Luis E. Cárcamo-Huechante | Book Talk: Listening Attentively: From Acoustic Colonialism to Indigenous Interference

This talk will offer an author’s view on the key theoretical, methodological and historical concepts that form part of his book Acoustic Colonialism: Acts of Mapuche Interference (Duke UP, 2025). Theorizations regarding what the author calls “acoustic colonialism,” “the colonial ear” and “Indigenous interference” reverberate throughout the book's chapters on colonialism, indigeneity, media, sound and land relations, including the Mapuche notion of allkütun (attentive listening).  Cárcamo-Huechante elaborates on these concepts in the context of Ngulu Mapu––or what is today known as central and southern “Chile,” part of the broader Mapuche territory (Wallmapu).  

ABOUT OUR GUEST SPEAKER

Luis E. Cárcamo-Huechante is a scholar who belongs to the Mapuche people. His most recently published book is Acoustic Colonialism: Acts of Mapuche Interference (Duke UP, 2025), which received an Honorable Mention within the category 2026 Best Subsequent Book in Native American and Indigenous Studies Prize of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA).  An Associate Professor at The University of Texas at Austin, Cárcamo-Huechante is also a founding member of the Comunidad de Historia Mapuche, a collective of Mapuche researchers/activists based in southern Chile. In 2007, he published his first book, Tramas del mercado: imaginación económica, cultura pública y literatura en el Chile de fines del siglo veinte (Santiago: Editorial Cuarto Propio). Recently, Cárcamo-Huechante served as 2025-2026 president of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (NAISA).

DISCUSSANT

Rachel Price, Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese, Princeton University

Co-sponsored by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese