction between the natives of the Ecuadorian Amazon and the indigenous populations of the Ecuadorian Andes, I refer to the latter as Amerindian.

Creole: In this investigation a _creole, in line with the analysis made of _{Imagined Communities} (1983), should be understood as a white- _creole. That is, a person with direct Spanish ancestry but born in the Americas during the Spanish colony.

EP: Literally, ‘extended play’. It refers to a musical recording that has more tracks than a single but less than a full-length album (long play).

Gringo: An informal term, usually derisive and chiefly used in Latin American, to refer to a person (usually white and blond) from the United States.

Local: For the purpose of this thesis, local, is defined as the territory within the limits of the nation-state. Hence, local is in relation to Ecuador. Local is also used in reference to _mestizo music, and is often used in tandem with ‘native’ which refers to other types of music or sounds such as those of produced by populations of the Ecuadorian Amazon.

Mestizo: First, by _{mestizo here I do not mean white-mestizo} ; I use the term to refer to the mestizo identity as a whole and particularly to the Ecuadorian _mestizo. Second, I use the word in the masculine spanish form throughout the investigation even when the pronom it is next to is female.

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Present: Particularly in the section of ‘The Resistance,’ but also throughout the study, I often use the word_{present next to the word old or native to refer to the present marginalized musical} traditions included in _electrolongo.

Regional: This term should be understood as the ‘region’ in relation to Ecuador; thus, it refers to the Latin American region.

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PART I

Chapter 1: Introduction

Approximately two hundred years after the establishment of the first official nation-states (Anderson, 1983) an explosive debate over nationality and national identity in the face of globalization, migration, and multiculturalism has become a landmark of the current times. The most ardent and mediatized polemics around the nation and national identity have arisen in financially dominant countries and ex-colonial powers of the West. Noteworthy examples include the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (Brexit), the election of rhetorically nationalistic heads of state such as Donald Trump (United States), and a general rise in nationalistic and border-stringent policies around the West. And while these vehement expressions reflect the rise of a new political trend concerning _{the nation} in powerful countries, the questions surrounding the nation and national identity are persistently explored and creatively researched in postcolonial nations. Thus, it is relevant to ask, how is identity in relation to the nation currently explored and reformulated in postcolonial countries such as Ecuador?

This investigation demonstrates that ongoing, grassroots artistic expressions reveal real-time processes of nation- and national identity- building than might be presumed of brandnew creative processes. By incorporating the postcolonial analysis Homi K. Bhabha to a historical overview of national identity in Ecuador informed by the argumentative framework of Benedict Anderson concerning the nation and nation-state, I argue that music can function as a diachronic narrative framework inside which nation-building processes can be read and re-interpreted, within and beyond, colonial and postcolonial narratives. Because music can be

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perceived as a communication medium that does not depend on literacy to convey meaning it has the potential to act as a narrative of local processes of national identity as they unfold across time.

Electrolongo is a novel, independent music scene in Ecuador characterized by a fusion between native/local (EC-local) and electronic music. This fusion gathers songs associated with older generations as well as rhythms and sounds that conjure up a sense of Ecuador to an Ecuadorian listener and blends them with modern digital music processes. Thus, in connecting tradition with new global influences _{electrolongo reinterprets old and modern models of} Ecuadorian music and their associated (national) identities. By conducting an ethnography of electrolongo current notions about the Ecuadorian national identity are investigated as they unfold; hence, providing research with a rare opportunity to observe an ongoing creative process of nation-building. Because this particular music uses words minimally and operates primarily by combining sonic elements it has the potential to be a space where an unthreatening sensorial experience translates into an intellectual inquiry as the result of the confrontation of an Ecuadorian audience with the unexpected fusion between the Ecuadorian local (old and/or marginalized) and the global in _electrolongo. Therefore, I propose that the current independent EC-local–electronic music scene launched by Ecuadorian youths embodies a space of liminality where national identity is explored, subverted, and re-negotiated albeit without an explicit goal to challenge dominant discourses, yet accomplishing precisely this objective.

My interest with the new electronic scene in Ecuador began when I stumbled upon the Soundcloud station _{Canal Dub and through my friendship with Josué Moreno, owner of the local} pub Sereno Moreno located in La Tola neighborhood in Quito. With Josué I discussed my experience about returning to Quito after years of living abroad. At first, I assumed my interest in this novel type of music was due to its unexpected fusion of electronic and native/local

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Ecuadorian music, and because its producers were also young Ecuadorians. It became clear as I surveyed this musical landscape that I was unintentionally exploring through the music my own experience of feeling simultaneously Ecuadorian and not Ecuadorian. Thereupon, this study is born out of a motivation to observe how processes of national identity negotiation unfold in modern Ecuador. Particularly, this study outlines how younger generations (re)conceptualize and channel their national identity through unprecedented forms of artistic expression.

‘Electrolongo’ is the name with which the artist _{Ataw Allpa characterizes this fusion. The} first half of the word makes reference to the electronic nature of the music; hence, it is purely descriptive. But the second half functions as a confrontational trigger, as it foregrounds an ethnically derived source of inner conflict, and shame, for most Ecuadorian _mestizos. Thus, it is predominantly a political statement. _{Longo is a word derived from the Quechua Amerindian} language which originally meant ‘young boy.’ However, it is commonly used, particularly in the Ecuadorian Sierra (highlands), as a discriminatory term to describe a person with indigenous features, and to point out that something/someone is vulgar, of a lower class, or undesirable. As such, _{longo is a term that functions as an ethnic and class (self)identifier separating the one that} uses the word from the one for whom the word is intended by degrees of whiteness, cultural refinement, and financial affluence. In practice, _{longo functions as a social marker of difference} that perpetuates the colonially-established systems of power based on skin color while covertly concealing a deep sense of shame stemming from the indisputable indigenous heritage of Ecuadorian _mestizos. Thus, the name _{electrolongo merges the aesthetic with the sociopolitical} facilitating through music the formation of a modern ideology of identity.

In order to explore the ways in which younger generations make use of artistic media in Ecuador to devise modern versions of Ecuadorian national identity I designed the following research questions (Figure 1) to map the research of _electrolongo.

