Multimodal Chronotopes: Embodying Ancestral Time on Quichua Morning Radio

Abstract

This article considers the multimodal enregisterment of an ancestral time-space in indigenous-language media production. Beginning from the insight that chronotopes engage semiotically mediated, subjective experiences of time, space, and social personhood (Wirtz 2016; Hartikainen 2017), I use ethnographic evidence from lowland Ecuadorian Quichua (Kichwa) radio production and reception to explore the semiotic recalibration of the wayusa upina, the guayusa-drinking hours as a register of media performance aimed at cultural revival. Identified as one of the most significant and endangered spaces for transmitting cultural and linguistic knowledge, the nondiscursive signs and material practices used in multimodal lowland Quichua radio productions reconstitute the ancestral guayusa-drinking hours, indexically linking it to the voices and knowledge of still living elders. In doing so, these programs attempt to establish a counterchronotope of remembering, which contrasts with a widely circulating chronotope of endangerment.