Participatory mapping of the youth’s living environments in Amazonia

Maps are useful media for illustrating and analysing the spatiality of many social and environmental phenomena. Since the 1980s, researchers have increasingly recognized the value of ordinary people’s local knowledge and perceptions for research and spatial planning (Chambers 2006). Indigenous and other minoritized groups have also started to create their own maps to communicate their place-based knowledge and relations, and to resist the “official” images of the places mediated by the maps produced by external state authorities or scientists (Peluso 1995, Wood 2010, kollektiv orangotango+ 2018). In Ecuador, for example, the community maps recently played an important role in the fight of the Waorani over their right to their territory and in winning a legal court case (Scacca & Nenquimo 2021).

In 2019, before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, our project also carried out participatory mapping in intercultural bilingual upper secondary schools in Pastaza province. Three schools were selected for the study: Camilo Huatatoca in Santa Clara (majority of the students kichwas and mestizos), Kumay in the shuar territory and Sarayaku in the kichwa community. We were particularly interested in how the students perceive their living environment and their journeys between home and school. The students were asked to mark on the maps the places they like, do not like, places they think should be improved somehow and the places they find culturally important. In addition, they were asked to point out places where they had encountered some environmental problems. The students were also interviewed about their mappings.

Extract from the map drawn by the students in Kumay. The Río Titinkiem crosses the road near the community of Kawa. Stars indicate the places that the students like (e.g., Río Titinkiem because of swimming and fishing, the road). Red dots are environmental problems (e.g., logging and littering) and the brown ones culturally important places (e.g., Río Titinkiem and a cemetery). The points marked with green stickers need improvement (e.g., a bus stop “parada”) according to the students.

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The pandemic and the right to inclusive education: identifying participatory design interventions against structural marginality and infrastructural weaknesses

Text and graphics: Nathaly Pinto

The current health emergency – Coronavirus COVID-19 – has affected particularly vulnerable populations such as the Amazonian indigenous peoples. This health emergency has deepened inequalities and adverse socioeconomic conditions, and further hindered access to higher education for Amazonian students, and suspended the enforcement of intercultural education programmes.

In the Amazon region, various structural problems have caused social and educational isolation, such as territorial remoteness, irregular connectivity, poor distribution of goods and services, and low access to computer devices and the Internet. These issues have caused serious impacts on student well-being and education, despite the great efforts of the staff of the Universidad Estatal Amazonica (Amazon State University; UEA, in Spanish).

It is therefore crucial to assess and monitor the effects of the pandemic on students’ conditions and accessibility to education, and to support the university responses to the emergency.

For this purpose, participatory research involving students and the university community, through a methodology supported by creative experiments, critical discussion, and transdisciplinary collaboration, can articulate an approach that encourages representation and involvement, while being sensitive to marginalized contexts in times of crisis. Continue reading “The pandemic and the right to inclusive education: identifying participatory design interventions against structural marginality and infrastructural weaknesses”

Exclusive distances: intercultural bilingual education during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuadorian Amazonia

Text by Johanna Hohenthal, Katy Machoa and Tuija Veintie

[Haz clic aquí para version en español]

In March 2020, due to the health crisis caused by COVID-19, classes were suspended in all educational units in Ecuador. In general, a prolonged suspension of classes has long-term consequences, particularly for marginalized and low-income groups (Giannini 2020). Therefore, we considered important to monitor the situation in intercultural bilingual schools during the pandemic. Due to the conditions of physical distancing, the research team has been unable to visit schools in the Amazonian region. Instead, we conducted telephone interviews with the principals of the educational units between 11 May and 3 June. We managed to contact 9 of the 14 schools in the Pastaza province that we had visited earlier during the research project. These schools represent approximately half of the intercultural bilingual schools that have a high school level program in Pastaza (AMIE, school year 2018-2019).