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The ethnographic research is approached through two complementary angles of analysis: a musical and a reflexive. Via the musical ethnography, which is the largest component of the analysis, the artists’ process of musical production and conceptualization of their music was studied through a series of interviews. The artists’ perception of their music with regard to their sense of national identity was the central focus of the analysis and the foundation upon which an interpretation in relation to postcolonial theory was subsequently carried out. Reflexivity was systematically employed throughout the interviews and interpretation stage as an ethnographic tool used to recognize the mutual influence exerted between interviewer and participant during the research process.

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Through the study of _{electrolongo contemporary narratives of national identity in} Ecuador are confronted to traditional arguments about the nation (i.e. Anderson) and about postcoloniality (i.e. Bhabha) that may not fit the postcolonial development of Ecuador. In particular, the study puts in perspective the postcoloniality of Ecuador with regard to the canonical postcolonial geographies (i.e. India, the Middle East, and some African nations). Accordingly, this investigation submits that the study of current postcolonial national identity processes can stimulate a revision of canonical theories of postcolonialism in order to steer the postcolonial debate towards theories that integrate the different postcolonial realities of other localities and engage the present postcolonial developments of other regions.

This investigation is divided in two parts. Part I begins with an overview of the history of Ecuador particularly in terms of its struggle to set a fixed notion of national identity and an examination of the role of music in the enactment and representation of the Ecuadorian identity (Chapter 2). Subsequently are explored the theoretical grounds of nationalism and national identity in relation to the Ecuadorian case as well as the postcolonial theoretical basis upon which a postcolonial analysis of national identity in Ecuador can be carried out (Chapter 3). Part II concerns the ethnographic research. A survey of the methodology and methods (Chapter 4) is carried out prior to the interpretation and analysis of the research information (Chapter 5). Finally, an analysis of the outcomes of the ethnography is performed in relation to the theories of nation and chiefly to the postcolonial framework explored in part one (Chapter 8).

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Chapter 2: Contextualizing the Ethnic Identity Debate in Ecuador

Historical context: Incaic conquest and spanish colonization

In 1820 Guayaquil, Ecuador’s main port, declared its independence from Spain (Lauderbaugh, 2012). Prior to this the territory formerly named Real Audiencia de Quito, now Ecuador, was a Spanish colonial territory for approximately three-hundred years. Quito, which was a term derived from the word _Kitus, the name of a group of pre-incaic settlers of a territory in the highlands later to be founded by the conquistador Diego de Almagro as Santiago de Quito, was formerly a territory of the Inca empire under the rule of Sapa Inca Huayna Capac. 1

When Huayna Capac died in these northern lands of the Inca empire, which belonged to the Shyri territory of which _Kituwas part of, his son with princess Paccha Duchicela of the region — Atawallpa — was bestowed with the ruling of this territory (Bollaert, 1860; Walkowitz & Maya Knauer, 2009). The southern territories including Cusco were left to his other son Huascar. By the time the spanish conquest and colonization began the Inca empire was engaged in civil war as Atawuallpa and Huascar disputed the territories.

Between the years of 1717 and 1739 the now Audiencia de Quito was incorporated back and forth to the Viceroyalties of Peru and Granada (future Colombia). In 1822 Quito became independent from Spain after the Battle of Pichincha was won by Antonio José de Sucre, a Venezuelan general loyal to Simón Bolívar, and was annexed to the Gran Colombia. Bolívar’s project of a grand republic came to an end with the dissolution of the Gran Colombia and its

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division into separate territories. In 1830 the departments of Quito, Guayaquil, and Cuenca came together as the nation-state of Ecuador, its name derived from the term _{Équateur with} which french geologists in 1736 named the imaginary line dividing the globe into a northern and a southern hemispheres.

Republican context: Ecuador and the indigenous uprisings

The Republic of Ecuador adopts its first constitution in the year 1830 and Venezuelan-born general Juan José Flores becomes its first president. During the rest of the nineteenth-century Ecuador’s governance history was a turbulent one, riddled with revolutions, coups d’état, civil war, territorial conflicts with Perú, and brief periods of political stability. Discrepancies in the approaches to governance underscored the tension between more conservative sectors and liberal factions. Political conflict persisted in the first years of the twentieth century while the escalating revenues during Ecuador’s cacao boom come to an end at the start of World War I. Arguably the first instance of outright Populism begins in Ecuador as José María Velasco Ibarra begins his first presidency in 1933 (De la Torre, 2015). With Ibarra begins a period where Ecuador slips in and out of a dictatorship, and ends when Ibarra is overthrown by a military _{coup in 1972. A period of representative democracy begins thereafter,} but not without conflict.

Towards the end of the century, in 1990, an indigenous uprising takes place after years of unresolved land disputes between indigenous communities and _{hacendatarios (landowners)} had made the situation untenable. The political incidence and growing influence of indigenous movements becomes evident to the political and social spheres as they gain nationwide influence when the government of Rodrigo Borja enters into dialogue with these movements

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after heavy protests — thus legitimizing their cause. The indigenous movements play an important role in the ousting of president Jamil Mahuad at the turn of the millennium; moreover, they provide key support in the rise of Lucio Gutiérrez to power, and are later part of the opposition that would overthrow Gutiérrez. Under the Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas, CONAIE (confederation of indigenous nationalities), indigenous groups from different regions in Ecuador united to represent their interests in a largely white and _mestizo-led Ecuadorian political history.

Identity and Mestizaje in Ecuador

From pre republican times to the turn of the millenium the history of Ecuador has been marked by social conflict arising in great part from power struggles between ethnicities and ethnic identities. Juan Valdano (1999) described the Ecuadorian identity as _{a mirror broken in} multiple fragments, each of them reflect[ing] only a part of what we are; until now we have not found the way to put it together…. (p. 390). Heterogeneity is a salient feature of the Ecuadorian peoples, although official censuses suggest that the largest percentage of the Ecuadorian population is _{mestizo this remains an undetermined statement, for who can say who is} indigenous and who is not (Macas in Cornejo (Ed.), 1993)?

