ABSTRACT
This chapter describes an anthropological research project undertaken in a bilingual community of Quechua/Spanish speakers in the Southern Peruvian Andes. It looks at the use of bilingualism as a political resource, and at the role of language in the establishment and maintenance of hierarchical social relations. The chapter explores the relationship between power and symbolic practice, and decided to concentrate on language use as a key example of the mundane symbolic production in which power relations are constituted and challenged. A Quechua/Spanish bilingual radio station in Cusco used excerpts from an article published in a relatively accessible journal, to discuss the relationship between bilingualism and language planning. These popular radio stations, run by and for local communities, are very good channels for a wider feedback of research findings that both give control of representation to the people themselves and provide greater accessibility through use of an oral rather than written channel.
