Santiago Alfaro Rotondo, Juan Ansión Mallet & Fidel Tubino Arias‐Schreiber (Eds), 2008
Lima, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
25 Peruvian soles, $8 (pbk), 379 pp.
ISBN 978‐9972‐42‐849‐4
This is a collection of a series of 14 short papers by a group of university research teams from six Latin American countries—Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, México, Nicaragua and Perú—with the purpose of presenting both their conceptual discussions and their educational projects. They assume intercultural dialogue as an alternative route to a liberal and ethnocentric conception of knowledge and its construction and, instead, they propose working together on a collective project starting from a ‘dialogic space’. This dialogic space is built through the active recognition of their geographical, political, social, economical and cultural differences. The authors conceive this work as an intercultural act in itself.
The core of the work is the concept of ‘critical interculturalism’, as an alternative to ‘multiculturalism’. They denounce theories of multiculturalism for assuming the need for dialogue, whilst not criticising the scandalously unfair conditions that prevent such a dialogue from really taking place. Interculturalism and social critical studies become, from this perspective, an integrated vision.
This collection includes an introduction by the editors, followed by the first part based on conceptual discussions of intercultural citizenship matters. The various authors promote an intercultural approach from an ethical and political perspective able to encourage transformative actions in their own contexts. Thus part one includes six chapters from the countries represented in the book. To mention, for example, two countries not represented in this JME Special Issue: ‘¿Hacia una ciudadanía intercultural en una Bolivia multinacional?’ [‘Towards an intercultural citizenship in multinational Bolivia?’] by Luis Enriquez López, explores how, in the Bolivian context, intercultural citizenship is related to political power and participation in nationwide decision making, towards a pluri‐national state; and in ‘El desafío de la construcción de una ciudadanía intercultural en las regiones autónomas de la costa Caribe de Nicaragua’ [‘The challenge of the construction of intercultural citizenship in the independent regions of the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua’] the Nicaraguan research team, Claribel Castillo Übeda and Guillermo McLean Herrera, present a conflictive context, where the intercultural citizenship approach encourages a dialogic space capable of allowing mutual recognition without ignoring structural differences. Other papers are: ‘Ciudadanía intercultural en América Latina: la búsqueda de un marco conceptual’ [‘Intercultural citizenship in Latin America: the search for a conceptual framework’] by Alvaro Bello Maldonado; ‘Marco conceitual do projeto Educação Cidadã Intercultural no contexto da escola indígena de Roraima, Brasil’ [‘The conceptual framework of promised intercultural citizenship education at the native school in Roraima, Brazil’] by Maxim Repetto Carreño; ‘Concepción de ciudadanía que orientó el diseño del curso de Formación Ciudadana Intercultural y del material education “Derechos de los pueblos indígenas. Guía para facilitar tallere” [‘The concept of citizenship that oriented the design of the course of intercultural citizenship and of the resource material The rights of native people. A guide for facilitating workshops’] by Sebastián Granda Merchán and Alexandra Martinez Flores; ‘Perspectivas teóricas en torno a la construcción de ciudadanías alternas. Ciudadanías interculturales, activas y solidarias frente a la crisis del modelo democrático‐liberal en México’ [‘Theoretical perspective on the construction of alternative citizenships. Intercultural, active and supportive citizenships towards the crisis of the democratic‐liberal model in México’] by María Bertely Busquets and Raul Gutiérrez Narváez; and ‘Diferencia para la igualdad: repensando la ciudadanía y la interculturalidad en el Perú’ [‘Difference for equality: rethinking citizenship and interculturality in Perú’] by Santiago Alfaro Rotondo.
In the second part, the six teams unveil the key aspects of each of their pedagogical proposals. These demonstrate a critical and reflective approach oriented to all, native and non‐native, affirming an integral education, an education not just reduced to cognitive aspects. In this way, the different programs emphasise the active and systematic participation of all those involved and demonstrate educational praxis as a process of shared construction.
This second section reveals differences in policy and implementation, the planning and execution of educational actions, together with materials and programs, thus presenting the underlying conceptual frameworks, whether from cognitive, constructivist, cultural or historical schools of thought. All the proposals aim to strengthen and spread a cultural and ethical approach, sustaining by praxis an active, critical and supportive democracy, and to pay attention to the social and economic context as well as to cultural and political differences. They aim to sustain through their day‐to‐day practice an active, critical and supportive democracy.
These pedagogical suggestions are presented as educational alternatives to the contemporary model, raising awareness of a model of collective work, dialogue, shared and communitarian construction that links all voices. The foundations of such a view are respect for differences and diversity. These intervention strategies ‘aim to give the participants the opportunity to speak and discuss the problems related to the matters of identity, citizenship and the relation between people from different cultural systems’ (p. 336).
The authors, therefore, state that this kind of collective work makes possible the intercultural encounter from recognition of and responsibility towards the ‘Other’, offering in this way a collective space for the building of an intercultural critical citizenship. Thus the very way in which the work is written and produced demonstrates and articulates its theory and practice. This is a praxis that allows the common and different visions to be discussed and disseminated, so fulfilling the initial objectives of the project.
It is interesting to highlight, from the discussions and effort of these Latin American thinkers, the wealth of the collective as way to think about ourselves, to think about our reality, to interrogate ourselves and to transform our contexts, making them places worth living in. This endeavour and work in progress are political tasks which go beyond imposed traditions, which recover the best of them—their positive aspects—and the contributions that help us think and produce knowledge from ‘Our America’.
One of the most significant contributions of this book is that it initiates a philosophical, political and pedagogical debate around intercultural citizenship in the context of the production of Latin American knowledge.
© 2009, Inés Fernández Mouján