Rowe and Schelling (1991) have pointed out that “Latin American societies were more heterogeneous, in that there have been wide cultural differences within an individual country, differences sometimes so great and involving such large populations that the idea of a unitary nation is not viable” (p. 4). Against the backdrop of heterogeneity notions of Ecuadorian identity have been created throughout its republican history with and without acknowledging ethnic and cultural difference as the foundation of the nation.

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Only two decades ago the question of national identity was still seen as urgent in Ecuador. Historian Pablo Ospina in the year 2000 called upon Ecuadorian historians to engage in a _{national debate campaign concerning the problems with the Ecuadorian identity (Ospina,} 2000). Evidently, two-hundred years after the birth of the Ecuadorian Republic the subject of identity was still a complicated, sensitive, and an important topic for Ecuadorians. Thus, the question of what is to be Ecuadorian is one that stealthily prevails within the country’s social consciousness.

The indigenous uprisings, stresses the indigenous politician and intellectual Luis Macas, marked a decisive change in the future of our movement. We have achieved a political space, we entered the political stage of the country….Due to the strength of our protest, the civil society and the State alike were forced to recognize the indios (Macas, 1991, p. 17). At the social level, the indigenous uprisings shook the apparent stability of the social structures of power; for the first time the average Ecuadorian took notice of the social and political presence of many indigenous communities (Cornejo (Ed.), 1990; Macas, Belote, and Belote, 2003). Arguably, the impact of the indigenous uprisings on the consciousness of Ecuadorians triggered a fresh retake and reassessment of the solidity of the Ecuadorian identity in the academia and its social ripples, I argue, continue to have an effect over the conceptualization and expression of the Ecuadorian identity — as is the case of _electrolongo.

The indigenous uprisings can be observed as a moment of unavoidable confrontation with the no-longer clandestine Amerindian-ness and Blackness of the Ecuadorian people. Diluted by the homogenizing effect of _{mestizaje ethnic difference was perceived by elite and} State-led nation-building projects as anti-national, and indigenous mobilization as promoting ethnic division of the country (Walsh, 2002, p. 68). Thus, the officialization of the _{mestizo nation,}

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remarks Chiara Pagnotta (2008), was the State’s project to _{cement the national discourse,} develop an identity of membership, and reconstruct an Ecuadorian narrative (Pagnotta, 2008).

That _{mestizaje purposefully entailed whitening is clear to Erika Silva, an Ecuadorian} intellectual, who states that the ethnic model of _{mestizaje became the ‘novel emblem of identity’} through which the Ecuadorian andean culture (i.e. the Andean Amerindian) would be inevitably westernized (Silva, 2004, p.56). ‘The Ecuadorian’ thus became a project where national identity was constructed using the white-hegemonic framework of colonialism concealed under the deceptive ethnically-unifying identity of _mestizaje (Roitman, 2009).

In his analysis of the Ecuadorian identity Jorge Enrique Adoum (2016), Ecuadorian author and intellectual, posits that the concept of _{mestizo excludes, by definition, the concept of} purity, reserved for the white, the indian, and the black, which is conducive, if not admitted as such, to an undeniable sense of racial inferiority and violence (p. 46). This sense of inferiority is referenced by numerous academics and non-academics alike as a characteristic of the Ecuadorian. Martha Traverso (1998), an Ecuadorian sociologist, surmises that _{even when it is} said that the mestizo identity should be the ethnic self-image and be culturally dominant among Ecuadorians, it is also insisted (by the interviewees from non-hegemonic intellectual elites)_that this identity is assimilated almost reluctantly (p. 211). In other words, that even for a _mestizo there is an unwillingness to accept _mestizaje, because _{in the inside everyone wants to be} european whites (p. 211; Roitman & Oviedo, 2017). Thus, the use of the term _{longo in} electrolongo is culturally and politically potent in that it forces a mirror upon an unwilling _mestizo. To Felipe Burbano de Lara (1998),

the systematic usage of the term _{longo in daily life expresses a double violence; on the} one hand, from Ecuadorians towards ‘the Ecuadorian’, towards what we are and what we

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can be. On the other hand, it reveals a perverse game of the construction of individual and group identity. It constitutes an attempt to escape ‘the Ecuadorian’ through the inferiorization and dehumanization of the other as a _longo. A frustrated and failed game, nonetheless, because whoever uses_{longo to discriminate ‘the other’ discriminates herself} as well, she shows already, the presence of the _{longo in her own being (as cited in} Adoum, 2016, p. 46-7).

To some Ecuadorian scholars like Miguel Donoso Pareja (2000)_{mestizaje is the way out} of regionalism and towards a unique and unifying identity. Cecilia Velasco (2001) argues2 instead that behind the discourse of _{mestizaje the rights of minorities have been hounded, and} the possibility to recognize multiple nationalities has been shown as threatening to the famous….’national unity’ (p. 120; “La Ecuatorianidad existe”, 1999). The perceived threat of ethnic division arises from the seeming paradox in indigenous movements that conceive themselves simultaneously of an indigenous nationality and also as Ecuadorians. Such threat, Walsh (2002) contends, is unfounded as “[t]he efficacy of the movement in fact derives from its ability to construct and use the correspondences among various contemporary knowledge positions: using_{knowledges in the plural, it can move between knowledges in order to exercise} political tactics and strategies” (p. 71). In other words, the indigenous project of _{interculturality} and _{plurinationality (beginning during the uprisings) is beneficial because it can move across} cultural identities to exert political pressure and to redefine the nation. This is not perceived as positive by all social actors, the opposition rooted in racism.

Electrolongo is an example of an unusual and decidedly non-mainstream music, listened to by a small percentage of Ecuadorian youths, and which could be potentially characterized as

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snobbish due to its use of electronic music which is partly associated with the young upper classes. Yet, even in this remote artistic sphere its artists seem to hold up a common idea summed up in the following statement by the artist _{Ataw Allpa - “Hacer que ser longo sea cool”} To make being longo cool.

