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

ELECTROLONGO 2 ​

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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Table of Contents

Abstract 2 Acknowledgments 3 Table of Contents 4 Glossary 5

PART I 7 Chapter 1: Introduction 7 Chapter 2: Contextualizing the Ethnic Identity Debate in Ecuador 12 Identity and Mestizaje in Ecuador 14 Identity and Music in Ecuador 18 Chapter 3: National Identity and Postcolonialism for the Ecuadorian Case 22 On the Matter of the Nation 22 On the Matter of Identity 26 On Liminality 28

PART II 31 Chapter 4: Electrolongo Methodology and Methods 31 The Field: Constraints and Affordances 31 The Field: Engaging with Online Spaces 33 Reflexivity and the Ethnographic Interview 35 Sampling and Selection 39 Contact and Access 39 Participants 42 Interviews 46 Data and Analysis 50 Chapter 5: Electrolongo Ethnographic Analysis 51 Electrolongo: Music Map 51 La Música - The Music 52 Electrolongo: Three Branches 62 La Tierra - The Land 62 La Resistencia - The Resistance 70 La Diversidad - The Diversity 80 The Audience 84 Electrolongo in Postcolonial Theory 89 Conclusion 93

Bibliography 96

ELECTROLONGO 5 ​

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.

ELECTROLONGO 6 ​

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.

ELECTROLONGO 7 ​

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

ELECTROLONGO 8 ​ 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

ELECTROLONGO 9 ​

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. ​ ​

ELECTROLONGO 10 ​

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 Inca1 Huayna Capac.

When Huayna Capac died in these northern lands of the Inca empire, which belonged to the

Shyri territory of which Kitu was 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

1 Emperor, ruler of the Tawantinsuyu — the Kingdom of Cusco.

ELECTROLONGO 13 ​ 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

ELECTROLONGO 14 ​ 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.

ELECTROLONGO 15 ​

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, ​

ELECTROLONGO 16 ​ 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

ELECTROLONGO 17 ​

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 regionalism2 and towards a unique and unifying identity. Cecilia Velasco (2001) argues 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

2 The historical antagonism between the regions of the Sierra and Costa.

ELECTROLONGO 18 ​ 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,3 for instance, ​ 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 rocolera4 music ​ ​ 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 ​ ​ ​ working-class and pub drinking. Both terms are commonly used pejoratively.

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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.),

ELECTROLONGO 20 ​

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”

5 An Esmeraldeñan Afro-Ecuadorian rhythm.

ELECTROLONGO 21 ​

(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.

ELECTROLONGO 22 ​

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 Tawantinsuyu6 to the Kitu ​ territories7 (Bollaert, 1860; Walkowitz & Maya Knauer (Eds.), 2009). In view of this history, 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 preservation8 of ethnicities is at the center of the origin of the

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 in (voluntary) isolation, and have not or barely mixed with people outside their immediate group.

ELECTROLONGO 23 ​ 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 ​

ELECTROLONGO 24 ​ 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

ELECTROLONGO 25 ​ 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.

ELECTROLONGO 26 ​

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 ).

ELECTROLONGO 27 ​

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 ​

ELECTROLONGO 28 ​ 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

ELECTROLONGO 29 ​ 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)9, an ethnic group not preexisting but 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,10 an ​ ​ 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 liminal beings 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 it11 —

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 ​ she looks back at her origin.

ELECTROLONGO 30 ​ 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 mestizo identity 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.

ELECTROLONGO 31 ​

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

ELECTROLONGO 32 ​ 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

ELECTROLONGO 33 ​ 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

ELECTROLONGO 34 ​ 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.

ELECTROLONGO 35 ​

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

ELECTROLONGO 36 ​ 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

ELECTROLONGO 37 ​ 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

ELECTROLONGO 38 ​ listening’. Reflexivity, therefore, becomes an important characteristic of the ethnographic interviewer.

Two methods of reflexive interviewing have been used for my research: Burawoy’s

(1998) extended case method and Alvesson’s (2003) reflexive pragmatism. In the extended ​ ​ ​ case method, reflexive science is used in ethnographic interviewing (1) to explore the ripples of intervention as opposed to avoiding them; (2) to study social interaction; (3) to identify and ​ analyze how local processes, which are situational and context contingent, relate to external social forces; (4) to reconstruct theories grounded on what has been learned through dialogue with the participants involved in the research (Heyl, 2001; Burawoy, 1998). Similarly, Alvesson

(2003) suggests reflexivity as a core component of the research interview, however, a reflexivity oriented to the interview as opposed to the interviewer. Pragmatic reflexivity, thus, “stands for conscious and consistent efforts to view the subject matter from different angles and avoid or strongly a priori privilege a single, favored angle and vocabulary” (p. 25). The combination of these two approaches to reflexivity contribute to the deconstruction of the sources of power and authority inherent to the research process. Fundamentally, they strengthen the objectivity of the study by pointing out the subjective nature of the researcher and signalling the influence of structural biases.

Overall, I have designed the interviews following Kvale’s (1996) seven stages of the interview process: 1) thematizing; 2) designing; 3) interviewing; 4) transcribing; 5) analyzing; 6) verifying; 7) reporting. Concerning verification a follow-up approach in which initial interpretations of the research are shown to participants to request clarification is a valuable step in line with the ‘member validation’ approach (Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983). However, due to time constraints the method of triangulation was instead consistently employed in order to verify the information given by participants.

ELECTROLONGO 39 ​

Sampling and Selection

Using both Soundcloud and Facebook as starting points artists were located by scouring the social platforms, from references made by other artists on virtual timelines, from suggestions made by the digital platforms, and through scouting Ecuadorian digital magazines with a focus on alternative music such as the online magazine RadioCoCoa. Artists were then selected if ​ ​ they met the following criteria:

A. Ecuadorian nationality

B. Specialized in producing electronic music with a fusion of local/native Ecuadorian

sounds/songs/rhythms

Nationality was confirmed during the interview and pre-established when possible by checking the biography section on their virtual platforms. Music type, on the other hand, was pre-assessed by listening to it and identifying the electronic current the music belonged to as well as confirming fusion with EC-local sounds/songs/rhythms. To this end, I studied the history and development of electronic music prior to listening to the artists’ music. My judgement was put to test by comparing my choices to the assessment about the artists’ genre (or the lack thereof) made by music commentators in virtual magazines and podcasts, and to the artists’ own assessment of their music during the interview stage.

Contact and Access

ELECTROLONGO 40 ​

All selected artists were contacted via email, facebook message, or soundcloud private message. Contact information was gathered from the artists Facebook Page and Soundcloud profile, in a few cases information was obtained through Instagram, or the ‘About’ section of the artist’s Youtube channel. Then, a template message was crafted in which a brief personal introduction was included along with a quick explanation of the research I was conducting, and encouraging the artist to collaborate with my study. It was not mentioned at any stage of the contact and interview that the research subject was national identity in order to avoid priming the participants to the topic and thus prevent response bias.

The contact message was generally informal and was written using a mix of formal discourse and Quiteño vernacular, it finished with a joke about a particular aspect of living in

Quito. Since I am not a musician but an academic I pointed to our common membership as

Ecuadorians of roughly the same age by using language to establish this connection rather than making it explicit. I designed the message in this manner to create and emphasize social proximity between the artists and myself, to build rapport, and to establish a level of intimacy stemming from membership to a group.

A second message was sent seven days after the first and once more after the second attempt. Therefore, choice of participants was ultimately done through self-selection. From a sample of eleven artists contacted through email or social media six were confirmed and subsequently interviewed. Furthemore, a range of artists who use local sounds/songs/rhythms but whose music does not rely predominantly on electronic processes were invited to interview for the purpose of comparing the opinion of young musicians of other genres to that of the electrolongo artists. Electrolongo is the main subject of this study, but the input from these other ​ ​ artist was valuable to this research.

ELECTROLONGO 41 ​

Upon acceptance a second message was sent with more details about the investigation.

Here I stated that the interview would take the form of an informal conversation between friends in order to level the relationship between participant and researcher and to further build rapport among the parties. The point of emphasizing the relaxed nature of the interview was to circumvent the attitudes and behaviors associated with the predetermined roles of interviewer and participant, and instead encourage the kind of casual and spontaneous interaction that would take place among friends. The following is an excerpt from the second message that exemplifies the previously described objective :

A bit of details about the interview. Basically I want to get to know you and find out who

you are as an artist and as a person, so in reality this is a very relaxed deal, like between

friends. The conversation that we’ll have will give me the opportunity to get inside your

world and get to know it a little bit and in that way develop my thesis topic.

Un poco de detalles sobre la entrevista. Básicamente quiero conocerte y saber quién

eres como artista y como persona, así que en realidad es un nota super relajada, como

entre amigos. La conversación que tengamos me va a dar la oportunidad de entrar y

conocer un poco tu mundo y de esa forma desarrollar el tema de mi tesis.

Additionally, I included an explanation of the participants’ rights and other ethical aspects ranging from permission to record, to willingness to receive a copy of the finished project. This description was done using simple, straightforward, informal writing that nevertheless maintained the closeness created through the first contact. Here is an excerpt of this section of the email:

ELECTROLONGO 42 ​

For me it’s important that you feel comfortable with me that’s why I want to know if I have

your permission to record the conversation…. Also if at any time before or after the

conversation you change your mind and want me... not to use your information, I want

you to know you have all the freedom and trust to let me know and I’ll do it… So,

everything is relaxed. And I tell you all this because I think it’s equally important... to give

the same considerations given to any person in a study whether it is scientific, social, or

artistic.

Para mí es importante que te sientas cómoda conmigo por eso quiero saber si tengo tu

permiso para grabar la conversación…. También si en cualquier punto antes o después

de la conversación cambias de opinión y quieras…. que ya no se use tu información,

quiero que sepas que tienes toda la libertad y confianza de decírmelo y yo lo haré…. En

fin, todo es relajado. Y te comento todo esto porque yo considero que es igual de

importante…. darles la mismas consideraciones que se le da a cualquier persona en

una investigación ya sea esta científica, social, o artística.

Finally, two dates were proposed to the artists along with a specific time accounting for the time-zone difference between Quito and Amsterdam. The artists then chose a date and the interview was carried out.

Participants

ELECTROLONGO 43 ​

In this section I will list the stage name of the artist and provide a small description of the type of music they create together with some personal information relevant to the study.

