Co-creating and Decolonizing a Methodology Using Indigenist Approaches: Alliance with the Asheninka and Yine-Yami Peoples of the Peruvian Amazon (original) (raw)
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Indigenous perspectives on researching indigenous peoples
Social Identities, 2017
A number of Latin-American indigenous organizations are striving to build autonomous indigenous and communitarian universities. According to indigenous leaders from all over the continent, 'Occidental' or 'Northern' ways of producing knowledge exclude by default many forms of indigenous knowledges. From an indigenous perspective, scientists need to think seriously about developing research methodologies that do not automatically discard indigenous knowledges. In this article I look at the emerging network of indigenous and communitarian universities in Latin America and ask how the universities seek to produce indigenous and communitarian research processes and methodologies. How do these methodologies differ from methodologies taught at 'Occidental' universities? As the global indigenous movement grows in confidence and strength, researchers trained and formed in traditional methodologies wanting to work with indigenous peoples, movements, organizations and communities, will increasingly be confronted with research methodologies that are profoundly different from what they are accustomed to. Indigenous peoples in Social Identities Social Identities has published a number of fine studies related to indigenous peoples and communities over the years. Fontana (2015), for instance, explores identity-building and narrative apparatus 'underpinning a land conflict between an indigenous organization and a peasant union in Bolivia'. Brady (2008) makes use of the concept of 'survivance' (survival with dignity) to provide a critical analysis of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, DC. Koerner (2015) found 'that white Australian discourses of nation and identity limit most respondents' ability to construct their identity in relation to Indigenous sovereignty'. Trépied (2012) explores cleavages 'between pro-independence and "indigenous" Kanak activists' through an ethnographic description of a conflict concerning a water conveyance project. Suárez-Krabbe (2012) seeks to understand how spiritual and political authorities ('Mamos') of four indigenous peoples in Colombia 'work to preserve their own and their peoples' identity' connected to the larger task of 'preserving the life and being of all that exists'. As this small sample of articles demonstrate, understanding issues such as social formation, identity construction and social conflicts in many localities require serious attempts at understanding indigenous peoples and their worldviews.
Approaching Indigenous Knowledge-Complexities of the Research Processes
2010
a person, and studied spiritual guides who cure everyone physically and spiritually. As a result, they documented the Mayan sacred worlds, territory and economy, social and political organization, mathematics, communication, and art, all in an enchanted manner. In Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, the merest idea of not discussing having conversations with and interviewing the elderly and communitarian guides, was considered an incomplete approach and an aberration. The research coordinators of all the countries recognized and asserted in each presentation that the indigenous ancestral contribution and knowledge bases could form a contribution to humanity in view of the environmental, energy, food, and oil crisis, caused in particular by "Western" thinking. "A new world is possible!" they proclaimed to us from Central America. In that sense, the themes on the Amazonian knowledge and skills, time and space, land and territory, natural cycles, and other topics were approached in a strategic manner, bearing in mind that the indigenous knowledge did not remain subordinated to structures that responded to the hegemony of a recycled or auto-regulation of the model of Western knowledge. Yet, this research begs the question, how many will understand that it was a question of constructing an epistemological interculturality and not a feeling of inferiority? How many will understand that it was not a question of trying to become equal or measure oneself with parameters belonging to other sciences, but rather a genuine attempt at understanding the energies of the whole and the bases of knowledge, not the ideologies of one versus the others? This means that when the United Nations organisations (PNUD and UNICEF) and the Finnish Government signed, in 2005, cooperation agreements that symbolized the onset of regional projects such as EIBAMAZ and PROEMBI-PROEIMCA, they were very far from imagining the results and challenges that this research initiative applied to IBE would generate, from its process and work with 18 Amazonian peoples of Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru, and four principally Mayan linguistic communities of Guatemala.