Identity and Music in Ecuador

Cultural artifacts, like music, archive cultural meanings that can be reshaped across time within the groups and societies which use them. Tethered to Ecuadorian music are concepts of national identity; concepts in plural because national identity is expressed differently by different artists and its meaning can vary depending on the type of music. _{Música nacional, for instance,}3

was held by Ecuadorian elites to be the _{pasillo until at the beginning of the nineties a new} perception started to emerge among popular classes who saw the _{chichera and rocolera music}4

as their _{música nacional (Wong, 2012). Indigenous music, for example, is associated with} folklore and tradition (i.e. costume, dances, etc), a relationship that tokenizes and prizes indigenous cultural expressions for their romanticized cultural value. However, indigenous peoples engage in other types of music production beyond the ‘folkloric’ as is the case of chichera music. Nowadays, _{chichera is a highly commercial and mass-produced music that is} unequivocally established as a major feature of the Ecuadorian musical landscape. To Ketty Wong (2013), the music and performances of popular _{chichera artists “become sites where} Indigenous peoples contest the elite ideology of _mestizaje….and propose their view of an

3 _{Translated as ‘national music’ but expressing an array of urban music repertoires between 1920s and}

1950s.

4_Chichera _{refers to a type of urban music associated with indigenous people, while} _{Rocolera is related to}

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Ecuadorian “Indigenous” nation through music” (Becker (Ed.), 2013, p. 202). As such, _música nacional has been an unofficial cultural battlefield inside which new versions of identity have been legitimized, not by official or elite discourses, but by the groups expressing them, and in doing so, exerting a seemingly unintentional pressure for social recognition in a cultural form of identity politics.

In gramscian terms, culture is entwined with relationships of power. Popular culture, its suppression or appropriation, has been used, particularly opportunistically, by populist and authoritarian states to promote an agenda of homogeneity throughout Latin America (Rowe & Schelling, 1991, p. 10). But music has also been at the forefront of resistance in Latin America by the hand of protest music artists such as Mercedes Sosa, Atahualpa Yupanqui, and Víctor Jara among others. Both homogenization and political dissent have been associated to popular music, this interaction is of particular value to the study of modern processes of national identity in the face of globalization (Knights & Biddle (Eds.), 2007).

To Gacía Canclini (1999), globalization, _{interpreted by businessmen and politicians as} the convergence of humanity towards a solidary future (p.10), _{is revealed to be a process of} poverty, insecurity, [and] _{environmental degradation (p. 15). Knights and Biddle argue that} globalization appears as a force of homogenization that has triggered a crisis for national cultural identities (2007). Whether in its favor or its opposition the effects of globalization have an undeniable repercussion in social processes within nations. At the local level, for instance, state sponsorship of native music served to represent Ecuador externally “as a nation of quaint ethnic villages” (Crain, 1990), and exported an image of a romanticized native, tokenized for touristic purposes. Resistance to this archetype of indigenousness is enacted in the performance of self-constructed indigeneity. The music of _{chichera singers like Ángel Guaraca} who proudly self-identifies as “indio cantor de América” (indio singer of America) (Becker (Ed.),

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2013, p. 211) represents a site of resistance to cultural and identity ( _mestizo) hegemony and one where is promoted an image of an indigenous Ecuadorian nation (Becker (Ed.), 2013, p. 211). Another example comes from Esmeraldeñan Afro-Ecuadorians for whom, according to Jonathan Ritter (1999), “the currulao5 historically allowed for the disclosure of an Afro-Ecuadorian cultural identity within its own community, its folkloric representation today is the projection of a political Afro-Ecuadorian identity as distinct and separate from the mestizo state.” Thus, resistance through music in Ecuador can function both as an antagonist to homogenization processes, be them internal or external, and as an ally of cultural diversity in order to reconsider established assumptions about national identity. Yet, such local processes are not as before taking place within the nation’s bubble, but are subject to external influence as the boundaries between the local and the global blur in our globalized societies.

Handelsman (2005) surmises that new forms of making art as a response to the strained conditions created by globalization (in industrially developing nations) can encourage innovative expressions of the Ecuadorian identity (p. 46). In this way, music, as a cultural artefact, plays a part in the formation of identity and “can serve both to stabilize and maintain identities and belongings - but also to destabilize them, providing new material and resources for identity formation” (Lidskog, 2017). Likewise, music can be perceived as an expression of a ‘rooting’, of territorialization, that shapes how identity is expressed. Yet, faced with the relentless flow of information of our globalized societies identity builds itself also over a potential sense of uprootedness. Given this stretching of identity between territorialization and deterritorialization, in both cases (potentially) physical and metaphysical, Malkki’s assessment is still relevant today: “To plot only "places of birth" and degrees of nativeness is to blind oneself to the multiplicity of attachments that people form to places through living in, remembering, and imagining them”

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(Malkki, 1992). _Electrolongo, thus, represents an innovative artistic expression that situates itself too between the borders, conceptual and physical (i.e. virtual/non-virtual), of the ‘national territory’ to potentially challenge and propose a rethinking of the Ecuadorian identity.

Moreover, music can achieve Lidskog’s (2017) suggested functions without depending on literacy because it relies on sound an image as opposed to written words. Consequently, meaning and message can be either directly transmitted from the lyrics and the performing artist (i.e. Ángel Guaraca self-identifying as a proud indio) to the audience, and/or (co)constructed by the audience upon being exposed to the music. In this way, music could function as a vehicle to deliver meaning or trigger meaning-construction in order to activate sensibilities that can lead to a reassessment of ideas and opinions, in this case about national identity. Being a cultural artifact with cultural meaning(s) attached to it, music can function to the researcher as a type of narrative archive inside which songs can be read as fragments of a narrative of a particular point in time in the process of negotiation of the Ecuadorian identity. But because songs can be repurposed as in the case of _electrolongo, national identity processes can be reread and re-interpreted in accordance with how past and present music interact, through the artist, with the modern society.

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Chapter 3: National Identity and Postcolonialism for the Ecuadorian Case

On the Matter of the Nation

The Ecuadorian _{mestizo is rooted in a variety of genetic and cultural heritages. As} diverse as her heritage is her history. The history of the _{mestizo begins before the republic,} heightened during the colonization, and happening already at the time, and before, the Inca empire. It is after all documented that the Inca empire was successful because of its capacity to incorporate other groups’ beliefs and fit them within their own eclectic religious mythology (Morris & von Hagen, 2011). A notable example is the marriage of Sapa Inca Huayna Capac to Princess Paccha Duchicela of the Shyris, a union that united the Tawantinsuyu to the 6 _Kitu territories (Bollaert, 1860; Walkowitz & Maya Knauer (Eds.), 2009). In view of this history,7 mixing of people — _{mestizaje — has been happening in the region of Ecuador since before} colonial times. Therefore, to grasp the colonial construct of _{mestizaje for Ecuador, it is} necessary to perceive miscegenation first as a process that spans centuries in these lands but only became conceptualized as _mestizaje within the eurocentric framework of colonialism.

The continual mixing and preservation of ethnicities is at the center of the origin of the8 Ecuadorian nation; its creation as a nation-state was the arbitrary fencing-in of the scattered ongoing processes of miscegenation and preservation. If one is to approach the question of the

6_{The name of the expanding Inca empire.}

7 _{The territory with} _Kitu _{(later Quito) as its capital and which encompassed the current provinces of}

Tungurahua, Cotopaxi, Pichincha, Imbabura, and Carchi. This territory was populated by different groups that were not part of the Inca empire.

8_{Preservation in reference to some of the native (predominantly Amazonian) groups that have remained}

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origin of the nation of Ecuador, and likely of other similar cases, it is key to place at the center of the inquiry the miscegenation and preservation processes that actually preceded the eventual emergence of the nation and nation-state. It is for this reason that I oppose Anderson’s (1983) argument for the origin of nations, despite his ideas being well-received and widely used in post-colonial cultural analyses. Anderson’s non-eurocentric argument for the geographic origin of nations is not quite so, for in placing the _{creole at the center of the Latin American creation of} nations he has placed the european white man, once more, at the center of history.

For Anderson the creoles in the Americas were the first to develop “early conceptions of their nation-ness - well before most of Europe” (p. 50). Anderson argues, without providing much detail, that it was the resentment towards the empire-favoured _{peninsulares and the} recognition of a common _{creole struggle throughout the Latin American administrative} departments that kindled the _{creole drive for independence, and so brought about a sense of} nation-ness. By the end of his fourth chapter Anderson stresses that his argument does not intend to explain the “socio-economic bases of anti-metropolitan resistance” (i.e. resistance against Spain), but rather _{why Latin American resistance was “conceived in plural, ‘national’} forms” that could begin to _create an imagined community to be defended (p. 64-5).

Because to Anderson an imagined community must be a _unified community, since “in the minds of each [member] lives the image of their communion” (p. 6), then indirectly Anderson suggests that proto-nations like Ecuador were made up of a _{unified imagined community. Since} it would be careless to say there existed such a unified thing as proto-Ecuadorians and to state that they jointly imagined themselves into a (political) community named Ecuador; then it is necessary to ask - _{who imagined this community? Anderson contends that nations and} nationalism are _{cultural artefacts (p. 4); if so, these must have creators, and in the case of Latin} America Anderson points at white _{creoles as the creators. Surely the self-serving economic}

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interests of the _{creoles are acknowledged by Anderson (p. 65), but overall this pluralistic and} proto-fraternal conception of the resistance against imperial Spain ultimately settles the creation of Latin American nations as a white project.

In acknowledging that by community Anderson implies white _creoles it becomes clear that the concept of an imagined community aspires to but does not mean a fellowship — for it is exclusionary. The problem with perceiving the origin of Latin American nations in Anderson’s way is that it perpetuates a white-dominant discourse and recording of history, while curtailing the succinctness of the claim as a matter of argumentative simplicity. The socio-economic bases of the _creole resistance and the sense of plurality that characterize resistance for Anderson cannot be studied separately — they are inextricably linked. Underlying an imagined community is a sense of fraternity (p. 50); yet, this concept of fraternity when removed from a large part of its socio-economic context becomes a problematic argument. For it discreetly abates the political and economic motivations behind _{creole sovereign self-determination and the cruelty} against marginalized groups which took place before _and after independence. And most importantly, it minimizes the role of these marginalized groups in the making of the imagined community and the nation. Evidently, Anderson does not seek to conceal this reality; however, his emphasis on_{who created the nation strengthens a particular reading of history, one in which} white men are active agents and other ethnicities and groups are passive supporters.

It ultimately becomes difficult to conform the historical origin of Ecuador to the framework proposed by _{Imagined Communities}. That is, unless one opts to regard the imagined community in Anderson’s terms — as an all-inclusive vision in theory but an exclusionary and privileged project in reality. Anderson acknowledges this reality by pointing out that “regardless of the actual inequality and exploitation that may prevail in each [community], the nation is always conceived as a deep, horizontal comradeship” (p. 7). Anderson’s hopeful outlook and candid

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assumption of _creoles as natural builders of the nation, however, negates the important social roles and contributions of Amerindians, natives, blacks, and non-white _mestizos to the construction of the Ecuadorian nation. Thus, unintentionally, the theoretical angle of _Imagined Communities conforms to colonialist ideas which uphold the role of the ethnically white population, in this case of _creoles, above all others. By diluting the role of other ethnically diverse groups inside the vastness of the imagined community Anderson’s argument at once denies these group’s pivotal part in the history of the construction of the nation of Ecuador while at the same time reinforcing the trivialization of non-white groups as historically helpless and aimless.

Perspective-shifting as _{Imagined Communities was, and aside from the theoretical} limitations extensively discussed upon by Yael Tamir (1995) and Alexander Motyl (2002), the framework proposed by _{Imagined Communities cannot comprehensively explain the origin of} the nation and of national identity for Ecuador. The nation-state, its _{signing into creation after} the battles for independence, is arguably a white _{creole project - not so the nation. It is my view} that _{electrolongo contributes to the construction of a musical narrative of the Ecuadorian} nation-building process in a way that foregrounds the significant contribution to the building of the Ecuadorian nation of voices which have been historically marginalized and tokenized by culturally dominant discourses. The way in which this musical narrative is created is explored in Part II of this investigation.