Lascivio Bohemia: is a thirty year old man from Quito. He began experimenting with making ​ music using a computer in 2005 after he left the National Music Conservatory. His father is a musician interested in classical music, his mother is not a musician but through her family

Lascivio Bohemia was greatly influenced by cumbia music. As the head of Edmoon Records, an ​ ​ arts diffusion platform, he promotes and publishes other artists like AUMA and Paramo Cumbie, and circulates music from his other projects which include Cosmo Waltz, Lil Pangolin, Lascive ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Dopamine, and Eduardo Zambrano among others. ​ ​ ​

Santi D: is a twenty-eight year old musical producer from Quito. He studied musical production ​ in Buenos Aires where he resided for a number of years before returning to Ecuador. His music is influenced by his experiences with different types of Latin American music but particularly music from Brazil where he lived for a period. Santi D founded ‘Canal Dub’, an online record ​ ​ ​ label where he mixes and publishes compilations of music from other Ecuadorian artists along with his own. His other projects including BCD, No Me La Bajes together with A1X, and other ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ collaborations are also published in Canal Dub. ​

Quixosis: is a thirty year old man from Quito. He studied arts at the university and plays the ​ violin along with other instruments. At twenty-one he began making his own music using a computer after the band with whom he played broke off and he could not find another way to make music. His grandfather spearheaded a record company from which Quixosis began to ​ build his own collection of records he would later use in his music. Some of my favorite songs by

ELECTROLONGO 44 ​

Quixosis are El Futurikingue (feat. Renata Nieto), Siete Cruces, poncho ácido, El Chirisiki (+ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ Ataw Allpa) among others. ​

AUMA: is a twenty-three year old man studying music in Quito. AUMA has no previous ​ ​ ​ experience with music and he started experimenting with making music through a computer after he got injured and could not play soccer for some time. Immediately after he decided to study music and is already releasing tunes through Edmoon Records. AUMA’s latest release is ​ ​ called Le Cachullapi. ​ ​

Ataw Allpa: is a thirty year old man from Quito. He studied fashion design in 2007 before ​ definitely turning to music. Travelling through South America he was deeply influenced by music from Argentina and Brazil, where he spent a period of time. After he began experimenting with making music using a computer he founded Mishky Records. He has been a key actor in driving ​ ​ the electronic independent music scene in Ecuador particularly through the festival Mishky Fest. ​ ​

Frabrikante: is a thirty year old man from Guayaquil. His type of music is unclassifiable as he ​ continuously re-explores and re-defines his own expectations about sounds and compositions.

Fabrikante is well known for his use of old and forgotten instruments including a variety of whistles from the coast of Ecuador. His latest production is Tin Tin together with Lil Pangolin. ​ ​

In addition to the artists described above, who make and work predominantly with electronic and electroacoustic processes, the following artists were invited to interview but they do not rely for the most part on electronic processes:

ELECTROLONGO 45 ​

Chikaru: is a relatively new band of ‘indie folk andino’. The lead singer is a twenty-eight year old ​ woman from Guayaquil who studied cinematography before turning to music. As a new band

Chikaru is slowly entering the alternative music scene with their debut single Libélula which was ​ released in February 2018.

Papaya Dada: Is a band of tropical and chichera music from Ecuador. They started playing ​ ​ ​ together after its founder, a thirty year old man from Quito, finished his studies of Jazz in the

United States and returned to Ecuador with a different vision for his music. In Ecuador, Papaya ​ Dada has collaborated with well-known tecnocumbia and chichera artists, as well as with ​ ​ ​ ​ tropical music artists. Some of their iconic songs include Dónde Venderán Buen Trago, Al lado ​ ​ ​ Mío, and Zapatea among others. ​ ​ ​

A full mapping of the electrolongo artists is presented in Figure 2. The diagram was developed ​ together with Ataw Allpa and it shows the rhythmic branches followed by the different artists of ​ electrolongo. ​

ELECTROLONGO 46 ​

Interviews

Direct communication through Facebook messenger does not require ‘friendship’, it does however require that I use my personal Facebook account to get in contact with the artists. I did not send any ‘friendship requests’ to respect the participants’ privacy and contacted them only through their professional accounts (i.e. Facebook Fan Page). Therefore, Facebook friendship or contact through Whatsapp was initiated and/or requested by the participants themselves. All

ELECTROLONGO 47 ​ interviews were conducted through Facebook Video Chat and recorded using FlashBack

Express Recorder, a free program that records the computer screen. Additionally, a sound-only recording using a smartphone’s in-built recorder was made as a backup in case the first recording was damaged. No notes were made during the interview as I did not want to interrupt the informal atmosphere of the conversation; however, I maintained a research agenda for the duration of the interaction.

The interviews followed a semi-structured approach and generally lasted for an hour to an hour and a half. I split the screen into two sections, one in which the video chat was taking place, and a smaller portion in which I displayed for myself the questions I had prepared and which followed a particular order - building from general to specific (see Table 1). The questions served the purpose of an anchor to remind me of important themes I wanted to address rather than as a rigid interview structure. Fundamentally, the interview followed a conversational flow paying great attention to the appropriate and convenient time to embed thematic questions, to request for exploration, explanations, clarifications, to steer the conversation back on topic, or to let the interviewee explore at her own pace particular topics. Therefore, I intentionally avoided formulating the questions with a formal diction, structure, and tone; hence, avoiding academic language, jargon, or formal body language and used instead informal, casual, Quiteño vernacular to highlight the conversational nature of the encounter and to create a space of commonality and rapport. To this end, I practiced and received feedback from peers on my verbal as well as nonverbal communication. Despite the preparatory buildup towards the interviews it is relevant to note that for the face to face encounter I personally favored spontaneity in place of method — I believe this suited this particular context in a better way than would a minutely planned interview.

ELECTROLONGO 48 ​

Table I. Electrolongo interview Questions. Original and English translation. ​ ​ ​ Original - Spanish English translation

Cómo es para ti ser artista en Ecuador? How is it for you to be an artist in Ecuador?

Por qué quisiste hacer tu propia música? Why did you decide to make your own music?

Cuándo empezaste a hacer música? When did you start to make your own music?

Qué tipo de música haces? Cómo describirías tu What type of music do you make? How would you música? Cuál es el estilo? describe your music? What is the style?

En qué te inspiras para hacer tu música? What inspires you to make your music?

Cómo construyes tu música? How do you build your music?

Describirías tu música dentro de algún género? Would you describe your music within any genre?

Qué instrumentos usas? What instruments do you use?

Qué ritmos usas? Hay ritmos o sonidos que te What rhythms do you use? Are there rhythms or llaman más la atención? sounds that call your attention?

Por qué usas esos ritmos y sonidos? Why do you use those rhythms and sounds?

En qué tipo de lugares tocas tu música? In what kinds of places do you play your music?

Qué tipo de artistas tocan contigo? Ellas/ellos What kinds of artists play with you in a line-up? Do tocan también en estos lugares/conciertos? they also play at these venues/concerts?

Qué tipo de personas van a los lugares/conciertos What type of people go to the venues/concerts donde tocas? where you play?

Cómo reacciona la gente cuando escucha tu How do people react when they listen to your música? music?

Por qué crees que la gente que escucha tu Why do you think people who listen to your music, música le gusta tu música? like your music?

Crees que tu música se relaciona con la sociedad Do you think your music is related to the social que está en contacto con tu música? environment it is in contact with?

Tienes algún propósito artístico, personal, o social Do you have an artistic, personal, or social con tu música? purpose with your music?

Sientes que tu música forma parte de tu Do you feel that your music is part of your identidad? identity?

Sientes que tu música se relaciona de alguna Do you feel that your music is related in any way forma a cómo te sientes como ecuatoriano/a? to how you feel as an Ecuadorian?

ELECTROLONGO 49 ​

The thematic questions pertained to the main issues this thesis investigates: national identity, music and identity/national identity, culture and nation-building. As previously mentioned, the questions were meant to provide guidance and so did not function as explicit demands for specific answers. Thus, the questions were conscientiously designed paying attention not to lead the interviewee into specific answers, instead they provided a general entry into the topic I wanted to address and either built from the participants’ own wish to go more in-depth regarding a particular topic, or I steered the conversation in the direction of a particular topic by subtly dropping keywords intended to let the participant arrive at her own pace to a theme. In essence, and building from what was discussed in the previous interview methods section, I did not force a topic as I considered the interview to be: an event where opinion could be activated, where ideas may become conceptualized, and where participants could have the opportunity to explore within a conversation general ideas about their music.

An example of what was deemed a leading question would be the following: “Cuál es la relación entre tu música y tu identidad como ecuatoriana/o? [What is the relationship between ​ your music and your identity as an Ecuadorian?]” This formulation implies an existing ​ relationship between the artist’s music and her national identity, and assumes that there exists a fixed sense of Ecuadorianness that remains unclear or unanswered by the participant and ​ therefore up for interpretation by the interviewer. Instead, the question was split in two. The first, broad enough to allow the participant to arrive individually to an explanation of national identity, and the second to steer the previous question in the direction of national identity in case it was not reached: “Sientes que tu música forma parte de tu identidad? [Do you feel that your music is ​ part of your identity?]” and followed by “Sientes que tu música se relaciona de alguna forma a ​ cómo te sientes como ecuatoriana/o? [Do you think your music relates in any way to how you ​ feel as an Ecuadorian?]” Generally, dropping keywords like identidad (identity) was sufficient to ​ ​

ELECTROLONGO 50 ​ create a space for self-exploration; likewise, the first question was frequently enough for the participants to question the meaning of identity, self-define identity, and analyze identity in relation to nationality.

As previously discussed, neither interviewer nor interviewee are impervious to the influence of one another — the construction of meaning and knowledge is mutually influenced during an interview. Because this musical ethnography works from the premise that meaning is co-constructed the interview process of this study should be regarded as a conversation between two Ecuadorians mutually exploring their own notions of national identity at this point in time. Nevertheless, the predominant and relevant conceptualization of identity represented in this research is the one formulated by the artists.

Data and Analysis

I transcribed all interviews and proceeded to reread the transcriptions manually highlighting overlapping information to identify common themes. As I reread the information I jotted down my immediate thoughts on the topic on the side margins. Once I had identified a set of common and diverging lines of thought I proceeded to connect these formulations in a schematic diagram that would serve as the preliminary ethnographic analysis. Although in general I had no need to contact the artists regarding unclear information they had all left the door open for further communication. However, I did not pursue any other communication, except for the follow-up and a few instances when information was needed, until this investigation was finished.

ELECTROLONGO 51 ​

Chapter 5: Electrolongo Ethnographic Analysis ​ ​

I begin this analysis by inviting the reader first to listen to the music which is the foundation of this research. In order to build a personal experience with the music, in a way that acknowledges the artists’ original intention that their music be to the listener an embodied experience — felt rather than thought — I have set up a musical roadmap that will help the reader become familiar with the music from each artist interviewed and that of those who declined; and which will serve as a macro guide through the sensorial landscapes crafted with carefulness by these artists.

Electrolongo: Music Map ​

A playlist of these songs is also available: Electrolongo Music Map. ​ ​

1 2 3 4

Nicola Cruz - Tzantza Santi D. - Kitu Vive Mateo Kingman - Guanchaka - Cumbia ​ ​ ​ Sendero del Monte Mañanera

5 6 7 8

EVHA - Uíuí Lascivio Bohemia - Paramo Cumbie - AUMA - Le ​ ​ Andarele Cógelo Cachullapi

9 10 11 12

Fabrikante - Chimo Mala Fama (& Rosa Pancho Piedra - El Quixosis - Poncho ​ ​ ​ Vibración Yamainch) - Uyush Cuento Ácido ​ Guerrero

13 14 15 16

Taita Machine - Andes Machine - Huaya-nay - Ataw Allpa & Dj Nirso Amnesia Perdido en el Oxido Abriendo Camino - La Gordita ​ Table II. Electrolongo music map. ​ ​ ​

ELECTROLONGO 52 ​

La Música - The Music

To a non-Ecuadorian listener this music is perhaps twice as puzzling as it is for an

Ecuadorian. The fusion is in itself unexpected, a combination of electronic sounds with other types of sounds. Indeed, it is difficult to describe this music without falling into stereotypes. What is an ‘electronic’ sound, in fact? How to describe the other sounds as: ‘native’, ‘Ecuadorian’,

‘folkloric’? Each label carries within it systems of thinking and systems of power (Foucault, 1991;

Bourdieu, 1991); finding a suitable definition is not without essentializing. Even for an

Ecuadorian, who recognizes in several tracks the rhythm of the bomba from the Chota Valley ​ northwest of Ibarra or the familiar pace of the san juanito in several other tracks, it is difficult to ​ define this music. Some listeners may have experienced what I experienced, that is, confusion, followed by an intense need to understand the music by categorizing it, and in failing to fit it into any specific concept of music went back to listening. On its own, the music appears to resist classification while simultaneously provoking the listener to think about it. Ironically, the music is ​ not meant to be thought about, yet it provokes precisely that, particularly on a first encounter.

