Full title: Weaving Decolonial Ontologies of Kaqchikel Maya Orality, Textuality, and Digital Media in the Guatemalan Highlands
Challenging distinctions between “old” and “new” media and narratives about the deprecation of orality in favor of inscribed forms, I methodologically draw from Maya epistemologies of recorded knowledge (tz’ib’) and orality (tzij, choloj, ch’owen) to observe expressive work across media and languages. In my talk, I center my analysis on “Xalolilo lelele’,” an onomatopoeic song about a parakeet by Humberto Ak’abal that simultaneously invokes the K’iche’ Maya language and the language of the Guatemalan natural world. I argue that Maya orality in “Xalolilo lelele’” gets remediated (Bolter & Grusin) into recorded knowledge across print and digital modalities, in poetry collections and video recordings available online. Given the unique ways that video-hosting platforms like YouTube impact the content and overall presentation of the song, I will demonstrate that there are multiple possibilities for the song to be mediated – and remediated – across digital modalities of tz’ib’ as the K’iche’ poet obliges audiences to listen to Indigenous voices, inviting them to promote Indigenous language use and broader understandings of sonoric cultural production.
Bio:
Tiffany D. Creegan Miller is an assistant professor of Spanish at Colby College. Her published work focuses on contemporary Indigenous literature and decolonial critical theory, with an emphasis on orality, performance, and linguistic revitalization initiatives. She is the author of The Maya Art of Speaking Writing: Remediating Indigenous Orality in the Digital Age (University of Arizona Press, 2022) and a co-editor of Kemtzij: Weaving Reciprocal Indigenous Ontologies in Kaqchikel Maya Arts (under contract with Amherst College Press). As a speaker of Kaqchikel Maya, she is also an advisor to Wuqu’ Kawoq: Maya Health Alliance, a medical NGO in Guatemala that provides health care in the Kaqchikel language and promotes Indigenous language rights.
