Canar: A Year in the Highlands of Ecuador
Judy Blankenship | 2005-04-01 00:00:00 | University of Texas Press | 223 | Photojournalism
Once isolated from the modern world in the heights of the Andean mountains, the indigenous communities of Ecuador now send migrants to New York City as readily as they celebrate festivals whose roots reach back to the pre-Columbian past. Fascinated by this blending of old and new and eager to make a record of traditional customs and rituals before they disappear entirely, photographer-journalist Judy Blankenship spent several years in Cañar, Ecuador, photographing the local people in their daily lives and conducting photography workshops to enable them to preserve their own visions of their culture. In this engaging book, Blankenship combines her sensitively observed photographs with an inviting text to tell the story of the most recent year she and her husband Michael spent living and working among the people of Cañar. Very much a personal account of a community undergoing change, Cañar documents such activities as plantings and harvests, religious processions, a traditional wedding, healing ceremonies, a death and funeral, and a home birth with a native midwife. Along the way, Blankenship describes how she and Michael went from being outsiders only warily accepted in the community to becoming neighbors and even godparents to some of the local children. She also explains how outside forces, from Ecuador's failing economy to globalization, are disrupting the traditional lifeways of the Cañari as economic migration virtually empties highland communities of young people. Blankenship's words and photographs create a moving, intimate portrait of a people trying to balance the demands of the twenty-first century with the traditions that have formed their identity for centuries.
Reviews
I didn't like the writing style ... Not very insightful .. Many other preferable books about Ecuador and various regions.
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Well written book about very interesting people that most of us would never know anything about. I enjoyed reading this book.
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I loved reading "Cañar: A Year in the Highlands of Ecuador," by Judy Blankenship. The book had special meaning for me, being one of those people who dream constantly about living and getting to know other cultures, but alas, manage to get to visit few foreign places. From its opening words the writing gripped me and I traveled with the author every step of the way as she so compellingly wrote about her experiences and her affection for the Cañari people. The expressive photographs that accompany the text transported me even more deeply into a land I will never know for myself. We armchair travelers are endlessly indebted and grateful to artists like Judy Blankenship.
Fraidie Martz
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