Strictly on the technical side rhythms like acid house, trap, psytrance, ambient, and ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ techno among others are mixed with rhythms, sounds, and music of local origin (from now on ​ EC-local). These local sounds are not just any ones that fall under the label of ‘Ecuadorian’. As it will become clear in the next section, they are carefully chosen by the artists and often linked by them to ideas of the past and of a sense of identity. Overall, the result of the fusion is a type of music that explores the connection between the acoustic and the electronic, on the surface.

More deeply, it explores the relationship between the local in the face of the global, the central

ELECTROLONGO 53 ​ vis a vis the peripheral, and the past facing the present as processes taking place within the artists, then explored and expressed through their music.

If a socio-political reading of the music is here intended that is because the artists, like their music, do not exist in a vacuum impervious to the influence of human relations; neither is all music necessarily an artist’s reflection of the outside world, it may also mirror inward processes. But processes, outward or inward, are reflected to varying degrees in the musicians’ creative expression. Quixosis mentioned about his own process: ​ ​

So, but really the process like the songs also happens…. takes takes time to build these

songs, so, many things can can happen in these almost three months of work, the song

ends up being a combination of everything that has happened to you. To me it is a

reflection of what is happening in my life, you know? More than anything.

Osea, pero en realidad el proceso como las canciones también suceden…. toma toma

tiempo construir estas canciones, entonces, puede puede pasar muchas cosas en estos

casi tres meses de trabajo, termina esa canción siendo una combinación de todo lo que

te ha sucedido. Para mí es un reflejo de lo que me está pasando en la vida, me

entiendes? Más que nada.

How the artists evaluate and produce their music against the backdrop of their own life experiences is useful to understand their choice to apply EC-local rhythms to an electronic base. From my own initial perspective, however, electronic and EC-local music were in stark opposition. On the one hand, electronic music uses predominantly electronics and is associated with a global culture. On the other hand, EC-local music is originally acoustic and highly local. Is

ELECTROLONGO 54 ​ it possible for these opposing poles to reconcile coherently? When I asked Quixosis how he ​ constructs his music he was positive that a number of EC-local rhythms like the san juanito are ​ perfectly compatible with the rhythmic base of techno, for example. To him, and to many other artists here interviewed, electronic music fits these rhythms because at their core they share a primal root. Quixosis explains: ​ ​

I believe that electronic music is much more primitive and traditional than what people

think, you know? So, you have the very primitive techno in the end, which isn’t isn’t so

advanced, it is is is the brutality of the drum…. It’s that, it’s tribal, it’s primitive, it’s basic,

and it’s ancestral. So, in a way the techno seems much more compatible with the san

juanito than with Rock, you know?

Creo que la música electrónica es mucho más primitiva y tradicional de lo que la gente

cree, me entiendes? Entonces tienes el techno muy primitivo al fin y al cabo, osea no es

no es tan avanzado, es es es la brutalidad del bombo…. Entonces eso, es tribal, es

primitivo, es básico y es ancestral. Entonces de una manera parece que es mucho más

compatible el san juanito con el techno que el Rock, me entiendes?

What is primitive is often associated with simplicity, a simplicity that may carry with it a negative connotation of nativeness emanating from persistent colonial systems of thinking or ​ may imply a misplaced sense of purity. Some artists lean more towards rhythms and sounds derived from peoples from the Ecuadorian Amazon, others towards more traditional Andean rhythms, others towards Afro-descendant music, and still others lean towards more contemporary rhythms like the cumbia (Figure 2). In that way, the rhythmic base of these music

ELECTROLONGO 55 ​ traditions may share in a primitive origin, perhaps as all music, and many songs from this current may elicit in the listener primal sensations because of its closeness to the drum or nature’s sounds, but to my perception, they do not express (cultural) purity, simplicity, or complexity. They are, in my view, self-identified expressions of the artists’ memory and imagination of the region they care for — an experience that they feel compelled to communicate in their own terms.

When it comes to their music, Quixosis explained the process of constructing a song ​ using the metaphor of a cake:

….it’s like layers, it’s like making a cake, sometimes haha (haha), how music is made.

So, a sound sounds in a different way when it is alone and then it sounds in a totally

different way when others accompany it, you know….in music more clearly [these layers] ​ would be rhythm, tone, timbre, texture, uh and then it can be then all all things are

related, it can also be the audience, it can be the melody, the harmony….

….son como capas, es como hacer un pastel, a veces jaja (jaja), como se hace la

música. Osea un sonido suena de manera diferente cuando está solito y de ahí suena

de una manera totalmente diferente cuando lo acompañan otros, me entiendes….en la

música más claramente [estas capas] sería ritmo, tono, timbre, textura, ehm y de ahí

puede ser de ahí todos todas esas cosas se relacionan también puede ser la audiencia,

puede ser la melodía, la armonía….

All of the artists I interviewed spend most of the day working by themselves with their equipment, therefore, in the creation stage making their music is not a social activity but a

ELECTROLONGO 56 ​ private practice. Santi D mentioned that his thing is music all the time, from morning till evening ​ ​ (“lo mío es música todo el tiempo, desde la mañana hasta la noche”). A common motivation underscoring the artists’ dedication to their craft is the sense of closeness they express for Latin

America and the strong affection they have for their particular locality — Ecuador — emotions suffused with a subtle sense of pride. As Santi D puts it: ​ ​

Having travelled through Latin America, through these countries, I realized that we have

an enormous wealth, indescriptible, intangible, invaluable, incommunicable, in the entire

continent, which there is nowhere else in the world (aha) because our context is unique

and everything everything is unique.

Al haber viajado por latinoamérica, por estos países, me di cuenta que tenemos una

riqueza enorme, indescriptible, intangible, invaluable, incomunicable, en todo el

continente, que no hay en ningún otro lugar del mundo (ajá) porque nuestro contexto es

único y todo todo es único.

Talking specifically about the music, Quixosis told me that it is akin to an exploration of ​ ​

….the root, the folkloric roots of music, the uh gigantic catalogue of Ecuadorian music

that hasn’t been popularized or exploited….[these are] like territories not necessarily ​ ​ explored but with an enormous wealth that we [the Ecuadorians] sometimes discard ​ ​

….la raíz, las raíces folclóricas de la música, el catálogo eh gigantesco de música

ecuatoriana que no ha sido popularizado o explotado….[estos son] como territorios no

ELECTROLONGO 57 ​

necesariamente explorados pero con una riqueza enorme que nosotros [los

ecuatorianos] a veces descartamos

And a sense of rootedness (Malkki, 1992), that arouses primal sensations and brings to the fore the past, or at least versions of it, is felt through this music. The link between the primitive roots of these different kinds of music functions as a seesaw upon which are balanced the notion of this music as an artistic expression on one end and the usefulness of this music as an aesthetic-ideological process on the other. It is in this complicated balance that new versions of national identity may arise. Yet, before we dive into that discussion, which in itself exemplifies the careful balance between aesthetics and ideology in this music, it is important to understand why the artists themselves chose to fuse electronic with EC-local music. When I asked Lascivio ​ Bohemia why he decided to make this gigantic shift from classical music, which he studied for ​ five years at the National Music Conservatory in Quito, to electronic music he said this to me:

I believe these are, it’s stages in life. So, electronic music is very accessible. You can

have a computer at home and make music. Instead, the opposite is quite difficult

because a recording studio costs you thousands of dollars. Hiring invited musicians

costs you thousands of dollars. So, it was like a momentary way out to start to

experiment, without money.

Yo creo que son, es etapas de vida. Entonces la música electrónica es bastante

accesible. Tu puedes tener una computadora en la casa y haces música. En cambio lo

otro es un poco difícil porque un estudio de grabación te cuesta miles de dólares. Estar

ELECTROLONGO 58 ​

contratando músicos invitados te cuesta miles de dólares. Entonces fue como una salida

momentánea para empezar a experimentar, sin dinero.

From the artists’ comments it can be surmised that, ultimately, the need to experiment with and make music in the absence of financial resources is the reason that motivated the choice of electronic music as a medium of artistic creation. Ataw Allpa explained without ​ hesitation that as an artist in Ecuador he eats his shirt ("yo me como la camisa") to stress his ​ financial strain. Likewise, Satin D mentioned that us musicians are the ones that earn the ​ ​ least….it’s heroic to live of art, get it? (“los músicos somos los que peor ganamos….es heroico ​ vivir del arte, cachas?”). Yet, money not playing a decisive role in the artist’s opportunities to experiment with and create music is a key factor driving their choice to use and produce electronic music, as a consequence of the artistic independence provided by the computer.

As Quixosis half-jokingly reveals, the relevance of the computer is due to the ​ ​ independence it provides to the artist: you are one person, so it’s there it’s there where the pc ​ comes in. The pc gives you the ability of having other musicians in your ensemble who don’t exist haha (“eres una persona, entonces ahí ahí es donde entra la compu. La compu te da la ​ habilidad de tener otros músicos en tu ensamble, que no existen jaja”). Ataw Allpa further ​ stresses the importance of electronic methods of music production (via the computer) because the democratization of musical production is ushered by electronic music…. precisely with electronic music is the dictatorship of producers broken (“la democratización de la producción ​ de la música viene de la mano de la música electrónica…. justamente con la música electrónica se quiebra la dictadura de los productores”). Because the technique and method of production of electronic music does not rely on external factors such as musicians or producers, music can be created by whomever, wherever as long as there is the minimum equipment, often only a

ELECTROLONGO 59 ​ computer. Thus, for Ataw Allpa the so-called electronic music uh is precisely the one that has ​ ​ permitted the global peripheries to make their own music (“la llamada música electrónica eh es ​ justamente la que ha permitido a las periferias mundiales hacer su propia música”). And in turn it has altered the ways in which identity, particularly notions of collective identity like national identity, can be explored; namely, that this quest has migrated to an ever feedback-giving

(audience-artist-audience and viceversa) online medium.