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On the Matter of Identity

Language has the potential to conjure up imagined communities (Anderson, 1983, p. 133), and cultural artefacts such as nationalism, are _{invented by print-language (p.134).} Through this claim Anderson makes explicit that it is the crafting of language into a printed ideology that fabricates nationalism, and so politicizes the nation (p. 135). It follows that a particular idea(s) of the nation can be crafted and spread by dominant or popular groups to suit political motivations. Once the Ecuadorian republic was settled one of the prominent, and later politically and culturally dominant, ideas of the Ecuadorian nation was that of _mestizaje. The politicization of _{mestizaje served a political as well as a cultural purpose: as an ethnic and} cultural white-homogenizing strategy to procure a carefully constructed national identity that functioned as a controllable cohesive agent for the new republic (Roitman, 2009).

The predominantly state-led enterprise for a unified national identity through ethnic homogenization made use of the available and popular communication media for this purpose: from the ever-popular presidential speech (see de la Torre, 2015) to the geographic representation of territorial identity in Ecuadorian maps (Radcliffe, 1996a). “[C]onstructed and conveyed in discourse, predominantly in narratives of national culture[,] [n]ational identity is thus the product of discourse” (Wodak, De Cillia, Reisigl, & Liebhart, 1999, p. 22). Historically, this fabricated idea of ‘ecuadorianness’ operated through discourse to establish a cultural hegemony irrevocably disrupted when the indigenous protests of the 1990s made permanently visible the ethnic and social heterogeneity of the Ecuadorian society (Cornejo (Ed.), 1991; Cornejo (Ed.), 1993; Walsh, 2001; Olson, 2010; Becker (Ed.), 2013 ).

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Before then, inherited racist colonial discourses plagued the construct of the Ecuadorian national identity. In my view, a form of inbred _{Orientalism (Said, 1978) took place in the crafting} of the Ecuadorian national identity, and whose consequences are echoed in the production of electrolongo. For Said, the West essentialized the East by fabricating and disseminating imagined geographies of its societies in a manner that asserted its dominance and superiority over it. For postcolonial Ecuador, the Ecuadorian State and elites envisioned and constructed an imagined geography of Ecuador that represented the elite’s aspirations for a nation modeled in the shape of anglo-european values. In stark, and ironic, opposition to the young republic’s ethnic and cultural diversity stood the official imagination of a nation fashioned in the sophistication and purity of the colonial ‘mother-country’. In what could be seen as a second colonization, the dominant narratives of national identity romanticized the cultural aspects of the colonial period to imagine Ecuador as heir to the high european culture, and in doing so concealed and devalorized the socio-cultural and ethnic reality of the new nation. Examples of this include the view of the _{corridas de toros (bullfights) as high cultural entertainment, and the} perception of the _{pasillo as the authentic música nacional (Wong, 2012), among others. Thus,} through _{mestizaje the official dominant discourses found a way to construct and assert a} white-hierarchical national identity by camouflaging it under a veil of ethnic unity, effectively whitewashing the color differences.

The superimposed image of the white-heightened _{mestizo is one ingrained in the cultural} identity of Ecuadorians, and expressed in official discourses even today. One recent example is the latest tourism video by Quito Tourism (Visita/Visit Quito, Feb 21, 2018) that evidences the persistence of colonial discourses which export a white-friendly image of the city and its inhabitants, and maintains alive a white-hierarchical, privileged _{mestizo identity. In view of this, it} is possible to refashion _{Orientalism to adjust it to this scenario and conceptualize it as a form of}

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self-imposed form of _{Ecuadorianism}, in which the elite dominant discourses of a postcolonial nation have imagined the new nation’s identity in romanticized colonial terms and self-suppressed the elements that did not conform to this imagination, be them ethnic diversity or cultural plurality. Hence,_{electrolongo is a timely artistic expression that defies the persistent} colonial narratives of Ecuadorian identity. However, I contend that this is not done intentionally, but it is rather the byproduct of the artists’ exploration of their own ‘national’ identity. So, how to begin to understand this process?

On Liminality

The history of miscegenation and colonial _{mestizaje in Ecuador can be argued to have} developed in _{mestizos a hybrid identity. Not because of its biological diversity but because of its} embodied cultural differences revealed in the face of colonization. To recall Homi K. Bhabha’s (1994) definitions: “colonial hybridity is not a problem of genealogy or identity between two different cultures which can then be resolved as an issue of cultural relativism” (p. 162); while “colonial mimicry is the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, _{as a subject of a difference} that is almost the same, but not quite . ….[T]he discourse of mimicry is constructed around an ambivalence; in order to be effective, mimicry must continually produce its slippage, its excess, its difference” (p. 86). To Bhabha, the ambivalence regarding the colonizer/colonized cultural difference creates a crisis of authority which is enacted by the behaviors of _hybridity and mimicry. Therefore, “[h]ybridity is a problematic of _colonial[emphasis added] representation and individuation that reverses the effects of the colonialist disavowal, so that other 'denied' knowledges enter upon the dominant discourse and estrange the basis of its authority - its rules

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of recognition” (p. 162). While in _{mimicry “[t]he question of the representation of [cultural]} difference is therefore always also a problem of authority” because it is “a discourse uttered between the lines and as such both against the [colonial] rules and within them”. Where Bhabha emphasizes _hybridity as a characteristic of the colonizer and _mimicry of the colonized, I re-conceptualize these concepts in terms of the Ecuadorian _{mestizo and expand them beyond} the timeframe of the colony.

To speak of _hybridity and of _mimicry is inevitably to speak of the Indian or African cases, as they were constructed originally for these two postcolonial realities. For these two cases a large proportion of the postcolonial population belonged and still belongs to the formerly oppressed ethnicity(ies). However, for Ecuador the current largest ethnic group is the _mestizo (“Ecuador demographics,” 2018) , an ethnic group not preexisting but9 _{born out} of the spanish colonization. An Ecuadorian _{mestizo is neither white, black, or fully Amerindian or native,} therefore as an identity, a _{mestizo cannot fit within Bhabha’s margins of hybridity and mimicry} since a modern _{mestizo is neither a colonizer nor a colonized, but the unintentional heir of both.} Such heritage is more than its biological component; it involves a cultural mixing that resulted in the _{mestizo being simultaneously heir and mime of both the colonizer and colonized, an} 10

identity of its own and a _{hybrid of plenty. Ecuadorian mestizos are the offspring of a continuous} mixing of ethnicities and cultures, but they are accidental _liminalbeings in that their colonial past forces them to see their miscegenation against the backdrop of imperialist social and political power relationships — and self-reflect upon it as both an appendage and an excretion of it — 11

9_{Based on how Ecuadorians perceive their own ethnicity.}

10 _The _{mestizo inherits from both the Amerindian/native and the Spanish, but she also mimics them.}

Because she is neither fully one nor the other she enacts, or performs, behaviors or rituals associated with them. For instance, a _{mestizo attending a bullfight at the Plaza de Toros in Quito purporting a full} attire of Toquilla hat, white shirt, and leather boots reenacts a Spanish tradition. And a _{mestizo wearing a} poncho and/or sparadriles to go to the local store uses Amerindian-associated clothing as a practice of everydayness.

