Sergio Miguel Huarcaya

Sergio Miguel Huarcaya is a documentary editor with a focus on his own culture in Ecuador and Peru. He is a former producer/editor for Peru TV and was editor of Media Working Group’s Coal Black Voices and more recently Coming to Ground. His own work in the field of ethnographic documentary represents ceremonies, festivities of indigenous peoples of Central and South America.

Miguel completed his PhD in Anthropology and History at the University of Michigan, in 2010, and holds an MA in Latin American Studies from the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Quito, Ecuador. From 1998 to 2001, he collaborated with the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) as a video producer and instructor. The documentary The Dignity of the Peoples: The Uprising of 2000, which he co-directed and edited, won the Rigoberta Menchú Grand Prize in the First Peoples’ Film and Video Festival in Montreal, Canada, in 2001.

His research explores the ways in which constructions of indigineity relate to both the naturalization of inequalities and the resistance to subordination. His doctoral thesis examined the emergence of indigenous challenges to dominant constructions of social identity in the Ecuadorian highlands. Considering ethnic categorization as relational, contextual and performative, his analysis demonstrates that these challenges have been fundamental for the articulation of ethnic demands and the revitalization of indigenous cultures.

As a post-doctoral researcher at Royal Holloway, Sergio aims to elucidate the political work of indigenous festive performance in Andean countries. His work focuses on the ways in which indigenous performance has become explicitly political, subverting hegemonic formations of identity and alterity, and questioning the normalization of indigenous subordination.

La Dignidad de los Pueblos. El levantamiento del 21 de Enero, 2000
(The Dignity of the Peoples. The Uprising of January 21, 2000)
In Ecuador, on January 21 of 2000, an uprising of indigenous people, with last-minute support from low and mid-level military officers, succeeded in ousting the corrupted president, Jamil Mahuad. Unlawfully favoring the banking oligarchy, Mahuad’s economic policies had been rapidly increasing the population of destitute Ecuadorians, most of them indigenous. Inflation was rampant and during his mandate, the national currency lost about four fifths of its value. Mahuad even blocked the people’s bank accounts, allowing corrupted bankers to flee the country with all their clients’ money. In despite of the deployment of 30,000 troops to prevent the Indians from reaching Quito, the Ecuadorian capital, by January 20 tens of thousands had made their way into the city. Their cause won the support of students and other sectors of Ecuadorian society, who organized support demonstrations.

On January 21, thousands of Indians and their allies surrounded the Congress. Several units of the army broke ranks and allowed indigenous activists to seize the building. Hours later, the movement declared a new government of “National Salvation,” and tens of thousands poured into the streets of Quito to welcome a must needed change in the Ecuadorian political, judiciary, legislative and economic systems.The victory was short-lived. Ecuador’s top military officials replaced the mid-level military leader of the movement with one of their own.

Before dawn, coerced by the United States government, the top officials ousted the National Salvation Government and installed Mahuad’s vice president, Gustavo Noboa, as president. Mahuad was ousted, but the old political regime survived. With daylight, tens of thousand indians began to leave the capital and return to the countryside. Showing many scenes that were censured by the Ecuadorian television channels, which are mostly owned by the banking oligarchy, this video tells the story of the upraising from the perspective of the Indigenous Peoples’ Movement. The documentary, which Miguel co-directed and co-edited,  won the Rigoberta Menchú Grand Prize in the First Peoples’ Film and Video Festival in Montreal, Canada, in 2001.

Niñu Chu/Matsunu Malunu – Child Christ festivity and traditional wedding ceremony of Chachi Indians
Chachi Indians, apparently related to the extinct Chibchas, migrated from the to the tropical Ecuadorian northwestern lowlands somewhere around five hundred centuries ago. Now, they are a small indigenous ethnic group of around 5,000 individuals with their own language -the cha’palaachi- and distinct culture. They live dispersed in a thickly vegetated area, mostly on the riverbanks of the leisurely flowing Cayapa River and its tributaries. They are known for their basketwork and one-piece canoe woodcarving. Chachi Indians were Christianized centuries ago, and their festivities are a curious aggregate of catholic and native traditions

This video is a documentation of one of their most important celebrations, Niñu Chu or Christ Child Festivity. This celebration takes place in a special ceremonial field, inhabited for most of the year, during the days of December 23, 24 and 25. In that field, there are several elevated huts for sheltering the participating families. The field also serves as cemetery, and beneath the elevated huts, lie the tombs of their defunct ancestors. The festivity gets started with the clearing of the whole area, owing to the profuse growth of vegetation. For marriageable Chachi Indians, this is one of the only two opportunities in the year to get married, the other been Easter celebration.

In addition to the native rituals of the collective wedding, there is tcampoo -a thick and sweet drink made out of corn- drinking, the observance of the rule of separation of the sexes at public gatherings, the performance of the traditional Chachi dance, and plenty of marimba playing. On the last night of the celebration, Chachi’s customary law dictates that the bridal pairs must stay awake until dawn; otherwise, their sleep is an omen that they will die soon. Aware on the influence of mainstream mestizo culture on their cultural identity, Chachi Indians are fighting to keep their traditions alive.

Tsa´chila (True People)
The Tsa´chila are a small indigenous ethnic group from the Ecuadorian western lowlands. They are better known by their Spanish name, Indios Colorados -which literally translates as Reddish Indians. They were named like that because of their traditional bowl-shaped haircuts dyed a brilliant red, using a natural dye from the achiote plant. Tsa´chila medicine men, or curanderos, possess a worldwide reputation. Many Ecuadorians and foreigners come to their villages to be cured by them.

This video is a representation of their culture from their own perspective. It is a participatory project inasmuch as Tsa´chila youth and young adults wrote the script. It deals with the preservation of their cultural traditions in contraposition with the social pressure for assimilation into mainstream mestizo culture. In addition, it deals with some of their main problems as an ethnic minority including discrimination in schools, spoliation of their natural resources, and the taking of their territorial possessions by the mestizos. The video ends with a calling to Tsa´chila for political organizing.

Lago San Pablo. Coya Raymi (2000)
Coya Raymi is an annual festivity of the Quichua Indians of the province of Imbabura. It celebrates women, fecundity and corn production. One of the many activities of this fiesta, which takes place during the month of September, is a race of caballitos de Totora (canoes made out of reed) in the Lake San Pablo. The video is a representation of the race that took place in September 2000.