The (financial) independence provided by the methods of production of electronic music, however, does not explain the motivation to use it in combination with EC-local music. While most artists agree that the EC-local—electronic music scene began approximately 6 to 8 years ago and was pioneered particularly by Nicola Cruz, from our conversations there is no one ​ ​ general, clear-cut reason for the creation of this fusion. Some, like Quixosis, argue that the ​ ​ scene is regionally spontaneous but it's also global, so we have people all around Latin

America, in all the countries of the global south ("es espontánea pero también es global, osea tenemos gente en toda latinoamérica, en todos los países del sur global") that are making this kind of fusions. Others, like Lascivio Bohemia stress that they use EC-local music out of ​ ​ ​ personal satisfaction, he says: because I feel that, that it’s nice to know where I come from….to ​ ​ know what was happening hundreds of years ago, to know how they made music, uh to understand why I have this taste, why when I listen to an albazo or a cumbia I get excited, I want to play it, I want to fusion it ("por satisfacción propia, [él dice] porque yo siento quee, que ​ es lindo conocer de dónde vengo….sabe qué pasaba cientos de años antes, saber cómo hacían la música, eh entender por qué tengo este gusto, por qué cada vez que escucho un albazo o una cumbia me emociono, me da ganas de tocarlo, me da ganas de fusionarlo").

Rather than standing in opposition these motivations comfortably overlap. Moreover, they seem to be expressed to different degrees in every artist and their music. However, at the

ELECTROLONGO 60 ​ juncture between these EC-local and electronic musical frontiers a tension of a political nature is found. Whether this fusion was created with or without an attached ideology the end product is

(or becomes), nonetheless, politicized. It brings to the surface the ethnic tensions underlying the public and private discourses of identity of an Ecuadorian.

‘Electrolongo’ is the name with which Ataw Allpa characterizes this fusion. In reclaiming ​ the term longo, turning it from a denigrating term to an empowering adjective, and by latching it ​ ​ to the socially perceived ‘coolness’ of electronic music, the compound term ‘electrolongo’ ​ ​ manages to at once force a questioning of identity and a repositioning of social roles on a more equal footing. Hence, this music is not simply hanging as a self-contained artistic expression. It unfolds within a social, and most importantly, a political framework; independently of whether this framework is acknowledged or was intended to be so by the artists. In the end, the music becomes, and reifies, an aesthetic-ideological process with a tangible social influence. Ataw ​ Allpa is upfront about the social objectives he has for his music, as for the other artists this may be the case to different degrees; yet, they are all in a continuous dialogue through their music, during concerts when they share the stage, and face to face when they meet up for a collaboration or as friends. Therefore, through their dialogue they co-construct a joint framework for their music. The social effect of these artists’ music may be what Ataw Allpa has set out to ​ accomplish with his own and which he succinctly expresses in the following excerpt:

….in the moment that one of these preppy, snooty, anti national mestizos is dancing

something they believe that is house, that is trance, or that is reggaetón and suddenly

realize that they’re dancing a san juanito, and say ‘chucha [fuck], I was a longo indeed’. ​ That is the moment I want to generate in people. And that it burns and that it tells them

‘shit, it burns me to be indio as well’. And that they understand precisely that conflict

ELECTROLONGO 61 ​

within the self. Because the moment that you understand and you confront it is like you

can take it on and you can resolve it. And you’re, if you resolve it within you, you resolve

it in your interrelation with the rest of the people, because in that moment that you

assume that you have also your indigenous part very strong within the mestizo that you

are you will, you have the opportunity to be more empathic with those who have been

invisible till today, which are the indigenous.

….en el momento en el que uno de estos mestizos aniñados, adefeciosos,

antinacionales está bailando algo que cree que es house, que es trance, o que es

reggaetón y de repente se da cuenta de que está bailando un san juanito, y dice ​ ​ ‘chucha, longo mismo he sido’. Ese es el momento que yo quiero generar en las

personas. Y que le arda y que le diga ‘mierda, me arde ser indio también’. Y que

entienda justamente ese conflicto dentro de sí. Porque en el momento en que lo

entiendes y lo enfrentas como que lo puedes asumir y lo puedes resolver. Y lo re, si lo

resuelves desde tí, lo resuelves en tu interrelación con las demás personas, porque en

ese momento en el que asumes que tienes tu parte indígena también muy fuerte dentro

del mestizo que eres vas a, tienes la posibilidad de ser más empático con aquellos que

han sido invisibles hasta ahora, que son los indígenas.

ELECTROLONGO 62 ​

Electrolongo: Three Branches ​

I have identified three main conceptual branches within the artists’ discourse: the land, the resistance, and the diversity. These recurring concepts outline the artists’ exploration of the idea of national identity while simultaneously they overlay their process of artistic creation.

La Tierra - The Land ​

The defining feature of this music is its local component. While the artists do explore rhythms from other Latin American regions the use of rhythms, sounds, and songs associated to

Ecuador is predominant. From afro descended rhythms originating in the province of

Esmeraldas and the Chota Valley in the province of Imbabura, to the selvatic sounds and music of the Amazonía, all through the rhythms of the Amerindian peoples of the highlands, and the montubio and mestizo music electrolongo collects from all the musical landscapes of Ecuador. ​ ​ Because of the prominence given to the EC-local music it is possible to conceive electrolongo as a modern expression of patriotism, or even nationalism, as it could be argued that electrolongo exemplifies a romanticization of the past that furthers a primordialist idea of the ​ Ecuadorian nation. However, this is not the case. While electrolongo can be argued to ​ re-negotiate national identity and typify (to some extent) either a constructivist or a primordialist theory of the nation, the artists instead distance themselves in their discourse from the notion of ​ the nation and rather adopt with vehemence the localized notion of the land. ​ ​ In the very first interview with Fabrikante the dichotomy between the country and the ​ ​ land was made clear in the artist’s discourse. Speaking of music in relation to his immediate

ELECTROLONGO 63 ​ social context I probed Fabrikante by saying that “nonetheless, it seems that you link it [his ​ ​ experience with music] a lot to your experience as an Ecuadorian, no?” To which Frabikante ​ replied:

...also of course, as part of of a land, no? Still you know? Perhaps not so much as an

Ecuadorian but certainly as from this land. And what, and what, and what is near to this

land…. But, for instance, I don’t mind saying I’m from Ecuador, not sure if I explain

myself? Buut it’s not that I feel Ecuadorian. I feel like from this land, and obviously what’s

closest to here is what...or what’s closest to where I was born is what calls me, a bit.

...claro también, como parte de de una tierra, no? Igual sabes? Quizá no tanto como

ecuatoriano pero sí como de esta tierra. Y lo y lo y lo que le queda cerca a esta tierra….

Pero, por ejemplo, a mí no me importa decir que soy de Ecuador, no sé si me explico?

Peroo no es que me siento ecuatoriano. Yo me siento como de esta tierra y obviamente

lo más cercano para aquí es lo...o de lo más cercano a donde yo nací es lo que más me

llama, un poco.

Two things can be noted from this excerpt. First, that Fabrikante makes a conscious ​ distinction between the land and Ecuador, the country. When he refers to the term Ecuadorian ​ ​ he does so to point to a place of origin, using the term more as a direction sign than as an identity identifier. The nationality adjective, Ecuadorian, is reduced to its referencial practicality, ​ ​ that is, as a pointer in the world map. However, when he uses the term land he makes clear that ​ there is a sense of attachment; which is the second feature of his discourse. The relationship

Fabrikante establishes with his place of birth is one based on affection. What is significant about

ELECTROLONGO 64 ​ his conceptualization is that he separates the nation-state from the land and subscribes to the latter the sentiments of belonging and fondness often associated with the former. In making this linguistic distinction Fabrikante rejects and distances himself from the patriotic and nationalistic ​ conceptual characteristics connected to the nation-state while keeping and strengthening the emotional link with the land. This rejection of the country, which comes about through an ​ ​ activation of opinion triggered by the question — notice Fabrikante’s initial agreement and final ​ re-footing — is not founded on an anti-nationalist sentiment. In fact, the closeness with which he describes the land could be surmised to be even of a patriotic kind; thus, Fabrikante does not ​ appear to reject ‘the place where he was born’ but is reluctant to associate himself with the idea of the country, and the nationalist concepts linked to it. In the interview with Santi D. this ​ ​ sentiment, which underlines Fabrikante’s discourse, is explored more in detail. When I asked ​ Santi D. if he feels his music is part of his identity he replied: ​

Santi D: Yyyes yes of course. Every day I feel happier to belong to this zone, to these

lands from here.

SM: and and it caught my attention that more, this this, difference that you make saying ‘

I like it more to be in this zone, in this land’...why not, why not Ecuador? not that I’m

placing a judgement, but that catches my attention.

Santi D: because...because it can also be like a nationalist, patriotic manipulation, and

based on it to have the, the pretext to say ‘alright, we are a country’.... It’s like to already

formalize that the system, that that system is the only one that we have access to, get it?

ELECTROLONGO 65 ​

And that too is discrimination, you know? Because it makes you belong to a place and

makes you not belong to many others

SM: ok so in your, so for you, correct me if I’m wrong [Santi D:...with music you break]

...yes? Ah ok ok, that’s why you say that music breaks those barriers, that’s why you

refer more to lands and zones than specifically to nations and nationalities?

Santi D: of course, of course, and that they express much more fulfilling things

than...feeling from a country…. And it’s not that I don’t feel Ecuadorian, or feel like I don’t

belong as a quiteño, or like I don’t feel this culture. Rather I see it a little more, excuse

me, a little less...patriotic, no?

Santi D: Sssi si claro. Cada día me siento más feliz de pertenecer a esta zona, a estas ​ tierras de por acá.

SM: y y me llamó la atención que cada vez más, esa esa, diferencia que haces con

decir ‘me gusta cada vez más estar en esta zona, en esta tierra’...por qué no, por qué no

Ecuador? No es que estoy poniendo ningún juicio de valor, pero me llama la atención

eso.

Santi D: porque...porque también puede ser como una manipulación nacionalista, ​ patriótica, y en base a eso tener la, el pretexto de decir ‘bueno, somos un país’.... Es

como ya formalizar el que el sistema, que ese sistema es el único al que tenemos

ELECTROLONGO 66 ​

acceso, cachas? Y eso también es una discriminación, me entiendes? Porque te hace

pertenecer a un lugar y te hace no pertenecer a muchos otros

SM: ya osea en tu, osea para ti, corrigeme si me equivoco [Santi D:...con la música ​ ​ rompes] ...si? Ah ok ok, por eso dices que la música rompe esas barreras, por eso te

refieres más como a tierras y zonas que específicamente a naciones y nacionalidades?

Santi D: claro, claro y que expresan cosas mucho más llenadoras que...sentirse de un ​ país…. Y no es que no me siento ecuatoriano, o siento que no me pertenezco a quiteño,

o como que no siento esta cultura. Sino que lo veo un poco más, perdón, un poco

menos...patriótico, no?

The dichotomy between the country and the land is a recurrent theme in the artists’ ​ discourse. It appears that the choice these artists make to collect EC-local music associated with Ecuador is a reflexion of their affection and familiarity with their immediate surroundings. In other words, their sense of identity (‘Ecuadorianness’) is the product of their cultural experiences rather than a consequence of their nationality. This notion is in line with Malkki’s

(1992) suggestion that people can form motley identities based on memory and attachment to about a place or a territory, a process that yields a fluid identity itself grounded on fluid and changing territorial (and metaphysical) roots. Whether the artists questioned nationality, national identity, and the nation-state before or after they began producing their music becomes a trivial question given that their local, inter-regional, and global dialogue feeds new versions of

(national) identity rooted in the local and interconnected through ideas, music, and a transnational sense of fraternity with the region of Latin America; thus, providing the artists with

ELECTROLONGO 67 ​ a larger territory that becomes also part of their roots — of their land. It is not, after all, a ​ ​ coincidence that this electronic fusion is a somewhat global (if peripheral) phenomenon and ​ rather strong in Latin America. As Quixosis mentions: ​ ​

That’s why I like to tour because I’ve met people from all over the world that are doing

similar things and that are doing it with similar intentions, yes, it feels that it is a collective

and a family labor almost.

