Brainstorm 8

In retaliation against colonial and violent knowledge and practice, indigenous movements have shifted to "cosmic" knowledge and perspectives. The Constitution of Ecuador has articles, "granting inalienable rights to nature," (Revkin, Ecuador Grants Constitutional Rights to Ecuador). The colonialist and capitalist notion of nature pushes the idea that man has dominion over nature and thus nature has no inherent value or rights outside of its use for man. "This binary of man over nature is fundamental because it establishes the dominance of masculinity over nature, understood as feminine, unwieldy and in need of protection and control" (Walsh, Afro and Indigienous Life- Visions in/and Politics, 54). The Constitution of Ecuador directly counters this idea of ownership by giving nature its own fundamental rights, that lie outside of the capital value system imposed by colonial views. It also represents the intersectionality of Chicanxfuturism as it shows that nature and indigenous beliefs are the way of the future and are not relics of the past. It flips the narrative that western thought is modern and inherently good, through the power of activism and social movements.