Figure 1. Proportion of students attending virtual education in the intercultural bilingual schools in Pastaza according to the estimation of the school principals

The interviews revealed several difficulties in implementing intercultural bilingual education in the Amazonian region during the health emergency. Most school principals and teachers try to work from home but many of them lack the computer and internet connection that are necessary for teleworking and organizing virtual teaching. Similarly, most students do not have the possibility to attend virtual education (Figure 1). However, the third year high school students have somewhat better access to the internet than the other students. One of the principals estimates that in their educational unit up to 70% of the third year high school students participate in virtual education to a certain degree. This is a positive thing, because it is important for the third year students to finish their studies to proceed to higher education or working life. However, for the vast majority of high school students the only option to continue their studies is to use the printed learning guides. Continue reading “Exclusive distances: intercultural bilingual education during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuadorian Amazonia”

Overview of the year 2019 and glimpse to the upcoming project activities

During the year 2019, fieldwork and data collection were the main activities of the project. The project team met during three periods of fieldwork in Ecuador. In January, Paola Minoia and Andrés Tapia interviewed and discussed with key actors, including professionals and experts in education, ancestral knowledges, decoloniality and interculturality, as well as with Indigenous leaders and representatives of NGOs, in Quito and Pastaza. In March-June and September-October, Tuija Veintie, Johanna Hohenthal, Andrés Tapia, Katy Machoa, Tito Madrid and students of the UEA visited the IBE upper secondary schools in Pastaza and interviewed directors, teachers, students and parents. Three schools were selected for more comprehensive field study: UEIB “Camilo Huatatoca” in Santa Clara, UEIB “Sarayaku” and UEIB “Kumay”. In these schools, we conducted a higher number of in-depth interviews with teachers and students, questionnaire surveys, classroom observation, as well as participatory mapping and photography with the students.

Upper secondary school students produced over 20 maps and hundreds of photographs illustrating their school journeys and culturally meaningful places in the Indigenous communities. Sometimes the drawing was a bit challenging. For example, during the thunderstorm in Kumay water dripped to the tables from the roof and there was very little light in the classroom even though it was morning (photo on the right). (Photos: Johanna Hohenthal 2019)

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“Paquetazo” in Ecuador – schools closed for demonstrations

Text: Tuija Veintie

On Tuesday, 8 October, all schools in Ecuador suspend their classes to guarantee the safety of their students, announced the Ministry of Education of Ecuador. In Pastaza province the classroom doors in schools and at the Amazon State University (UEA) have stayed closed for several days, from Thursday 3 October. Going to classes would be difficult, and possibly dangerous, because transportation in Puyo and around the province is paralysed by roadblocks and demonstrations. The demonstrations started last week after President Lenin Moreno had announced the paquetazo, a package of economic measures to reduce the fiscal deficit of the country.

Santa Clara, Monday 7 October. Photo. CONFENIAE

The paquetazo includes tax and labor reform as well as elimination of fuel subsidies. As an immediate effect of these reforms, the fuel price rose with 100% overnight. Ecuadorian transport unions declared a national strike starting on Thursday, 3 October. The strike ended all bus, truck and taxi transportation in the country. Moreover, the bus, truck and taxi drivers blocked the roads in the main cities of the country stopping all motor traffic. The transport unions ended their strike on Friday 4 October in the evening, but civil society organisations, including the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), Confederation of the Ecuadorian Amazonian Indigenous Nationalities (CONFENIAE), and the United Workers Front (FUT) continue demonstrations against paquetazo.

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Resistance of Kichwa people of Santa Clara against Piatúa hydroelectric power plant

Text and photographs: Tuija Veintie

River Piatúa in Santa Clara, Pastaza still flows free.