Por eso me gusta girar porque he conocido gente de todo el mundo que está haciendo

cosas parecidas y que está haciéndolo con intenciones parecidas, sí se siente que es

una labor colectiva y familiar casi.

Moreover, as a consequence of the mechanisms of distribution of this music being essentially virtual the notion of nationality further loses ground for these artists because music sharing becomes independent and unrestricted by the borders that separate nation-states.

Altogether, Electrolongo takes on a semi political role as it (1) conceptually challenges ​ the emotional basis of the nation, (2) enlarges the pool of shared (ethnic) symbols which typically characterized and restricted national identity, (3) and calls into question the frontiers established by the boundedness of nation-states. This challenge is particularly well-suited to

South America — if not to Latin America as a whole — because as similar artists explore the sounds, rhythms, and songs from their lands they match to one another the musical and cultural ​ features shared across the continent; hence, effectively creating an online community of artists and listeners that is grounded simultaneously on music interests and interrelated cultural bonds across their lands. In practice, online record labels like Frente Bolivarista, Multi Culti, ZZK, ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ ​

ELECTROLONGO 68 ​ among others have created niches that spread both music and ideology. On the one hand, by supporting a diversity of artists from different countries — ZZK (ARG) for Nicola Cruz (EC) — and on the other, by explicitly stating their views in their content pages. An example of this can be found in the Biography and Personal Information section of the Facebook Page of Shika ​ ​ ​ Shika records where they note: ​

We love music that brings together worlds, that knows no borders or genre boundaries

and that is pushing the fusion between rhythms, cultures, sounds, languages and ideas.

We believe in people, we believe in collaboration and we believe in the power of music

to impact our lives and our planet.

Shika Shika was founded somewhere on the internet between Mexico City and Buenos

Aires but has grown to become an international collective of producers, musicians,

artists with a common interest: creativity without borders.

Electrolongo’s intentional focus on the local (and to a lesser extent of the regional) connects it rather than isolate it from the international musical exchange and dialogue. Because of its electronic method of production it inserts itself within an audience niche and by using electronic music as medium it can forward to international listeners information about aspects of its culture(s) of origin that would not be easy to discover otherwise — either because they are very idiosyncratic, suppressed or undervalued, or not part of the exported dominant cultural discourse. On the local stage, that is for local audiences, electrolongo functions as an agent that ​ at the same time stimulates a sense of a-nationality — or a de-nationalizing effect — while nurturing a sense of belonging and affection to the land, particularly to its ethnic diversity. Note, ​ ​

ELECTROLONGO 69 ​ for example, how EVHA’s latest album weaves together plentiful musical expressions from ​ ​ diverse Ecuadorian geographies ranging from the bomba rhythm, the san juanito, and even incorporating whistles and voice performances related to native Amazonian practices while combining them with lyrics about the everydayness of life (similar to old provincial music where the country life is described), environmental protests, political awareness, and spirituality that at times borders with psychedelic events that together with the music evoke a shamanic ritual.

The opposition between the concepts of the country (as in nation-state) and the land (as ​ ​ in the region or territory) in the artists’ discourse revealed a profound disconnection with nationalistic and patriotic ideals. While the artists expressed a deep sense of fraternity and fondness for the socio-cultural expressions within the (Ecuadorian) locality they rejected or detached themselves from manifestations of national sovereignty. National symbols like the flag or the national anthem, for instance, were discursively rejected as expressions of identity; the concept of national identity itself was approached with skepticism as the artists refused to align their cultural identity with ideologies born out of the nation-state. Supporting this sentiment was a strong reluctance to define national identity within the framework of sovereignty of the modern nation-state, particularly in relation to (inter)national borders. The borderless nature of their music appeared to strongly influence the criticism of national borders as (unequally) limiting movement and intensifying nationalisms rather than containing them. Consequently, the artists supported the idea of a diverse but unified Latin America. Curiously, the rejection of the nation-state, and its derived concepts, was only partial as the conceptualization of the land ​ invoked back the borders and culturally associated symbols and ideas linked to the Ecuadorian nation-state in order to conceptually and discursively define it. Therefore, the detachment from the idea of the nation, state, and the country suggests a refusal to accept the unequal social ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ dynamics resulting from nation-states within a capitalist framework — marked by an unequal

ELECTROLONGO 70 ​ and limited movement of people, the use of patriotism as a manipulative discursive tool, the use of nationalism for political agendas that benefit populist political motivations, among others — rather than a formal rejection of the model of the nation-state. Thus, the artists’ discursive switch from country to land linguistically enacts what electrolongo does through music, that is, by ​ ​ ​ (re)using belittled rhythms, sounds, and songs it elevates the human and cultural significance of the territory over its political and economic value.

La Resistencia - The Resistance ​

Going through the vinyls owned by their parents, having long conversations with their grandparents, visiting local markets to buy bargain cassettes and records of bygone Ecuadorian music, this is how these artists dig up a buried musical past. In their music is evidenced an encounter between the old local music and the current electronic global sounds. The encounter takes the form of a dialogue rather than a clash of genres and generations. When listening to

‘La velita e’ canela’ by Lascivio Bohemia, for example, the flow between the afro sounds and the ​ ​ ​ ​ electronic beats is seamless. Opposite to what is expected — that younger generations would want to disengage from older ones — these artists purposely seek out the music of older generations resulting in a music that interweaves past and present.

Why is the past so important for these artists? And whose past? The quest to re-engage with the past is not unique to these artists, and is therefore not recent — but it is continuous.

The re-engagement with the Amerindian past has been seeked with urgency in Ecuadorian literature from Jorge Icaza’s Huasipungo (1934) to Jorge Enrique Adoum’s Entre Marx y una ​ ​ Mujer Desnuda (1976); in modern Ecuadorian documentaries such as Huahua (2017) by Joshi ​

ELECTROLONGO 71 ​

Espinosa Anguaya; in music during the fifties and sixties by such extinct record labels such as

Carlos Rota’s CAIFE records (Bernas, 2016); in painting by Oswaldo Guayasamín and more recently by young urban artists like Apitatán; and even in jewelry-making as was the work of ​ ​ master José Zamora. Thus, it appears that the past appeals to the artists by inciting them to explore the memory and culture of the Ecuadorian Amerindian and its rootedness within the mestizo. Hence, the electrolongo artists follow in the tradition of many other Ecuadorian ​ ​ mestizos in their quest to remember their many roots. ​ This transgenerational dialogue taking place through music feeds the artistic process by functioning as an information transference channel. When the artists engage with the old music and talk to the people who made it, and investigate about their life, they too become acquainted with the old artists’ ways of seeing their music — their beliefs, their ideas and ideologies.

Similarly, when the artists engage with musicians from marginalized groups they become acquainted with their struggle, with their lack of representation in the dominant cultural stage.

For instance, Quixosis discovered and digitized around three hundred analog magnetic tapes ​ that had been hidden for about forty five years inside the office of his deceased grandfather,

Carlos Rota (Bernas, 2016). The catalogue included music by unnoted artists such as Laura

Muenala, a blind accordeonist who still played at her old age in the streets of old town Quito.

When I asked Quixosis why he was so fascinated by finding the little treasures with which he ​ ​ ​ referred to the unexplored gigantic catalogue of Ecuadorian music (his words), he answered: ​ ​

So, I think that at an artistic level we [Ecuadorians] have a very rich history and as as as ​ a producer, and as a musician, and as an artist to me it’s very important to enter in this

conversation with the past and to nourish myself from what is there…. There are people

engaging with this conversation, so, me engaging with the grandpas...that gives it

ELECTROLONGO 72 ​

[making music] a different meaning, the hook with the new generation (aha) there it ​ ​ becomes a life cycle.

Entons yo creo que a nivel artístico tenemos una historia super rica y como como como

productor, y como músico, y como artista para mi es super importante entrar en esta

conversación con el pasado y alimentarme de lo que está por ahí…. es que hay gente

enganchándose en esta conversación, osea, yo enganchándome con los abuelitos...eso

le da un significado distinto, el enganche con la nueva generación (ajá) ahí se vuelve un

ciclo de vida.

The transgenerational dialogue needs not be face to face but part of an ongoing investigation that primes the artists before they go on to create their music. Indeed, Lascivio ​ Bohemia performs a kind of ethnographic research before he approaches creatively the music of a particular community. To him, this process goes beyond mere musical interest; he explains:

...a curiosity has awoken in me, not just musically because when you start to to search

information about the music of a specific community, of a specific zone uh you are

already involved with other things, with their way of life, with their food, with their culture,

with their customs, with their rituals….So, the process of of this now that I’m having

[referring to his musical process] yy... goes hand in hand with research. ​

...se ha despertado en mí la curiosidad de buscar, no solo musicalmente porque cuando

tu empiezas a a buscar información sobre la música de determinada comunidad, de

determinada zona eh ya te involucras con otras cosas, con su forma de vida, con su

ELECTROLONGO 73 ​

comida, con su cultura, con sus costumbres, con sus rituales…. Entonces, el proceso de

de esto actual que estoy teniendo ss... va de la mano con la investigación.

At this point, noting Lascivio Bohemia’s process, it appears that it is not only the past ​ that is recalled in EC-local music, but the present as well. However, the present of marginalized groups. In the quote above Lascivio Bohemia was speaking about this process as it took place ​ in Esmeraldas at local concerts were he found himself immersed in this (musical) culture largely different from the one he was accustomed to. Lascivio Bohemia mentioned that he would like to ​ immerse himself further, staying there for a week or more so he could begin to understand their everydayness. Curiously, his music is notably packed with Afro-Ecuadorian sounds as much as

Amerindian Andean rhythms; his EP Afro Andes exemplifies this merger of Ecuadorian cultures ​ best. Thus, it becomes evident that both the past and the present exert influence over the choices these artists make for EC-local music, and how their production itself is influenced by the tradition behind these choices of EC-local music.

Music is the end art product, but music is also the archival media as it ultimately serves as an information storage. Using a biology metaphor, music — much like DNA — can be said to store information that has been transferred from each predecessor to the newest heir: from each past artist to the present artist. Perceived this way, electrolongo becomes a sort of musical ​ record of past and present artistic exploration of Ecuadorian music. Moreover, by re-working and re-creating that past in a new way electrolongo unexpectedly re-introduces old and present ​ marginalized musical memories into the modern electronic music niche, a fusion that relocates these musical traditions back in the contemporary imaginarium and dialogue. Moreover, it can ultimately stimulate a reconsideration of the value of the past and of marginalized cultures as relevant to a modern construction of national identity.

