Diálogo

The study of Indigenous media practices is a relatively new field that has gained relevance in recent years, as shown by the substantial academic work on Indigenous media that uses different approaches to examine works from various regions and in different formats. Among these works, it's worth mentioning two collections of essays that have expanded and helped to build interest in the study of Indigenous media projects from around the world: Media Worlds (edited by Ginsburg, Abu-Lughod, and Larkin, 2002), and Global Indigenous Media (edited by Wilson and Stewart, 2008). In the Latin American context, there have also been groundbreaking research and media projects, such as the 1980s collaboration of anthropologist Terence Turner with the Kayapó community, which represents one of the first communities to use media as a tool for activism; the essay "Imperfect Media and the Poetics of Indigenous Video in Latin America" (2008) by Juan Francisco Salazar and Amalia Córdova; or Freya Schiwy's book Indianizing Film: Decolonization, the Andes, and the Question of Technology (2009). But even though there exists an important body of work, From Filmmaker Warriors to Flash Drive Shamans: Indigenous Media Production and Engagement in Latin America is one of the first collections of essays dedicated exclusively to Indigenous media in Latin America, and is thus indispensable for approaching the Indigenous media landscape of the region.

This volume is mainly composed of edited versions of papers presented at the InDigital Latin American Conference held in 2015 on the campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. The book, edited by anthropologist Richard Pace, presents a sample of Indigenous media practices and the ways academics, activists, curators, and media makers approach them. The essays not only show how widespread and diverse the creation, production, distribution, and consumption of different types of media among Indigenous communities in the region are, but also take important "steps in expanding the scope of Indigenous media studies into new areas and among more people" (21). In order to show the reach of the media practices of the region, Pace sensibly distributes the twelve essays that comprise the book into four parts: Overview, Indigenous Video and Videographers, Sound and Images, and Television. While some works enrich the existing body of literature on Indigenous media (mostly those dedicated to video production), others expand the study of Indigenous media by examining less studied aspects such as media reception and media ecology. Moreover, some of the articles show the active dialogue and collaboration developed over the years among scholars, Indigenous communities, and media makers.

The Indigenous media practices and discourses analyzed in depth in the chapters are contextualized in a clever introduction, one of the major assets of this anthology. Pace provides a well-grounded framework describing the field for both specialists and neophytes. His introduction can be considered a genealogy of Indigenous media studies in Latin America. Pace points out that Indigenous media studies integrate innovative methodologies and theoretical perspectives from anthropology, geography, film studies, and media studies from the past thirty years (3). His literature review lays out how academics have worked to define the field and the key theoretical discussions that have emerged, such as the definition of Indigenous media and questions related to aesthetics, visual sovereignty, ownership and authorship, technology and techniques, goals, reception, and ecology studies. Furthermore, he addresses the evolving and vertiginous nature of the field that makes it almost impossible to "keep track of all the innovation, novel applications and sociocultural impacts transpiring among Indigenous populations as they engage a range of media technology" (3). These characteristics represent central concerns about the future of both Indigenous media studies and Indigenous communities in rapidly changing technological, socioeconomic, and political environments (21). Finally, throughout the introduction Pace invites researchers to continue working on Indigenous media and to expand [End Page 149] the field by exploring different aspects of the ways Indigenous communities...