Article published In: Heritage Language, Racialization, and (Post)colonialism, Part I
Edited by Jennifer B. Delfino, Sonia Das and Chantal Tetreault
[Language, Culture and Society 8:1] 2026
► pp. 108–135

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Kichwa joke-telling in global tourism

Moral and neuro-cultural lessons on “heritage tongues”

 | Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville
Published online: 18 August 2026
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lcs.25057.pat
Abstract
This study examines how Otavalan Kichwa vendors, cultural experts, and migrants deploy joking as a multisensory form of intimacy that reshapes cross‑cultural learning of “heritage” within global tourism economies. Jokes, I argue, can be used instructionally and tactically because of their sensory dimensions: in real time, they mobilize sound, motion, touch, color, and emotion to produce moral‑economic (Antrosio, J., & Colloredo-Mansfeld, R. (2015). Fast, easy, and in cash. University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), “feelingful,” and “intimate” ( (2015). Intimate grammars: An ethnography of Navajo poetry. University of Arizona Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) labor. Drawing on seventeen months of cumulative fieldwork, I analyze three jokes performed across everyday exchanges in Otavalo, semi‑private tourism encounters, and public enactments of Indigeneity abroad. Treating these jokes as discourse (Sherzer, J. (1987). Discourse-centered approach to language and culture. American Anthropologist, 89(2), 295–309. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Urban, G. (1991). A discourse-centered approach to culture. University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Hill, J. H. (2008). The everyday language of white racism. Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and as tactical speech play ( 2002. Speech play and verbal art. University of Texas Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Bauman, R. (1981). “‘Any man who keeps more’n one hound’ ‘ll lie to you’: Dog trading and storytelling at Canton, Texas.” In R. Bauman & R. D. Abrahams (Eds.), And other neighborly names (pp. 79–104). University of Texas Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Bunten, A. C. (2010). Indigenous tourism: The paradox of gaze and resistance. La ricerca folklorica, 51–59.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, (2015). So, how long have you been Native?: Life as an Alaska Native tour guide. University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), I integrate linguistic, cultural, auto‑ethnographic, and neuro‑somatic approaches — including theories of synesthesia, phantom pain, and mirror‑box regeneration (Ramachandran, V. S. (1998). Phantoms in the brain: Probing the mysteries of the human mind (S. Blakeslee, With). William Morrow.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Ultimately, Kichwa joking reveals “heritage” as socially embodied, perceptually illusive, and politically generative.
Article outline
  • 1.1Introduction
  • 1.2Theoretical framework and research methods
  • 2.1Being “Comedido” in the heritage marketplace
  • 3.1Anti-purist jokes and Runashimi heritage tourism
  • 3.2Joke 2: Yachak or Brujo?
  • 4.1Phantom limbs and the “Kinguy” heritage register
  • 5.1Ethnic disguising and “American Indians in Moscow”
  • 6.Conclusion: Laughter, heritage tongues, and tactical hemispheric indigeneity
  • Contributor’s note and acknowledgments
  • Note
  • Bibliography
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