The Voicing and Silencing of Ethnicity and the Notion of ‘Resistance’ in the Struggle for Ethnic Recognition. From the Slovenian Minority in Trieste to Quechua Indigenous Communities in the Peruvian Andes

This article reflects upon the meaning of ‘resistance’ in the struggle and pursuit of ethnic recognition against racial discrimination. The making and the preservation of ethnicity is a complex phenomenon as not all ethnic groups employ their cultural and language heritage to resist domination. The process of maintaining a distinctive ethnic identity is not a straightforward matter, especially when we consider the long-lasting racist legacy in post-colonial societies. Our analysis of this topic will begin in the context of the Slovenian ethnic minority in Italy and continue in Peru, among Quechua indigenous communities in the Andes. The main variable the paper will focus on is the disruptive power of race, which in the case of the Peruvian Andean communities has made Quechua ethnicity a controversial field of studies fuelled with discrimination and the inherent disavowal of the indigenous Other. The intricacies of this phenomenon will be explored to shed light on the reasons why Quechua indigenous communities in this Latin American region have not claimed their ethnicity in the pursuit of identity affirmation against racial domination.