The Latin American Studies Center invites participants to Celebrating the Indigenous Americas, a week of virtual programming.

EN: Amid a constant and violent pressure from national governments to expand development projects into indigenous territories, a wide range of social movements have exposed indigenous peoples’ long quest for autonomy. In the past few decades, this has become a strong socio-political force throughout Latin America. In particular, the Buen Vivir, or Bem Viver movement for “good living” has arisen as an international dialogue that connects indigenous worldviews, feminist thought, environmental movements, and radical critiques of capitalism. As a discursive political device, “good living” foregrounds indigenous relations with the land as a form of resistance to the entangled histories of colonial occupation and extractivism. The movement behind Buen Vivir emphasizes how ancestral indigenous ontologies offer an alternative to contemporary forms of ecocide. Five speakers will present how their work contributes to elevating indigenous messaging and resistance through research, advocacy, and activism. We ask panelists to reflect on the extent to which the production of indigeneity and “good living” narratives strengthens indigenous peoples’ autonomy. How are indigenous peoples’ movements in Latin America overcoming the challenges of translating indigenous political resistance against ecocide and terracide into comprehensive narratives for various audiences? What classic social movement strategies continue to work effectively? How have rituals, the visual arts, poetry, music, and other artistic forms of expression contributed to indigenous resistance within Latin American nation states?

ES: En medio de una presión constante y violenta de los gobiernos nacionales por expandir proyectos de desarrollo en territorios indígenas, varios movimientos sociales han hecho visible la larga lucha de los pueblos indígenas por la autonomía. En las últimas décadas, este esfuerzo colectivo se ha convertido en una fuerza socio-política muy significativa en América Latina. En particular, el Buen Vivir (o Bem Viver) ha surgido como un diálogo internacional que conecta cosmovisiones indígenas, escuelas de pensamiento feministas, movimientos por el medio ambiente y las críticas radicales al capitalismo. Como un dispositivo discursivo de la política, el Buen Vivir coloca en primer plano las relaciones de los pueblos indígenas con la tierra y el territorio como una forma para resistir las historias imbricadas de ocupación colonial y extractivismo. El movimiento detrás del Buen Vivir enfatiza las ontologías ancestrales de los mundos indígenas como alternativas a la dinámicas actuales de ecocidio. Cinco panelistas presentarán sobre su trabajo y explicarán cómo este contribuye a elevar los mensajes sobre las resistencias indígenas a través de la investigación, la incidencia política y el activismo. El panel solicita a los presentadores que reflexionen hasta qué punto la producción de la indigenidad y las narrativas del Buen Vivir fortalecen o no la autonomía de los pueblos indígenas. ¿Cómo están sobrellevando los movimientos sociales en ¿Cómo están sobrellevando los movimientos sociales en América Latina los desafíos relacionados con traducir las resistencias de los pueblos indígenas contra el ecocidio y el terricidio en narrativas comprensibles para varios públicos? ¿Qué estrategias clásicas de los movimientos sociales siguen siendo efectivas para este propósito? ¿Cómo se están utilizando los rituales, las artes visuales, la poesía, la música y otras formas de expresión artística para apoyar las resistencias de los pueblos indígenas al interior de los estados-nación latinoamericanos?

Speakers:

• Bárbara Nascimento Flores
• Moira Millan
• Diego Melo
• Mariana Mora
• Maia Afmatos

Bárbara Flores

Mãe, Indígena-descendente com origem no Povo Maxacali, professora, artista, escritora e pesquisadora com Graduação em Turismo, Especialista em Educação Ambiental e Sustentabilidade, Mestre e Doutora em Desenvolvimento e Meio Ambiente. Atuo na linha de pesquisa de comunidades sustentáveis, onde busco a relação entre ecofeminismo e sustentabilidade ambiental em comunidades indígenas e ecovilas. Membra do Wayra - Movimento Ancestral Filosófico de Indígenas Mulheres; Membra da Articulação Brasileira pela Economia de Francisco e Clara e Membra do Movimento Sul da Bahia Viva.

Bárbara is a mother, Indigenous-descendant from the Maxacali People, teacher, artist, writer, and researcher. She has a degree in Tourism, specializing in Environmental Education and Sustainability, with a Master's degree and PhD in Development and Environment. She works in the research area of sustainable communities, where she studies the relationship between ecofeminism and environmental sustainability in indigenous communities and ecovillages. She is also a member of Wayra - Ancestral Philosophical Movement of Indigenous Women, the Brazilian Articulation for the Economy of Francisco and Clara, and the Southern Movement of Bahia Viva.

Maia Aguilera is an Itonama indian, an indigenous people suffering ethnocide in the Bolivian Amazon. She is a lawyer and a Master's student in the Department of Philosophy and General Theory of Law at the Faculty of Law of USP, with the theme of the rights of indigenous children and adolescents. Her research addresses the centrality of guaranteeing the original territories for asserting the rights of indigenous children, as they are preferential targets of ethnocides, through the separation of them from their people. She is also a co-founder of deFEMde, Rede Feminista de Juristas (Feminist Network of Jurists), and a member of the Commission on Sexual and Gender Diversity and the Center for Indigenous Communities of the OAB/SP's Human Rights Commission.

Mariana Mora is an associate professor – researcher at the Center for Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology in Mexico City. She earned her PhD in Anthropology from the University of Texas at Austin and an MA in Latin-American Studies from Stanford University. Her research interests include: social movements and State formation; decoloniality; legal anthropology; and the production of gender and racialization.

Diego Melo Ascencio is a PhD candidate in the Geography department at CU Boulder. Their research focuses on Black and Indigenous territorial rights in Colombia, particularly the role of cartographic demarcations in the co-production of extractive frontiers. Diego is currently working for the Colombian Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Co-existence and Non-repetition as researcher and analyst. They will soon move to Quibdó, Chocó, to begin dissertation fieldwork alongside social movements striving for Black and Indigenous autonomy throughout the Pacific lowlands.

Moira Ivana Millán is a Mapuche novelist and co-founder of the Movement of Indigenous Women for Good Living (Movimiento de mujeres indígenas por el buen vivir). She participates in the feminist movement Ni una menos, denouncing the feminicide of Indigenous women. She was a co-writer and protagonist of the documentary Pupila de mujer, mirada de la tierra, which was the winner by Argentina of the third edition of the DocTV Latin America contest. The documentary, premiered in 2012 on public television channels in several South American South American, addresses from a gender perspective the problem of identity and the struggle for the territory of native peoples.

In 2012, she began a series of meetings with women from different communities of native peoples of Argentina, actions that gave rise to the first March of Native Women for Good Living in 2015, representing 36 native nations. In 2018, This initiative was consolidated with the formation of the Movement of Indigenous Women for Good Living, which defines itself as anti-patriarchal, of which Moira Millán is coordinator and reference. In 2019, Millan published a book, the novel El tren del olvido.