11_{By excretion I mean as an unwanted offspring of sorts. A} _{mestizo inevitably comes to this realization if}

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and in the face of asymmetrical globalization, forced immigration, and the on/offline spread of culture(s) which is their present reality.

For Bhabha, “[i]t is in the emergence of the interstices — the overlap and displacement of domains of difference — that the intersubjective and collective experiences of nationness, community interest, or cultural value are negotiated” (p. 2). By emerging from (1) in-between the colonial and postcolonial periods, (2) from among several ethnicities and cultural heritages, and (3) existing in the middle of their still influential socio-political past and local-global present the modern Ecuadorian_mestizoidentity locates itself unintentionally at a historical, political, cultural, and technological crossroads that endow the _{mestizo with the potential to negotiate between} these domains her modern identity. Thus, the_{mestizo as a liminal identity can potentially create} new formulations of national identity or challenge and subvert culturally dominant identity discourses by deftly negotiating her experiences from the advantageous space of cultural liminality.

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PART II

Chapter 4:

_{Electrolongo Methodology and Methods}

The Field: Constraints and Affordances

The idea for this ethnography emerged during my postgraduate studies at the University of Amsterdam. Because the field where I would conduct my work was in Ecuador direct participant observation was not a viable research method. In place of observation I decided that the main vehicle and data collection tool for this ethnography would be the ethnographic interview. Accordingly, my field migrated from the music studios and concert venues of the participants to the Internet. This shift, motivated by the inability to conduct on-site fieldwork, proved to be highly beneficial to the research. First, because I was able to interview the artists in their studios which was, for a number of them, located at their homes. Second, and most importantly, because without an exception these artists work with and spread their music through the Internet. Therefore, the online communities they construct within the different social platforms they use served as niches of study inside the online field. Soundcloud, Mixcloud, and Spotify are among the niches where the artists published their new productions; in contrast, Facebook Pages served as a different kind of niche where artists posted information about upcoming or past events, and/or as a space for the artists to share their own opinions. Hence, fieldwork of a virtual nature, was conducted for this research.

Residence in the city of Amsterdam and membership to the University of Amsterdam provided me with access to information, content, people, and resources available through their

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libraries, partnerships, and research centers. However, conducting research overseas distanced myself from my field of interest and limited the fieldwork I could conduct. Such a physical gap between my research location and the location of my field of research was, nonetheless, bridged through the affordances offered by different technological media (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001). Anthropology and ethnography have incorporated new technology as research tools ever since their origin. A good example is in the field of ethnomusicology where the use of the phonograph is described by Brady (1999) as having expanded the scientific study of culture. The modern significance of technology in ethnography is underscored by Dicks, Mason, Coffey, and Atkinson (2005) who noted how digital technologies have, among others, helped researchers contact otherwise hard-to-reach people. Thus, the benefit of having access to the academic resources of a european university adds to the advantage of remaining in contact and being able to access information and people from my own country through the networking potential of the Internet, its social platforms, and the access to a computer.

Social interactions and relationships are increasingly mediated through digital platforms to the extent that social movements can be created and mobilized online. From this standpoint, the field where the fieldwork takes place can be reconceptualized (Marcus and Fischer, 1986; Clifford, 1997). The Internet functions as the ground upon which virtual communities can be born and thrive solely existing in the cyberspace or as extensions (perhaps even migrations) of physically existing communities. It therefore becomes evident that the contemporary ethnographic field also includes the space populated by the virtual community. Moreover, the relevance of the online communities for cultural analysts has been noted by Dicks et al. (2005) who argues that “[t]he power of digital communication world-wide is itself a potent factor in the processes that social scientists study under the rubric of globalisation” (p. 1). Because this ethnography concerns itself with how artists, through their music, engage in the (re)negotiation

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of national identity, and because neither identity nor music are self-contained phenomena immune to the global information exchange (Malkki, 1992), the relevance of digital communication within the framework of globalization cannot be understated for this research. For this reason ‘the field’ in this study is reconceptualized as a more fluid space (Dicks et al. 2005, p. 116) suffused with local interactions associated with different cultural, economic, and political wider processes (Burawoy, 2000; Marcus and Fischer, 1986) and percolated by the diversity of suspended global dialogues (Augé, 1995).

The Field: Engaging with Online Spaces

Within the Internet different kinds of platforms offer different types of mediatic affordances (Kress and Van Leeuwen, 2001) to those who use them. At their core all digital platforms share a degree of social interaction among its members. Actions taken within a digital platform can be perceived as part of an ongoing virtual conversation whether this exchange takes place within the boundaries of the original digital platform or outside of it. Virtual platforms such as Soundcloud are used by its members to publish, (re)post, share, like, buy, and comment upon published sound files. The sound file, spread as a soundcloud, is itself pinned by comments from the community members who express themselves about a particular portion of the sound file. On the bar at the right for the desktop version or under ‘Bio’ under the ‘INFO’ tab for the mobile app, a member can find the biographic section of the layout which offers publishers the opportunity to embed hyperlinks to other virtual platforms, many of which are more social media. Soundcloud is an example of a virtual platform that, like most, is interconnected with other virtual platforms that use different media as their core information

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exchange device — Soundcloud uses sound and music whereas Instagram uses photography. These vast digital mediatic landscapes are undeniably rich fields for ethnographic research.

