SUMAK KAWSAY / SUMA QAMAÑA: SOCIETY AND CULTURE ALTERNATIVE HORIZONS FROM THE IMAGINARY OF THE ANDEAN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

SUMAK KAWSAY / SUMA QAMAÑA: SOCIETY AND CULTURE ALTERNATIVE HORIZONS FROM THE IMAGINARY OF THE ANDEAN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22478/ufpb.2359-7003.2020v29n1.50868

Keywords:

Good Living / Living Well, Education, Indigenous Peoples, Ecuador –Bolivia

Abstract

The sociopolitical dynamics generated due to the ‘refoundation of the States’ (Sader, 2008; Santos, 2010), experienced in Bolivia and Ecuador during the first decade of the 21st century, presents important transformations in educational perspectives for those countries. Starting on alternative paradigm to the western development model, that is derived from the imaginary of the Andean indigenous peoples (expressed as "Good Living" - Sumak Kawsay in Ecuador and as "Living Well" - Suma Q'amaña in Bolivia), education has acquired new senses and functions. These thoughts entered the public debate and were incorporated into the new constitutions of Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009) and their educational policies. This article focuses on the origins and foundations of these conceptions. We seek to analyze their meanings and interpretations in the debate on decolonial perspectives in Latin America.

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Author Biographies

Carlos Crespo, CENAISE

I did my university training in the 70s in the field of philosophy and at the doctoral level in the line of Latin American Philosophy. With this base, I professionally ventured into education and complemented my studies in Brazil in a nascent Master of Social Sciences Applied to Education, at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP). In recent years I obtained the degree of Doctor of Education in a Latin American program of Public Policies in Education and Teaching Profession, at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Brazil.

I began my professional life in the Andes of Ecuador, in the field of Popular, Alternative and Adult Peasant Education with use of the radio medium, an experience that took me to Latin America for some years, accompanying educational / communicational and organizational processes. At the same time, for a decade I developed my work as a youth teacher within the formal system. Then, in the 90's, from international cooperation, I provided technical assistance in childhood problems and the improvement of learning strategies in public education, especially in rural areas.


In the field of education and postgraduate teaching, my research in recent years has revolved around training in educational research with teachers, from qualitative approaches with a phenomenological matrix and the incorporation of flexible modalities. In professional practice I have applied action research and for some decades the systematization of educational experiences, promoting the teaching role and supporting the recovery of their knowledge.

In my publications I have contributed to the Latin American reflection on the "decolonial pedagogies" and the search of new meanings and construction of new modes of Education from a universalist humanist perspective. In disputed scenarios and times of historical bifurcations, I have tried to recover alternative horizons of society and culture, from the contribution of the imaginary of indigenous peoples in LA, with the direction of the construction of educational policies for Good Living.

Bernardo Jefferson de Oliveira, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG)

I graduated in Geography, in 1983, at the PUC of Rio. Motivated by epistemological discussions of the area, I came, in 1985, to do a master's degree in Philosophy here at UFMG, because, at that time, there was a group at FAFICH that It was about urban space in a phenomenological approach, which seemed very interesting to me. However, after some time I changed my subject and my orientation.

I had the privilege of being “adopted” by Professor Sônia Viegas and, under her guidance, I finished my master's degree in 1988, with the dissertation “A revolta em Albert Camus”, which was published by Booklink in 2001. (I already had a teacher's certificate, issued by the Ministry of the Navy, which, although it was not academic at all, I think it was more important in my training).

I taught for some years in the Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto and, since 1994, I have worked at DECAE (Department of Applied Sciences to Education), here at FAE - UFMG, in the Philosophy of Education sector. My doctorate (1996-2000) was also in the Department of Philosophy of the UFMG, with a research internship in the Department of History of Science of Harvard University, in 1997 and 1998. The research developed was on the legitimation discourse of modern science, articulated by Bacon in the early seventeenth century. My thesis, Francis Bacon and the foundation of science as technology, was guided by professors José Raimundo Maia Neto and Newton Bignotto and was published by the UFMG Editorial in 2002. (If you want some reviews about this book, click here).

As a duplication of the thesis, I have been directing my studies on the historical process of dissemination of science, the values ​​associated with it, its discourse, its procedures and expectations. In the history of science I am especially interested in the dissemination of science as a cognitive model. It means, I try to understand how, throughout modern and contemporary history, different models of scientificity and expectations about scientific and technological development are being disseminated and instituted. More than theories, discoveries or experiments, it is about understanding their impact on culture. I conceive this theme and approach as a study of the formation of the scientific imaginary. Training that has a historical meaning, of something that was constituted and transformed over time, and an educational dimension, that is, a teaching and learning process in a broad sense that includes, in addition to school, the media and the mechanisms of cultural transmission. In this way, I believe I am investigating an important intersection between the history of science and the history of education. In this field I have developed and directed topical investigations of analysis of the scientific imaginary in utopian literature, philosophical essays, science fiction films, in didactic materials, trying to understand how they express a vision of a group and time and how these expressions interact in the culture in which they are inserted. Therefore, I have every interest in research that contemplates the analysis of the diffusion of the authority of science, the construction of its myths, stereotypes, or even its criticism in social movements, in the schooling processes of science, in international science literacy projects, in science outreach programs, in museums, in advertising, etc.

Both the subject matter and the approach of this research are, without a doubt, quite interdisciplinary. Based on this, I have tried to maintain dialogue and link with three different research groups at our university (Group for Study and Research in the History of Education (http://www.fae.ufmg.br/gephe), the Group of Theory and History of Science and Technology (http://fafich.ufmg.br/~scientia) and the line of research "History of Philosophy" of the Department of Philosophy.

In the undergraduate degree in Pedagogy, I dictate, alternately, the subjects "Philosophy of Education I and II" and, in the postgraduate program in Education, I have been teaching the subjects "Education and knowledge" and "Training of the scientific imaginary." (If you wish to access the programs for See the respective approaches and bibliography, click here.) In addition to this, I participate as a teacher in the specialization course in History of Science.

Published

2020-04-30

How to Cite

CRESPO, C.; JEFFERSON DE OLIVEIRA, B. . SUMAK KAWSAY / SUMA QAMAÑA: SOCIETY AND CULTURE ALTERNATIVE HORIZONS FROM THE IMAGINARY OF THE ANDEAN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES: SUMAK KAWSAY / SUMA QAMAÑA: SOCIETY AND CULTURE ALTERNATIVE HORIZONS FROM THE IMAGINARY OF THE ANDEAN INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. Revista Temas em Educação, [S. l.], v. 29, n. 1, 2020. DOI: 10.22478/ufpb.2359-7003.2020v29n1.50868. Disponível em: https://periodicos.ufpb.br/index.php/rteo/article/view/50868. Acesso em: 30 jun. 2024.

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