brainstorm week 8 - emilia garcia-bompadre

In Afro and Indigenous Life , Catherine Walsh highlights the difference between the concept of nature in the Indigenous versus the Western world, the second referring to the coloniality of Mother Earth. In Western thought, man is dominant over nature creating a binary which "established the dominance of masculinity over nature, understood as feminine...in need of protection and control" (Walsh, 54). In other words, man is natures superior. Contrastingly, in Indigenous culture, mother earth is central, and human being are an expression of that. The colonization of land that belongs to Indigenous peoples is then a colonization of their roots, and of the basis of all Indigenous culture. La pachamama then acts as practice of resilience because even though the majority of their land has been colonized as a result "dominated" by man, Indigenous people continue to center culture and modern activism to mother earth. By using traditional visions for how to achieve "buen vivir", Indigenous people refuse to give in to western ideas of the binary of man over nature. 

Traditional visions of "buen vivir" can also be translated into modern activism and action for how to slowly decolonize Indigenous land. Juan Garcia outlines ways to connect ancestral knowledge with territoriality to build a "life project", stating that in addition to creating new history it is important to establish a "communal space of ancestral occupation that permits social, cultural, biological reproduction...that encourage a dignified and harmonious life" (Walsh, 59). This is similar to concepts of convivencia and Chicanxfuturism because they highlight the idea of creating a community of people who support each other and understand each others differences and struggles. It allows for the growth os community and culture which is based on de-colonized practices, not existing colonized ones.