ELECTROLONGO 74 ​

The past, then, does not remain static — a memory object akin to an exhibition piece in a museum: intact, foreign, (e)strange. Quite the opposite, to remember it is to interact with it, to become inevitably in contact with the associated beliefs, ideas and ideologies that enveloped the old/present Ecuadorian music. Finally, to interact with it is to react to it. Therefore, by transforming, adapting, and remixing the old and the present marginalized music electrolongo ​ becomes part of a historical discussion of national identity and adds to the narrative musical archive of the Ecuadorian identity. In this way, each new song could be considered to be a new entry in the growing musical narrative of Ecuadorian identity exploration.

On this matter Santi D mentioned: ​ ​

...the more protest music you listen to, the more music from these lands, you understand

more and more those past realities that are very strong, crude - I don’t say dark because

I like the obscure - but cruel, you know, bloody, proslavery, that. That strong historical

past. So, you become aware that in reality there were people that felt the music so much

as a tool to change all this; which makes you feel much closer and belonging to all this.

Not that it belongs to me, but that I that I belong to all this.

...mientras más música protesta te pones a escuchar, mientras más música de estas

tierras, entiendes cada vez más esas realidades pasadas que son super fuertes, crudas

- no digo oscuras, porque me gusta lo oscuro - pero crueles, cachas, sanguinarias,

esclavistas, así. Ese pasado histórico fuerte. Entonces te das cuenta que en realidad

había gente que sentía tanto la música como una herramienta para cambiar todo eso;

que te hace sentir mucho más cerca y perteneciente a todo esto. No que a mí me

pertenece, pero que yo que yo pertenezco a todo esto.

ELECTROLONGO 75 ​

It begins to be clear that the past/present that the electrolongo artists engage with, and ​ the past that many artists before them also engaged with, is a very specific type of past/present. ​ It is the past/present at the fringes of the constructed dominant discourse of national identity, tokenized along the nation-building process, and whitened under the ethnically-homogenizing mestizaje. Rather than being a well-defined category this past/present represents the people at ​ the margin of the nation’s history. Those peoples included the Amerindian Andean communities and the montubio peoples of the coast, and incorporate more currently the afro-descendants of the coast and highlands, as well as the native inhabitants of the Amazon. For this reason, the willingness to remember that past/present through their music can be seen as a political act — in this case remembering becomes an act of resistance.

What is it that is resisted through music and memory? From the artists’ discourse I have identified two grounds where resistance is enacted: the local and the global. These two grounds are separated but mutually influential. Accordingly, an analysis of how resistance is enacted locally is not without registering the regional and global influences over it. Electrolongo is after ​ ​ all a combination of EC-local and (international) electronic music. Locally, the music appears to represent a resistance towards the internalized dominant identity discourse which over-values whiteness and tokenizes ethnic identities when convenient. In the words of Ataw Allpa, the local ​ ​ social purpose of his music is simple:

To make being longo cool. That’s it, simply. That to be longo is cool. It’s a matter of, I

wish that no one ever had to feel ashamed of having a Quicha name. I wish that no one

ever had to feel ashamed of wearing their alpargatas [espadrilles] or of wearing their

poncho. Not because of cultural appropriation, forget about that term which I anyways

ELECTROLONGO 76 ​

find ridiculous (mhm), but because of a trueee practice of their daily life. So, I wear a ​ poncho because my grandfather was indigenous and wore a poncho, you know, so, I

don’t wear a poncho to go to a festival I wear a poncho when I get cold, yes? So, what

what I would want precisely is to normalize all these practices but at the same time en

endow them with this aura that that they’re chéveres [cool], that that that they’re cool, of ​ of pride, that we’re the shit.

Hacer que ser longo sea cool. Eso es, simplemente. Que ser longo sea cool. Es una

cuestión dee, quisiera que nunca más nadie se sienta avergonzado de tener un nombre

quichua. Quisiera que nunca más nadie se sienta avergonzado de de ponerse sus

alpargatas o de ponerse su poncho. No por apropiación cultural, olvídate ese término

que también me parece incluso ridículo [mhm], sino mas bien por una genuinaa práctica

de su cotidianidad. Osea, yo me pongo poncho porque mi abuelo era indígena y se

ponía poncho, me entiendes, osea, no me pongo poncho para ir al festival me pongo

poncho cuando me hace frío, si? Entonces lo lo que quisiera justamente es normalizar

todas éstas prácticas pero a la vez do dotarlas de este aura de de que son chéveres, de

de de que son cool, de del orgullo, de que somos del putas.

At the global scale the struggle becomes the resistance against oblivion and lack of representation within the global archive. Fostering a worldwide exchange albeit of an imbalanced nature, globalization behaves as a homogenizing agent acting for the benefit of the globally dominant discourse. Quixosis describes this phenomenon in this way: ​ ​

ELECTROLONGO 77 ​

I think, I think that to call it globalization is is is is so, not to tell the truth. What’s

happening isn’t a globalization, it’s an anglobalization, that’s my view. So, it’s not like the

gringos are learning more about me. I am learning more about the gringos. You know? I

learn English, I learn their cultural references, I learn who’s their president, I learn

everything, but they know nothing about my country. Nothing, they don’t have one

reference. So I think that we’re globalizing, we’re globalizing something very specific that

is this anglo culture….but why do I have to listen to Bob Dylan and they never listen to

Benítez y Valencia? So, I think thaaat in the media there’s a a a a gigantic power

imbalance…. We are burying the history of many, of many people that aren’t

represented on the Internet. We’re burying all their histories under an incomprehensible

amount of Netflix shows and Youtube videos….as small countries and as people with

micro identities, so we’re not we’re not uhh so we’re losing the battle in some way. We

need, we need to go at it harder.

A mí me parece, a mí me parece que decirle globalización es es es es osea no decir la

verdad. Lo que está pasando no es una globalización, es una anglobalización, a mi

parecer. Osea, no es que los gringos están aprendiendo más sobre mí. Yo estoy

aprendiendo más sobre los gringos. Me entiendes? Yo aprendo inglés, yo aprendo sus

referencias culturales, yo aprendo quién es su presidente, yo aprendo todo, pero ellos

no saben nada de mi país. Nada, no tienen ni una referencia. Entonces me parece que

estamos globalizando, estamos globalizando algo muy específico que es esta cultura

anglo….pero por qué tengo que yo escuchar Bob Dylan y ellos nunca escuchan Benítez

y Valencia? Osea me parece queee en los medios hay una una una una desequilibrio

de poder gigantesco….Estamos enterrando la historia de muchos, de muchísima gente

ELECTROLONGO 78 ​

que no está representada en el internet. Estamos enterrando todas sus historias bajo

una cantidad incomprensible de shows de Netflix y videos de Youtube….como países

pequeños y como gente con microidentidades, osea no estamos no estamos ehh osea

estamos perdiendo la batalla de alguna manera. Tenemos que, tenemos que darle más

duro.

Globally, electrolongo functions as an archive and as an exhibition of sorts, both ​ indexing internationally-unknown old Ecuadorian music and presenting it through an attractive medium to world listeners who are generally members of the non-mainstream electronic music niche. This EC-local music becomes part of the world musical encyclopaedia and transmits to these new listeners sonic images and experiences perhaps previously unknown to them about the specific territory where the music comes from. Therefore, by working both as record and representation electrolongo enacts a resistance to this music to be forgotten at the local and ​ ​ global level, and strengthens the right for these peripheral voices to be heard. It is difficult nonetheless to identify, from Quixosis’ discourse, who is the audience he is aiming at; is it ​ ​ ​ primarily local or global? It would appear that for Quixosis the audience for his music, solely the ​ music, is both local and global; but his motivation and purpose for creating and sharing his music is aimed strictly at the local Ecuadorian audience. It appears to be a similar case for the rest of the artists.

The past/present is drawn upon as a means to renegotiate the present through a musical conversation that puts together voices from different generations into a growing narrative that shapes the concepts of national identity. By enticing both local and global ears with EC-local sounds and drawing these audiences in with barrier-bending electronic sounds electrolongo enters foreign markets that validate it at an international level and consequently in ​

ELECTROLONGO 79 ​ the eyes of the locals. Although, as Ataw Allpa argues, this music neither set out to attain such ​ external validation nor it needed it; yet still it possesses it. The external acceptance of electrolongo provides a sense of status at the local level that facilitates its effects as an opposing force to self ethnic discrimination and to the tendency towards uprootedness of many youths in modern globalized societies. More importantly, however, in re-evaluating the mestizaje ​ on the terms of the Amerindian and other ethnicities, electrolongo gradually re-structures the ​ hegemonic identity discourse setting alternative versions of national identity as possible and as necessary.

The transgenerational dialogue enacted in the production of electrolongo enters into the ​ narrative of Ecuadorian identity construction as a modern chapter. Electrolongo connects ​ tradition, marginalized culture, and present musical technologies to reconstruct the Ecuadorian identity. It does so by merging apparent opposites — the past and the present, the digital and the analogue, the central and the peripheral — to disrupt fixed narratives of identity preserved in the music as associated memories and concepts of national identity. Memory and meanings associated with music of the past find their way back into the modern stage through electronic music, but find a new generation as their audience. In the audience, the blending of two eras and two ‘genres’ has the potential to trigger a re-thinking of what being Ecuadorian means, just ​ ​ as the makers of electrolongo questioned and expressed themselves through their music. ​ Therefore, the EC-local music used in electrolongo does not merely serve as an art object but it ​ functions as a vehicle transporting memories, meanings, and ideologies associated with it into the earplugs and concert venues where it is performed. The musical transgenerationality of electrolongo, thus, transforms the music from solely being an artistic expression to an ​ aesthetic-ideological process with social relevance. The use of the musical past and marginalized present becomes then an act of resistance as it repositions the music’s associated

ELECTROLONGO 80 ​ ideologies, cultural stock, and peoples centrally inside the current cultural dialogue and ensures their inclusion in the digital-archival memory of Ecuadorian identities.

La Diversidad - The Diversity ​

How is national identity shaped by ethnic and cultural diversity? In the interview with

AUMA he described that with his music he aims to

...capture in music how it has, how I have shaped myself in many social, familiar

aspects, on the matter of music itself; through music. That is, to express all that through

music. So, that’s why I try to use many rhythms uhh traditional to Latin America and from

here from Ecuador because they are the roots, that is, it’s where it’s where we come

from, it’s where I come from.

...plasmar en la música como se ha ido, como me he ido formando en muchos aspectos

sociales, familia, en el tema de la música mismo; a través de la música. Osea, expresar

todo eso a través de la música. Entonces, por eso trato de usar muchos ritmos estee

tradicionales de Latinoamérica y de aquí del Ecuador porque son las raíces, osea, es de

donde de donde venimos, es de donde yo vengo.

