Rooting Hybridity: Globalisation and the Challenges of mestizaje and crisol de razas for Contemporary Artists in Ecuador and Argentina

Abstract

The work of some contemporary artists from Argentina and Ecuador is, in part, related to the issue of appropriation of indigenous cultures in a globalised world. Shifting identity constructions and ideological reformulations of national identities in the sense of "mixture" and "homogeneity" in Latin America provide the frame of reference, within which the works of artists making appropriations from indigenous cultures has to be analysed. The article suggests that appropriation is part of a general process of understanding the Other, and ultimately linked to the construction of new identities; it tries to point out the differences in artistic approaches to the appropriation of the indigenous, as well as to the national ideologies of mestizaje and crisol de razas.