Higher education as a space for valuing cultural diversity

Since 2022, the journal Educación Superior y Sociedad (ESS) has configured as an editorial policy a space dedicated to the indigenous peoples of the region, to the reinforcement of their languages and to the reflection on their situation in higher education.

Since then, researchers and scholars of higher education for the Indigenous peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean have had a section for the publication of academic articles on the various topics of interest to these peoples in the area of higher education written in one of the languages of the Indigenous peoples with translation into Spanish or Portuguese, as appropriate.

This action allows the Institute to contribute to the Indigenous Languages Decade (2022-20232) and to the implementation of its Global Action Plan by presenting this section of the ESS as a space for the reinforcement, revitalisation and promotion of indigenous languages and the most urgent issues related to higher education.

To celebrate the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, we share below a compendium of the four articles published to date:

Science, philosophy and technology of the Mayan Peoples: A paradigm of education that promotes human fulfillment, harmony with nature and the cosmos, by Vitalino Similox Salazar, Universidad Maya Kaqchikel, Guatemala, and José Antonio Otzoy, Universidad Maya Kaqchikel, Guatemala. This paper describes the epistemological proposal and path of Mayan peoples, inspired by their scientific, philosophical and technological paradigm; as an expression of their constellation of beliefs, principles, values and techniques; whose essential focus is the protection and promotion of natural life, the link with territorial life, local community, and nature, which supports their cultural identity practices, as an exercise of epistemic pluralism and a proposal to make human fulfillment possible, as an alternative to the globalising and homogenising models of higher education, responsible for the destruction of the planet.

“These Indians never learn”… University, racism and interculturality in Peru, by Vicente Torres Lezama, Universidad Nacional de Arte Diego Quispe Tito del Cusco, cusco, Perú. This article aims to critically discuss the continuity of old colonial structures in the Peruvian university that prevent its transformation into a relevant institution that responds to the cultural diversity of the country. The university continues to operate under the monocultural and hegemonic perspective of Westernised knowledge that invisibilizes and folklorizes the knowledge and worlds of other Andean, Amazonian, and Afro-descendant peoples. The essay seeks to reflect on the experiences of national universities with groups of students of ethnic origin in the first decades of the 21st century, specifically, affirmative action programs in which the author had experience as a student and later as a teacher in two public universities.

Native Languages in Community Higher Education in Oaxaca, Mexico, by Jazmín Nallely Arguelles Santiago, Consejo Nacional de Humanidades, Ciencias y Tecnologías (CONAHCYT), Oaxaca, México CONAHCYT / CIESAS Pacífico Sur. This article analyzes the role of indigenous youth in the preservation of indigenous languages and the construction of Community Higher Education in Oaxaca, Mexico. The analysis focuses especially on the experiences of indigenous students from the Centro Universitario Comunal de Santa María Yaviche (Unixhidza), which is part of the Universidad Autónoma Comunal de Oaxaca (UACO) and the Instituto Superior Intercultural Ayuuk (ISIA). The text addresses the curricular proposals of these universities and their treatment of native languages from the perspective of young people who are being trained as new professional cadres in their territories of origin.

Gaps between the discourse and practice of interculturality in the UNIBOL Guaraní and lowland peoples “Apiaguaiki Tûpa”, by Marcia Mandepora Chundary, Gabriel René Moreno Autonomous University (UAGRM), Santa Cruz, Bolivia. In Bolivia, in 2008, three universities were created jointly called Bolivian Indigenous Community, Intercultural and Productive Universities (UNIBOL) with the purpose of becoming national referents for the provision of indigenous university professional training committed to the strengthening of cultural identity and the recovery, valuation, development, and dissemination of ancestral knowledge. They were also given the mission of strengthening and developing native and indigenous languages at the oral level. This article analyzes the experiences in the realization of the educational bases, objectives and institutional framework of operation of the UNIBOL Guarani and Lowland Peoples and the limiting factors it faces to move towards an intercultural institutional and academic management.