AUMA’s personal image of where he comes from is valuable to understand the ​ conflictive sketch of the Ecuadorian mestizo identity. AUMA’s personal construction of his ethnic ​ ​ identity points at a sensitive spot for most mestizos — the Amerindian, and the other ethnicities, ​ ​

ELECTROLONGO 81 ​ within the mestizo. Electrolongo positions itself in the middle of that socially sensitive spot and it ​ ​ ​ causes discomfort by bringing to the front the EC-local music that reminds many Ecuadorian mestizos of the Amerindianness of Ecuador, and within themselves. Ataw Allpa places this ​ ​ effect of discomfort (‘incomodar’) at the center of his music. He characterizes the conflict of ​ ​ identity by describing it, in the words of Bolívar Echeverría, as the mestizo that spits himself at ​ the mirror. ​ Some, like Quixosis and Ataw Allpa, express their frustration with the use of mestizaje as ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ a homogenizing tool:

[I]t is nationalists that want to erase the indigenous nationality and say ‘you are not

indigenous you are Ecuadorian’, it is nationalists that want that Ecuador’s demography

be represented in one mestizo nationality.

[S]on nacionalistas los que quieren borrar la nacionalidad indígena y decir ‘tú no eres

indígena eres ecuatoriano’, son los nacionalistas los que quieren que la demografía del

Ecuador se represente en una nacionalidad mestiza.

These words by Quixosis capture one side of the attitude towards mestizaje. It is not the ​ ​ ​ case that national identity is incompatible with indigenous cultural identity (see Macas in

Cornejo (Ed.), 1993), but that it has been discursively subordinated to the politically functional mestizo identity. The political drive of electrolongo is rather a byproduct of its musical ​ composition. It takes a more predominant role for some artists, yet to others the socio-political aspect is what happens after they have made their music, as Lascivio Bohemia expressed. ​ ​ What is consistently present in all discourses, and is arguably the most remarkable feature of

ELECTROLONGO 82 ​ electrolongo, is its upholding of Ecuadorian ethnic diversity. This feature is read in the melody ​ and rhythm of many of their compositions (different Ecuadorian cultural traditions fused in one song) and also in the fact that these compositions incorporate distinct social and ethnic marginalized Ecuadorian voices so that diversity is translated from the music to electrolongo’s ​ local audiences in order to generate a (sub)conscious acknowledgement that this diversity is present, at the very least, in the music of Ecuador. Yet, this diversity is not easy to accept for mestizos as has been noted in earlier sections as it could create an authentic conflict of identity that requires introspection to understand. Quixosis shared his own experience about the conflict ​ of the mestizo identity while having a genuine sense of belonging to the other identity roots ​ present in Ecuador:

But the fact is that...uh I am Ecuadorian. I was raised, I wasn’t raised in a creole

environment. I was not raised as a mestizo, I was raised, well as a mestizo yes, but not

as...I didn’t go to football, I’m more Inti Raymi12 than the football league, you know? I am

not indigenous, I’m not, but I am a a person that neither, and that isn’t that common, I’m

I’m a white creole Ecuadorian that has always had relationships of friendship and

equality, from peer to peer, with indigenous people since I was a guagua [child]. So, for ​ ​ me, it’s not that it is my culture, it’s not that they are my ancestors, but it is my people.

Pero el hecho es que...eh yo soy ecuatoriano. Yo me crié, yo no me crié en un ambiente

criollo. Yo no me crié como mestizo, yo me crié, bueno como mestizo sí, pero no

como...no iba al fútbol, soy más del Inti Raymi que de la liga de fútbol, me entiendes?

Yo no soy indígena, no lo soy, pero soy un una persona que tampoco, y eso no es tan

12 A celebration or festival of the sun by Amerindian Andean communities in Ecuador.

ELECTROLONGO 83 ​

común, soy soy un blanco criollo ecuatoriano que siempre ha tenido relaciones de

amistad y de igualdad, de igual a igual, con gente indígena desde que yo era guagua.

Tonces para mí, no es que sea mi cultura, no es que sean mis ancestros, pero es mi

gente.

The common thread linking the artists interviewed is their praise of diversity. To all artists ethnic diversity represents the authentic singularity of Ecuador. These artists envision their music as a means to unite people. Coincidentally, the emergence of this fusion across the ​ region — by self-discovery as in the case of Lascivio Bohemia, trend, or both as is the case for ​ ​ other artists — fits with a cultural stirring independent from the official cultural channels. This exploration of identity, as mentioned earlier, has not been particular to electrolongo in the past ​ or even in the present. Artists like Apitatán, for example, use urban spaces to explore local and regional identity in his murals. Other artists like Sisa Morocho, for instance, refashions traditional

Puruhá blouses to give them a modern take while maintaining their heritage through her clothing brand Sumak Churay. Hence, electrolongo belongs to a somewhat dispersed cultural movement ​ ​ ​ in which particularly youths renegotiate different aspects of their cultural identities through different modes of expression — usually within the arts. The motivation to unite people through ​ music fits in well with the empowerment of diversity. Thus, diversity is as much an influence and an inspiration for electrolongo as it is (or becomes) the meeting ground of Ecuadorian ​ commonality. In the words of Ataw Allpa: ​ ​

In the plurinationality and the pluriculturality, that’s where lies the Ecuadorian identity.

En la plurinacionalidad y la pluriculturalidad, en eso radica la identidad ecuatoriana.

ELECTROLONGO 84 ​

The shared purpose of these artists is summarized in the words of Renata Nieto from

EVHA, for the RadioCoCoa podcast, Postlatino (Loor, 2018):

To me EVHA is that intention to transform Ecuadorian music into something much more elastic that can open room for new forms of expression, without losing sight of the root. It is a space for experimentation where we don’t have limits.

Para mí EVHA es este intento de convertir a la música ecuatoriana en algo mucho más elástico que pueda dar cabida a nuevas formas de expresión, sin perder las raíces. Es un espacio de experimentación donde no tenemos límites

The Audience

I asked the artists to describe the kind of people that attend their concerts and they all agree in one regard — their audiences are very diverse. Quixosis for example described the ​ following:

Yes it gets to be a variety of people, all depends on the context. If I play at Ibarra it can

be a different thing, other social cultural strata and but yes yes it’s art. I think that my

public can be very diverse although it st still is a relatively small public, but I do have

from tourists to to to otavaleños [people from Otavalo] with poncho and sombrero. ​ ​

ELECTROLONGO 85 ​

Sí llega a ser una variedad de gente, todo depende del contexto. Si toco en Ibarra

puede ser otra onda, otros estratos sociales culturales y pero si si es arte. Yo creo que

mi público llega a ser bastante diverso aunque sí sigue siendo un público relativamente

pequeño, pero sí tengo desde turistas hasta hastaa hastaa otavaleños de poncho y

sombrero.

Frabrikante mentioned that in Quito he sees a gathering of people who like rap, punk, ​ rock, and even more well-off people all enjoying the music, something he does not see happening in Guayaquil. Because electrolongo fuses EC-local with electronic music it has the ​ potential to invite people from different musical backgrounds — and by consequence different associated identities — to engage with this weird music, as AUMA describes it, without feeling ​ ​ ​ their identities threatened. All these different identities meet in once musical space, and here sharing, if only of the space, is inevitable.

Ataw Allpa, always incisive in his appreciations, identified a set of characteristics for ​ electrolongo’s audience. In his view, the audience is made up of people who share a similar kind of university education in the social sciences and the humanities, people with a taste for folkloric music like that of Luzmila Carpio and similar others, and people with parents who may have been left-leaning artists during the seventies. The artists themselves seem to fit that profile. Altogether it appears that electrolongo’s audience shares political inclinations, ​ educational backgrounds, music taste, and therefore belong to an economic and/or an intellectual elite. If so, as a movement electrolongo seems to be limited to a small elite, but an ​ economically and ethnically diverse one. Electrolongo is also just beginning to burst out of that ​ bubble, and the aesthetic-ideological message it carries in its music has the potential to spill into a larger audience that may be more diverse in its cultural, political, and educational

ELECTROLONGO 86 ​ backgrounds, but that find a common ground in the sharing two features — their youth and their sense of ‘Ecuadorianness.’

On-site, at a concert venue, a new audience in general can have polarized reactions of love or hate to electrolongo. Lascivio Bohemia mentioned that there are people who listen to ​ ​ ​ this music and are amazed and love the approach but that there are other people who say ‘so ​ ​ ​ ​ weird this music, like, this music is from the buses, they’re playing this at an elegant event, at a cultural event?’ That at a cultural event, celebrating a pluricultural society, contempt is shown towards some cultural practices is a contradiction that repeats itself in different social scenarios, and it is not uncommon. Pluriculturality and plurinationality is officially upheld in the Ecuadorian ​ Constitution, but in practice it remains a thorny issue, particularly in spaces where that same diversity has to interact.

Online, the response of the audience is shaped by the channels of music distribution and the music commentators in online platforms. At the local level, we have RadioCoCoa, an online ​ ​ magazine specialized in the independent Ecuadorian music scene. Within RadioCoCoa electrolongo is not addressed as a movement or a music scene, but the artists that conform it are often talked about and interviewed. The podcast, Postlatino, exclusively interviews artists ​ ​ who address the issue of identity through their music, via electronic, electroacoustic, and acoustic means. For a relatively new and small music scene, the audience reception to the electrolongo artists’ interviews in Postlatino is quite positive. Lascivio Bohemia’s podcast had ​ ​ ​ 514 reproductions, Ataw Allpa had 889, and Mateo Kingman 919 reproductions. In tandem with ​ ​ ​ other artistic media and artists electrolongo artists are becoming tightly interwoven with the new ​ ​ youth cultural (under)current; an example is Lascivio Bohemia’s music being used in the trailer ​ ​ for the 2018 EDOC festival,13 or the participation of Mateo Kingman and Chikaru in the release ​ ​ ​

13 Encuentro De Otro Cine, is a yearly documentary film festival in Quito that began in 2002.

ELECTROLONGO 87 ​ of the Sarayaku Amazon peoples proposal for the adoption of a law that recognizes the concept

(as a preservation category) of Kawsak Sacha — Living Jungle. Strictly at the music level, for the Facebook page for the first edition of the Mishky Fest, a festival organized by Ataw Allpa ​ and which features a strong electrolongo line-up, approximately one thousand people marked ​ ‘interested’ for its first (2016) and second (2017) edition. Although, the online local niche community for alternative music appears to embrace electrolongo the numbers of people ​ engaging with the live performances of electrolongo seems to have stalled, suggesting that ​ electrolongo as a music scene has found a loyal niche and an audience peak. In the following years it will become clear if electrolongo has the potential to reach beyond its niche and ​ influence listeners beyond its followers.14

At a global level, the most internationally well-known exponent is Nicola Cruz who has ​ been featured in the popular online (electronic) music broadcasting platform Boiler Room and whose Youtube-featured Live Set has 6.7 million views and 71 thousand ‘likes’ against ~2.3 ​ thousand ‘dislikes.’ In the video description Boiler Room labels Nicola Cruz as “Ecuador’s ​ musical treasure.” The comment section of the Live Set includes several appeals to Nicola ​ Cruz’s Ecuadorian and South American heritage. Two user comments are particularly poignant, ​ the first by user Mr. Pandemia, with 382 ‘likes’ supporting the comment, and the second by user ​ ​ Mute Bravo T. with 144 ‘likes’ supporting the comment: ​

Mr. Pandemia: It’s good to rescue the Andean culture that is getting lost in time, so much

salsa, reggaeton and bachata make us forget that we south americans are andeans...

