Presenter(s): Rowan Glass — Anthropology
Faculty Mentor(s): Reuben Zahler, Maria Fernanda Escallón
Session: (In-Person) Oral Panel—HURF
This paper interprets Indigenous culture change and resistance in the ethnohistory of the Sibundoy Valley of southwest Colombia. Drawing on historical, ethnographic, and theoretical sources, I trace these processes as they have developed in the valley from colonial period to the present, focusing on the twentieth century. Previous histories of the Sibundoy Valley have emphasized the complementary roles of the Catholic Church and the Colombian state as history-makers in this frontier zone, where the colonial logics of these agents were forcibly imposed on the Indigenous communities they encountered there. While recognizing the importance of Church and state as historical actors in this region, this paper finds that Foucault’s claim that “where there is power, there is resistance” aptly applies to the ethnohistory of the Sibundoy Valley. Although the effects of colonial power on the Indigenous communities of the valley are clear, in all cultural domains in which culture change has occurred it has been countered by practices of resistance which have operated to maintain Indigenous cultural integrity. The historical continuity of such practices demonstrates that the Indigenous communities in question have not been passive subjects of colonial power, but rather active agents in negotiating and resisting it. This paper interprets Sibundoy Valley ethnohistory to position the valley’s Indigenous communities at center stage, as the protagonists and makers of their own history.