Encuadres espaciales en la representación de las identitades étnico-culturales en La teta asustada, Zona Sur y Nosilatiaj. La Belleza.

Abstract

This dissertation deals with the cinematographic representations of the interrelations between identity and space in a corpus conformed by three films: The Milk of Sorrow by Claudia Llosa (Peru, 2009); Southern District by Carlos Valdivia (Bolivia, 2009) and Beauty by Daniela Seggiaro (Argentina, 2012). The aim of the present work is to examine how ethnic-cultural identities –indigenous and ‘criolla’– are shaped in relation to the represented spaces: landscapes, houses, gardens and the courtyard. In order to study how ethnic-cultural identities are shaped in interaction with the spaces represented in each of the films and to establish how these spaces are constituted through the characters who inhabit them, we have arranged the analysis in three units, each corresponding to a specific space interrelated to certain ethniccultural identities: the landscapes, the houses and the liminal spaces. Drawing on approaches to cultural identity in recent cultural studies and post- /decolonial studies, as well as theories on space, a methodology is elaborated for the study of the spatial framings of the representation of ethnic-cultural identities. Aspects of gender and class will also be taken into consideration when looking into the shaping of identities in relation to space. The analysis demonstrates that the rural, non-urban, landscapes and the images of “the more-thanhuman world" (Abram) and of nature are associated to the indigenous and to migratory trajectories. Moreover, these spaces are represented as the counterpart of the urban, “whitened criollos”. In all the spaces we have analyzed there are traces of the production of identities generated from the interaction between the indigenous and “lo criollo”, spaces with their own qualities, histories and signs that influence the conformation of identities. Through the interdisciplinary approach employed to analyze how spaces are inextricably linked to the production of identity, this dissertation elaborates a model suitable for applying to a larger corpus of films and even to other artistic expressions.