The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, 2021
From the nineteenth century to the present day, external peoples, companies, and governments have perpetrated disrespectful attitudes and behaviours toward Amazonian Originary Peoples. In response, Originary Peoples have increasingly adopted their own protocols of respectful interactions with external actors. However, research on the development and implementation of intercultural understandings of “respect” in pluri-cultural interactions has been scarce. Drawing on findings from collaborative research in the Peruvian Amazon, this article explores how Asheninka and Yine perspectives and practices of “respect” inform and could transform euro-centric conceptions and hegemonic consultation processes based on “mutual respect,” proposing instead a practice of “intercultural respect.” The study was initiated at the invitation of Asheninka and Yine community members themselves. Long-term relationships catalysed an invitation to co-design a community-based collective endeavour, which began in 2015. The discussion and findings presented in this article are part of a larger project that attempts to portray how Asheninka and Yine collaborating communities want to be respected under their own terms. This collaborative work proposes: 1. An Originary methodology; 2. A paradigm-encounter frame; and 3. Ten principles to guide “intercultural respect” for the Peruvian Amazon.
2015
The emergence of a globalized model of development in Peru, based on extraction of natural resources, has led to the rise of indigenous movements. One of the strategies to address the negative impacts of public policies created to support this model is through the creation of indigenous federations. Indigenous federations have emerged as a strategy of indigenous peoples to make their voices heard and determine their own future. Scholars, federation representatives, and community members themselves have identified the strengthened relationships between representatives and community members as a major challenge for indigenous movements. The question that frames this study is: how could representation by indigenous federations be improved, from the points of view of indigenous peoples' epistemologies, ontologies, axiologies, and methodologies? In alliance with six Ashéninka and Yine-Yami indigenous communities and their local federations, we investigate their federational system of...
Journal of Experiential Education, 2019
Background: A case study of an undergraduate scholars program in New York and our long-term partnership with four Indigenous Shuar communities living in Morona-Santiago, Ecuador. Purpose: To introduce principled strategies for building an ethical experiential learning framework based on a decolonization process, Indigenous community work models and integrated perspectives from the multiple stakeholders involved. Method/Approach: A synthesis of academic literature, reflexivity as a team contending with our own decolonization processes, participant observation, and the in-depth interviews with key community members, drawn from semistructured interviews conducted from 2017 to 2018. Findings/Conclusion: The outcome of this synthesis were four distinct principles for a more holistic, ethical, and effective framework: shared investment, shared sense of accountability, pacts of reciprocity, and social bonds. The principles offered emphasize the critical dynamics of ensuring mutual benefit ...
AlterNative, 2017
Based on a description of the learning processes and approaches to teaching research in the Diploma Program for Strengthening Indigenous Women's Leadership, coordinated by the Indigenous Fund's Intercultural Indigenous University and the Center for Research and Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology, we reflect on the "indigenization" of social research and the production of culturally and politically relevant knowledge for the indigenous women's movement in Latin America. Methodologically, our reflexive comments and thinking about teaching dynamics and student-facilitator interactions are based on our involvement as coordinator and online teacher of the diploma program over a 4-year period (from 2010 to 2013). In particular, our analysis focuses on the context of dispute in which facilitators and leaders in the diploma program came up against the challenge of dismantling the coloniality of knowledge construction when adapting research methods. The students' fieldwork experiences demonstrate their creativity in adapting and adopting methodologies that allow them to enhance the visibility of indigenous women's political contributions to local indigenous activism. Mónica Michelena's fieldwork research took place over a 6-month period in Uruguay in 2010. It was part of a project on the cultural revitalization of the social memory of the Charrúa people, located in the Salsipuedes valley-the scenario of a historical genocide in 1831.
Guiding principles for indigenous research practices
Action Research, 2016
Based upon expansions of indigenous research methodologies in the literature, researchers are encouraged to understand indigenous research conceptualization and implementation within various communities. The purpose of this review is to outline six tenets or principles that are intended to engage researchers in practices that privilege the voices and goals of indigenous populations: indigenous identity development; indigenous paradigmatic lens; reflexivity and power sharing; critical immersion; participation and accountability; and methodological flexibility. Future research directions for expanding and operationalizing principles of indigenous research practices are also provided.
Collaboration as Decolonization? Methodology as a Framework for Research with Indigenous Peoples
Qualitative and Multi-Method Research, 2022
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