Napo Kichwa communities in the Upper Ecuadorian Amazon find themselves doubly marginalized by settler colonialism and well-intentioned language revitalization projects.

In Rainforest Radio Georgia C. Ennis provides a comprehensive ethnographic exploration of Amazonian Kichwa community media, offering a unique look at how Indigenous broadcast and performance media facilitate linguistic and cultural reclamation in the Ecuadorian Amazon.

This work offers a critical analysis of how standardized language revitalization efforts, like the imposition of Unified Kichwa, can inadvertently perpetuate linguistic oppression. Ennis follows producers, performers, and consumers to understand the role of media in language reclamation. Through extensive fieldwork, she provides vivid portrayals of community efforts to sustain the language and cultural practices of their elders amid environmental and social upheaval.

Meticulously researched and beautifully written, Rainforest Radio is an essential work for anthropologists, linguists, and social scientists interested in language revitalization, Indigenous media, and environmental justice. This book showcases the transformative potential of community-driven media initiatives, highlighting the innovative responses of Napo Kichwa activists to the unique challenges they face. It serves as a powerful model for those working on similar issues worldwide, demonstrating the critical role of community media in language reclamation and cultural sustainability.

“This book provides a fresh and much-needed multimodal and multi-sited ethnographic perspective on the production and reception of Indigenous community radio in support of language and cultural reclamation and vitality. Ennis shares insights on how the Upper Napo Kichwa entangle media, Indigenous languages, and their daily lives to reveal the emergent relational subjectivities between community members and media while challenging the hegemonies of 'official status' language ideologies. Ennis invites the reader into intimate language domains to discern how community members adopt media in unexpected ways to create new vitalities of language, identity, and communicative practice. This book is essential reading for language researchers/advocates who are looking for fresh analytical frames for understanding how media and language are intimately tied to place-based social practices and relationships.”

—Bernard C. Perley, author of Defying Maliseet Language Death: Emergent Vitalities of Language, Culture, and Identity in Eastern Canada

“Rainforest Radio is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the intersection of language, culture, and the environment. Meticulously researched, beautifully written, and carefully argued, the book offers an original and important perspective on Indigenous language revitalization within the rich and complex ecological and social tapestry of the Amazon.”

—Shaylih Muehlmann, author of When I Wear My Alligator Boots: Narco-Culture in the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Collaborative and public media

Engaged anthropology

Ñukanchi Sacha Kawsaywa Aylluchiskamanda/Relaciones con nuestra selva/Relating to our Forest is a book and DVD collecting 15 stories that illuminate the ways speakers of Amazonian Kichwa in Napo, Ecuador relate to the forest and rivers that surround them. Through personal and ancestral narratives about the sacha runa, yaku runa, and supay—beings who inhabit the forests and rivers, and who control the plants and animals in them—these storytellers illustrate deeply personal relationships to an embodied, living environment. Produced in collaboration with elder members and young volunteers of the Association of Kichwa Midwives of Upper Napo with funding from the Ecuadorian Ministry of Culture and Patrimony, this text is part of a multimedia endeavor that leverages film, drawing, and textual formatting to reflect the verbal artistry of Amazonian Kichwa speakers. The stories are presented in Kichwa with Spanish and English translations.

transcription workshop with young volunteers of amupakin

Maria tapuy, ines tanguila, and maria antonia shiguango with their book

drawing workshop to illustrate the stories

Self-portrait by María Antonia Shiguango asking permission to harvest wanduk

Roberto Cerda prepares to record with marilin salazar

Multimodal scholarship

One Second Ethnography (2017)

How can anthropologists leverage mobile technologies to enrich both their research and storytelling?

WASANA: Women’s Forest Foods (2023)

Explore the importance of chagra (agroforestry gardens) for members of the Association of Kichwa Midwives of the Upper Napo