Indian Ability (auilidad de Indio) and Rhetoric’s Civilizing Narrative: Guaman Poma’s Contact with the Rhetorical Tradition

This essay invites a critique of contact zone theory and rhetoric’s origin story based on a reading of Guaman Poma’s First New Chronicle and Good Government. I read this writer’s argument for indigenous ability and reshaping of space through picture, map, and text as a multimodal effort that invites attention to classroom rhetorical power dynamics and standards.