The interconnectedness of digital platforms entails the interconnectedness of the people who use them. Moreover, the relationship between users and online media implies an interconnection between users, digital platforms, and all other online media spaces accessed by the users. The degree of virtual interrelation resembles the notions of intertextuality and intersubjectivity, and brings to the forefront the question of how to go about doing ethnographic fieldwork within the unbounded limits of (virtual) interactive multimedia. In devising a methodical approach to answer this question Dicks et al. (2005; Dicks & Mason, 1998) envisioned what they called an ‘ethnographic hypermedia environment’. Within such a virtual environment ethnographic findings would be represented through a range of media linked together (hypermedia, i.e. interactive multimedia) in an effort to present the diversity of discourses involved in the production of an ethnography, and to avoid a more ‘authorial’ approach to an ethnographic end product (Dicks et al., 2005, p. 118). Regarding fieldwork it is proposed that hypermedia can encourage the researcher to be more flexible about the materials that can become potential data; such a diversification would ultimately endow ethnographic analysis with a wider lens with which to (potentially) better understand the complexity of social interactions (p. 118). The case for hypermedia in ethnographic analysis has special relevance to this research because, as previously detailed, virtual platforms and their users are interconnected to one another through the media vehicle characteristic of a particular platform. Simply put, there cannot be a study of how users interact within a virtual platform without studying how they interact with associated virtual platforms. Moreover, because the primary means of distribution is through virtual platforms the artists of my research, and their music, cannot be studied without understanding the relevance of virtual technology to their artistic endeavor.

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Reflexivity and the Ethnographic Interview

The colonialist overtone of such concepts as that of ‘going native’ is at odds with the cultural reality of our postcolonial societies. What is useful, however, for insider and outsider researchers alike is the turn towards the practice of reflexivity. A reflexive approach in ethnography can be described as “turning the anthropological lens back upon itself” (Karp and Kendall, 1982, p. 250). In other words, reflexivity encourages the researcher to become aware of the degree of interconnection, mutual influence, and (co)construction of meaning between the researcher and ‘the researched’ (Fine, 1994; Wasserfall, 1997; Woolgar, 1988a; Gouldner, 1970).

According to Wasserfall (1997) a ‘weak’ and a ‘strong’ reading of reflexivity can orient the researcher to methodological choices that can provide relief to issues like power relationships. A researcher taking a ‘weak’ approach would be self-aware of the relationship between her and the informant and make an effort to understand her own influence in the construction of knowledge (p. 151). While a ‘weak’ reading is centered around the researcher, a ‘strong’ reading brings its focus to the participant. A ‘strong’ approach would seek to level the field between the research and the participant through actions that deconstruct her own authority to provide a more equal relationship (p. 162).

The two predominant metaphors of the ethnographic interview describe the interviewer as either a _{miner or a traveler} . Kvale (1996) describes the former as a process where knowledge nuggets are mined from the participant and purified afterwards during the transcription process to reveal their best state. In contrast, the traveler metaphor sees the interviewer as starting a journey that will change her and the people she encountered along the

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way. Knowledge, and how it is acquired, is represented differently in each case. For the miner metaphor knowledge is fixed and stable, therefore it can be objectively quantified by the interviewer. However, the traveler metaphor stresses the collaborative nature of the interview process highlighting the co-construction of meaning during the interview and interpretation phases. Thus, the type of goals set for a research will require the investigator to choose from a variety of approaches some of which will facilitate ‘mining’ while others will encourage ‘traveling’ (Heyl, 2001).

The way language is used can also orient an interview to either ‘mine’ or ‘travel’. Spradley (1979), for instance, underscores the importance of language during an encounter, particularly for the ethnographic interview. Ethnographic research, Spradley argues, works on the assumption that the participant and the interviewer use language in a similar way; however, semantic differences are invariably present and can have a “profound influence on ethnographic research” (p. 18). If the interviewer and the participant each possess their own way of seeing the world then when they talk they are sharing more than what they actually say, in fact, they are communicating also social and cultural knowledge (Hymes, 1964). In speaking to one another these ways of seeing reality inevitably meet (Kvale, 1996). Thus, the role played by language is highly relevant to the ethnographic interview as “[l]anguage is more than a means of communication about reality: it is a tool for constructing reality” (Spradley, 1979).

While the structured interview follows a neopositivist model and the unstructured interview adheres to the romanticist model, a third model - the localist - is better suited for a mid-point between the two types of interviews previously described. The semi-structured interview employs planned questions that follow selected themes in an orderly fashion interposed with probes used to evoke more elaborate answers from the participants (Qu & Dumay, 2011). Through this method the researcher can keep track of questions and generally

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guide the interview according to a plan, but has the flexibility to open up the interview in other directions or pursue more depth for a given question. Because this type of interview is based on human conversation (Denzin and Lincoln, 1998; Kvale, 1996) it requires a great deal of skill, care, and planning.

Alvesson (2003) encourages the researcher to see the interview not simply as a data-gathering tool, but more like ‘complex social phenomena’ (p. 31). From a localist viewpoint, argue Qu and Dumay (2011), an interview can be perceived as an event in its own right, particularly as a social encounter (p. 242) in which the interview is “not merely a neutral conduit or source of bias but rather the productive site of reportable knowledge itself” (Holstein and Gubrium, 1995, p. 3). Indeed, Pool (1957), had pointed out in an earlier work that the “social milieu” where communication takes place has the capacity to “modif[y] not only what a person dares to say but even what he thinks he chooses to say” (p. 192). From the standpoint of the ethnography of communication (EOC) the notion of the interview as Pool’s ‘social milieu’ is befitting, for EOC an interview has to be considered a speech event (Wolfson, 1976; Hymes, 1974). Hence, for EOC an interview is comparable to a conversation, as they are both speech events, and evidently they are complex social (and linguistic) phenomena.

On the side of the researcher, a reflexive approach to the ethnographic interview can be adopted. Reflexivity, according to Heyl (2001), makes a researcher cognizant of the interconnections and bilateral influence between the interviewer and the participant. As noted previously, the practice of reflexivity in the ethnographic interview brings to the foreground the process of co-construction of meaning and awareness of the complex interplay between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ (Fines, 1994). Asymmetry of power is an example of a relevant issue in interviewing that Bourdieu (1996) suggests can be addressed through ‘active methodical