Piatúa is a secret river. It has power that no other river has. If I am feeling bad, tired or stressed, I go to the Piatúa river and in the river I start feeling good again. The river cures me” says an upper secondary school student in Santa Clara, Ecuador. Our research group is currently conducting research activities in this region and our interviews with and photographs taken by upper secondary school students show the special role that river Piatúa carries for the students as a sacred river and an important place for recreation and social gatherings. For the students, their families and the small-scale farming the river is a necessary source of water. In addition, the river Piatúa brings income to the local people through tourism as the clean water and landscapes attract tourists interested in nature, recreation and water sports.

Clouds have been gathering over future of the crystal-clear waters of river Piatúa. The Piatúa hydroelectric power plant project, run by Genefran S.A., is located in Santa Clara, between the provinces of Napo and Pastaza. Local Kichwa organisation, PONAKICS (Pueblo originario Kichwa de Santa Clara), claims that the power plant project threatens the environment, livelihoods and culture of the Indigenous communities in the Santa Clara area. Furthermore, the power plant project violated the rights of the Santa Clara Kichwa people as the construction work initiated without prior consultation.

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Community resistance against school closure in the Shuar territory

Text and photos: Johanna Hohenthal

The government of Rafael Correa (2007-2017) pushed modernization of the education system in Ecuador through the establishment of large millennium schools at the expense of small rural schools [1, 2]. In the province of Pastaza, the government did not close upper secondary schools, but the reform hit hardest to the primary school students whose school journeys became longer due to closing down of community schools. In March, the research team visited the Shuar territory where three primary schools had been closed and several others had barely avoided the closure thanks to community resistance.

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Discussing intercultural education and the Amawtay Wasi project in Quito with indigenous and State representatives, January 2019

Text by Paola Minoia, photograph by Andrés Tapia

Together with the compañeras Ruth, Mayra and compañero Sachachristo (Andrés), we met in Quito, in January 2019, institutional representatives institutions dealing with the new reform on intercultural bilingual education, and the reopening of the intercultural university Amawtay Wasi.

Paola Minoia and Jaime Vargas, president of CONAIE

The president of CONAIE (Confederacion de Nacionalidades Indigenas del Ecuador), Jaime Vargas, told us about his own experiences with indigenous education, as a professor for seven years in his community; and the dreams of a relaunched intercultural bilingual education accessible, flexible and welcoming to all. His talk underlined the contrast between the need of deeper philosophical and pedagogical discussions on education and the pluriverse, and the realities made of heavy negotiations and bureaucratic lengthy procedures that are involved in the relaunch of the intercultural university Amawtay Wasi. Continue reading “Discussing intercultural education and the Amawtay Wasi project in Quito with indigenous and State representatives, January 2019”

Into the Forest

Text and photos by Riikka Kaukonen

We had already been conducting fieldwork for a bit over one month in the city of Puyo and the communities surrounding it, as we stood in front of a small monoplane on the late morning of 22nd of October. The past months we had concentrated on the experiences of indigenous students of different levels of higher education:

What were the main obstacles they had faced during their education history?

How they saw the relationship between occidental epistemology present in the educative system, and the cosmovision and worldviews of their respective backgrounds?

How could the intercultural and bilingual education programs strengthen the identity and self image of the indigenous nationalities of Pastaza, while engaging with the rich multiplicity and differences that exists between and inside these groups?

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Experiences, celebration and ritual ceremony of wisdom and knowledge articulated by the Intercultural Bilingual Education System in the Province of Pastaza

by Victor Aurelio Llangari, teachers and parents of the Bilingual Intercultural Unit of San Jacinto

The practices of the peoples and nationalities of the Amazonia are of life. Therefore in 2017, an emphasis was placed on this knowledge in the Educational Institution of San Jacinto together with intercultural processes: First ritual ceremony for planting of Cedar and Guayacan trees in the memory of Dr. Thomas May, a biologist and a professor at the UEA, who came to the Amazonia with an International Cooperation project of German Cooperation Agency. Second ritual ceremony was organized to launch the San Jacinto ecological tourist trail sumakkuskakamay kawsaypacha chakiñan.

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