Economianchik: PUCP students launch economic podcast in Quechua Chanka

The suffix "-nchik" is equivalent in Quechua Chanka to "we" at spanish. However, it also refers to "ours". This is what constitutes the intention of Economianchik, an economics podcast spoken in Chanka Quechua and produced by an interdisciplinary team of PUCP students. The name of the podcast can be translated as "our economy", an intention that echoes the values of interculturalism and horizontality of the project.

Economianchik is an initiative developed during the 2022-1 cycle and attached to the Social Responsibility Secretariat of the Assembly of Economics Students (AEE). Its general objective is to support the revitalization, recognition and revaluation of the Quechua Chanka language, as well as to motivate its incorporation into the spaces of public and academic deliberation in the country. The project launched a pilot episode as part of the AEE PUCP's Problema y Sociedad podcast. This episode discussed the opportunities and challenges faced by Quechua-speaking PUCP students who have benefited from the Beca 18 program.

Our economy

"Our intention is to link economics with the Peruvian social reality from an intercultural approach," says Fabio Salas, coordinator of Econimianchik and former representative of the Social Responsibility Secretariat. The project focuses on the production of academic content and economic analysis aimed at young Quechua-speaking university students interested in economic issues. Thus, the choice of Quechua Chanka for the podcast responds to the characteristics and needs of the target audience.

Although the project began with a group of students from the Economics Department, it now includes students from Audiovisual Communication and Anthropology. "There is a strong component of audiovisual production and quantitative analysis tools," adds Salas.

Precisely the choice of format arose thanks to the qualitative analysis carried out by the team. "We chose to produce a podcast because we concluded that the audio format was the clearest and most direct, in addition to the fact that it was one that the public already consumed," says Vanessa Salas, a student of Audiovisual Communication. Salas adds that the project aims to be a space for dialogue and participation that involves the public from its production. After the launching of the pilot episode, the Economianchik team hopes that the project will continue as one of the official products developed by AEE.

Communicating in Quechua

"One of the main problems we wanted to address was the stigmatization of Quechua in academic spaces," says Claudia Linares, an economics student. Econimianchik aims to take a step toward mitigating this stigma. The team's intention, says Linares, is to build the podcast from the experiences and interest of the audience. "For this reason, we chose to insert testimonials," adds Salas.

"It is necessary to ask ourselves why, if we are in a multicultural country, there are spaces where the use of Quechua is not accepted," says Salas. The mission is not only to translate economic topics into Chanka Quechua, but also to generate an equivalence of ideas and values so that the content of the podcast would genuinely respond to the experiences of the target audience. Economianchik seeks to expand the range of spaces in which Quechua can be used.