14 See next section for an brief analysis of the concert audience experience.

ELECTROLONGO 88 ​

Mr. Pandemia: Es bueno rescatar la cultura Andina que se esta perdiendo con el ​ tiempo, tanta salsa, reguetón y bachata nos hace olvidar que los sudamericanos somos

andinos... ​

Mute Bravo T.: AMAZING SET NICOLA CRUZ. excellent fusion of andean sounds with

electronic sounds. Proudly Ecuadorian.

Mute Bravo T.: GENIAL SET NICOLA CRUZ. excelente fusion de sonidos andinos, con ​ sonidos electronicos. Orgullosamente Ecuatoriano. ​

In general, artists with a longer trajectory who are also associated with far-reaching online record labels such as ShikaShika (14.2 thousand Soundcloud followers), ZZK (25.3 thousand Soundcloud followers), AYA Records (three thousand Soundcloud followers), and

Multi Culti (28.1 thousand thousand Soundcloud followers) have been able to expand their international audience. Likewise, these artists have been featured in international media like

Quixosis in The New York Times (Bernas, 2016), Ataw Allpa in The Guardian (Ata Wallpa, ​ ​ 2015) and Remezcla (Scruggs, 2017), Nicola Cruz in Vice (Flores, 2015), NPR (Latino USA, ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ 2017), Trax Magazine (Pesche, 2018), and EVHA in Vice (Noisey en Español, 2018). Therefore, ​ ​ it is not uncommon that these artists have a substantial international online audience as opposed to their ‘smaller’ local online audience; yet, it is precisely this recognition in the international arena that vests electrolongo with a certain status — an outside validation — in the ​ eyes of Ecuadorian audiences and facilitates its acceptance and dissemination within the local audiences. Ataw Allpa describes this effect succinctly: ​ ​

ELECTROLONGO 89 ​

The objective reality is that abroad our music [electrolongo] is consumed much more

than in here [Ecuador]. Mi goal is that our music is consumed in here, independently of

what happens abroad, we don’t need the validation of Europe, of the United States, or of

foreign record labels — but at the same time we have it, and the fact that we have that

[external] validation makes people here in Ecuador begin to listen to us.

La realidad objetiva es que en el exterior se consume mucho más nuestra música que

aquí. Mi meta es que nuestra música se consuma más aquí, independientemente de lo

que pase en el exterior, no necesitamos la validación de Europa, de Estados Unidos o

de disqueras extranjeras — pero a la vez la tenemos, y el hecho de que tengamos esa

validación hace que la gente aquí en el Ecuador nos haya comenzado a escuchar.

Thus, foreign validation by international labels and audiences functions as a glamorizing factor that indirectly helps electrolongo seep into more reluctant Ecuadorian listeners to deliver ​ a de-glamorizing message about the Ecuadorian identity.

Electrolongo in Postcolonial Theory

My contention is that the electrolongo artist represents a contemporary kind of ​ Ecuadorian modern mestizo hybrid. She finds herself at the juncture of modern digital ​ ​ geographies where the blurry boundaries between the global and local cultures merge and disjoint provoking a rethinking of (national/cultural) identity within an already identity-ambivalent mestizo. The electrolongo artist, like the Ecuadorian mestizo, is not purely a hybrid and neither ​ ​ ​ ​ ​

ELECTROLONGO 90 ​ does she solely engage in mimicry, but is both and none at the same time. She is neither ​ ​ colonizer nor colonized, but inherits the hybridity and mimicry of both to become a modern ​ ​ ​ ​ ​ mestizo hybrid. I define it as the particularly Latin American post-colonial mestizo that ​ simultaneously incorporates and rejects cultural aspects from the colonial past and contemporary dominant global cultures; and, uses this cultural (and technological) stock, together with her memory of an oppressed colonial past and an ethnically unequal present, to challenge, subvert, and spurn tokenization and essentialization of her identity in the modern postcolonial society. Through this coming into being, that takes place by way of a skepticism towards the dominant identity discourses as the electrolongo artist did, a new expression and ​ reconceptualization of identity can take place using art as medium. Hence, electrolongo can be ​ ​ understood as the cultural product of this modern hybrid process. ​ ​ The music these artists make is itself a hybrid relevant to contemporaneity. It is a hybrid ​ ​ of globalization, of the Latin American region, of the pre-incaic, the incaic, and the colonial, and of the local. Beyond its value as a the creative embodiment of a psychological process undergone by the artists, electrolongo itself represents the outcome of a socio-historical process ​ of cultural miscegenation. Thus, electrolongo becomes new entry and record of the cultural ​ manifestations that have contributed to paint the portrait of Ecuadorianness.

When the music is spread through digital channels and is performed at concerts there materializes a bridge between the artist and the listener. The music functions as a connector that facilitates the interaction between these separate groups in a manner that enables the sharing, if not the transference, of the identity self-exploration processes enacted by the artists and embodied in their music. It is at the meeting endpoints of the modern — electronic music — and the old/marginalized — EC-local music — that a space is created where constructs of national identity can be explored and reevaluated by the audience. Because it is not explicitly

ELECTROLONGO 91 ​ political or proselytizing of a particular music genre, as it includes popular and electronic music as well as attendees from different economic strata and cultural backgrounds, this space created by electrolongo during a concert or in the privacy of listening becomes a fertile and ​ non-threatening liminal space — adequate for the (co)negotiation and (co)construction of new ​ versions of the Ecuadorian identity.

Quixosis spoke about his music in terms of spaces that are similar to Bhabha’s (1994) ​ concept of the liminal space:

….to me the objective is the atemporal conversation….It is to grab things, as we said,

from the periphery and place them a little more inside the people’s panorama, and yes to

self-manage. To me it’s about about about creating spaces for different things to

happen, independent spaces that are separate from the state and from from the total

capitalism. And to offer experiences, at the same time intellectual and aesthetic, that that

that challenge a little, and that and that and that they change a bit people’s perspective.

Quixosis explained that people are often confused by his music but that once the initial ​ shock is over they can ease into it and begin to listen. Likewise, Ataw Allpa mentioned that ​ people are shocked when during his concerts he yells ¡Que vivan los longos! (approximately: ​ ​ longos hurrah!) but after they realize that the artists are doing with the word ‘longo’ what Snoop ​ ​ Dog did with the word ‘nigga’ (“pero después se dan cuenta de que nosotros estamos haciendo con la palabra ‘longo’ lo que Snoop Dogg hizo con la palabra ‘nigga’”) they too scream after the ​ second or third time ¡Que Viva! (“a la segunda o tercera vez ¡Que Viva!”). Due to the non-threatening and not explicitly political or proselytizing nature of electrolongo a skeptical ​ audience may willingly let their guard down out of sheer curiosity and befuddlement.

ELECTROLONGO 92 ​

Furthermore, the aesthetic musical features of electrolongo attract a variety of potential listeners ​ who once engaged with it enter in an inevitable interaction with the artists’ private and public processes of coming to terms with their Ecuadorian identity as expressed through electrolongo. ​ ​ In the physical space of the concert, gig, or festival this bilateral exchange becomes more evident as the audience either connects or disconnects from the music, yet are inevitably already influenced by it. The artists, on their part, receive real-time feedback of how well their music is received and how much the people connect or not with the message or idea behind their own music. Ultimately, at this liminal space a production, disruption, and exchange of cultural meanings is mutually performed; yet, not so much as to point out cultural difference

(Bhabha, 1994, p. 2) but to highlight musical unity interweaving social diversity.

ELECTROLONGO 93 ​

Conclusion

This investigation explored the ways in which new forms of artistic expression conceptualize new versions of the Ecuadorian identity. Corresponding to a personal quest to reconcile a lifelong sense of displacement: at once feeling Ecuadorian, at once feeling like a huairapamushka,15 I set out to study how youths explore the Ecuadorian identity through the making of art. By conceptualizing music as an archival narrative of the historical processes of reconfiguration of the Ecuadorian identity, I designed an ethnographic investigation centered around electrolongo. The purpose of this investigation was to understand how electrolongo ​ ​ ​ simultaneously explores, subverts, and renegotiates national identity and challenges outmoded dominant identity discourses; thus, becoming political despite its apolitical and primarily artistic purpose.

In this ethnography I identified three distinctive themes recurring in the discourse of the artists and which structured their construction of national identity. First, the dichotomy between the country and the land that challenges the justification for patriotism and nationalism born out ​ of a nationality. Second, the transgenerational dialogue that supplies electrolongo with a political ​ foundation. And third, a commitment to uphold ethnic and cultural diversity as a tool to resist local and global homogenizing processes.

The relationship between the artists and their music, and how it nourishes a reformulation of national identity, is interconnected with local and global politics. At the global stage, the homogenizing force of globalization fetishizes diversity for its commodity value but

15 From Quichua, meaning ‘child of the wind’.

ELECTROLONGO 94 ​ subordinates it to the dominant global cultures in a manner that favors a form of anglobalization. ​ ​ At the local level, national identity is subservient to political interests that tokenize aspects of some Ecuadorian cultures and use them for proselytizing interests, as was the case of the use of the Andean concept of Sumak Kawsay (Good Living) in the previous Ecuadorian government ​ or the anglification of Ecuador to adorn tourism propaganda as was the case of the ‘All You ​ Need is Ecuador’ campaign. Thus, taking into account the interplay between the local and ​ global forces in electrolongo and how this interplay influences a negotiation of national identity it ​ becomes evident that artistic expressions like electrolongo are socially relevant in order to ​ investigate how postcolonial nations like Ecuador continue to engage with the dilemma of nation-building having emerged from a still fresh colonial past that is diametrically different from the contemporary technologically globalized world inside which these questions of national identity must be contended.

Conceptions of the nation as a white-driven project, such as that of Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities (1983), deeply misconstrue and misrepresent the development of the ​ Ecuadorian nation which, besides the creole input, is grounded on permanent processes of ​ miscegenation; cultural, political, and economic contributions of marginalized groups; and the manipulation of ethnic and cultural identity. By contesting Anderson’s theory it was possible to better understand the aesthetic-ideological stance of the electrolongo artists, that is, their ​ reluctance to conform to the cultural and identity paradigms of a modern nation-state founded on past and present oppression and injustice. Similarly, understanding the artists’ discourse within the historical framework of mestizaje was crucial to examine the dual musical composition ​ of electrolongo and interpret the music as part of a larger historical process of peripheral ​ negotiation and reconceptualization of national identity. In this context, the artists, the music, and the audience become part of a contemporary project of national identity re-negotiation

ELECTROLONGO 95 ​ initiated by the artists own questioning of it; a process partially explained by the postcolonial theory of Homi K. Bhabha which nevertheless is insufficient to fully grasp the Latin

American-mestizo case. Yet, within Bhabha’s framework of liminality I devised an approach that ​ ​ combines Bhabha’s concept of hybridity and mimicry that is more aligned to the Latin ​ ​ American-mestizo case. Thus, from my perspective the electrolongo artists are part of a modern ​ ​ ​ hybrid mestizo that reconciles dichotomous aspects of her identity to reassemble the concept of national identity in line with the challenges of a globalized postcolonial society. As an exercise in new perspectives of postcolonial theory my study is meant as an invitation to revise the canon of postcolonialism in light of the contemporary challenges of postcolonial nations in order to steer the current framework towards theories that integrate the postcolonial developments of different regions, localities, and modern postcolonial realities.

ELECTROLONGO 96 ​

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