Indigenous communication in Latin America for social re-existence: communicative experiences in the Colombian Cauca

ABSTRACT

This paper contributes to the study of communication in Latin America through a theoretical proposal called communication for social re-existence. This concept emerges from the analysis of the community practices of the Nasa indigenous people in the Cauca region of Colombia in which communication and territorial defense are interrelated. Using the metaphor of weaving, this communicative approach is represented as comprising knots (the participating actors), gaps (spaces for reflection) and threads (the strategies). This research hopes to be the beginning of a communicative methodology that will be useful within the organizational proposals of subaltern movements.

KEYWORDS:

• communication
• re-existence
• indigenous
• Cauca
• Latin America
• subalternity
• territory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Other World’ is a concept used by Zibechi (2017) to refer to social processes or experiences where social justice prevails. The ‘Other World’ is distinguished by its propositional or performative dimension, or in other words, the constructive or practice dimension that runs though it (Donoso Romo, 2018).

2 For the indigenous communities of Cauca, ‘Walk the word’ means being able to reach agreements through dialogue without imposing oneself over others. Each opinion is important to the community and it has a deep value in which the word is synonymous with truth and honesty. ‘Walk the word’ means that actions, thoughts and agreements have coherence in the fight against fear, terror, hopelessness, and state abandonment. So the joint purpose between word and action is to recover the land, which has been usurped historically. ‘Walk the word’ reflects reprocity between word and action. It recognizes that the collective imagination is rooted in the principles and the territories (our word) and takes shape through different mechanisms, forms, structures and particular functions, according to contexts and challenges (our action). Both word and action are subject to the aspirations and dreams which define us as a group of people, as a community. Moreover, they define the community and make it incompatible with the power logic of the conquest. This guiding spirit must always guide word and action (Almendra, 2017a, p. 224).

3 Indigenous resguardos or reservations are the common property of indigenous communities. Articles 63 and 329 of the Political Constitution of Colombia (1991) declare that these reservations are inalienable, imprescriptible and nonseizable. Resguardos constitute a peculiar legal and socio-political institution made up of one or several indigenous communities who hold the common property of their territory which they run autonomously based on indigenous laws and regulations.

4 Law 2001 of 1988, repealed by Law 2164 of 1995 and which is intended to be reincorporated, regulated the constitution of territorial reserves and defined the Cabildo Indígena as a peculiar public entity whose members were indigenous people elected and recognized by the group of a settled territory. The Cabildo legally represented the group and exercised the functions established by the applicable legislation, uses and customs. The councillors had to be members of the community that appointed them and be elected in accordance with Article 3 of Law 89 of 1890 or in accordance with their own forms of traditional organization.

5 A soup from the Cauca region made of pealed white corn boiled on charcoal.

6 The historical resistance to defend autonomy, territory and all forms of life has advanced since the end of 2014 with the recuperation of some land and six haciendas, totalling 9000 hectares of land, that had been occupied by Carlos Ardila Lülle (one of the country’s most powerful tycoons) to create a cane monopoly for the production of biofuel.

7 Despite the weakening experienced by the Communication Weaving since 2016, it should be pointed out that the Minga de Comunicación Indígena of the process of Liberation of Mother Earth is beginning to gain momentum.

8 Unwiring the word means rescuing it from excessive market trade and the exploitation it endured under the capitalist economic system which turned it into barren land. Unwiring the land means that the land recovers the features of Mother Earth for the defence of life because a link of respect and reciprocity exists with the land.

9 One of the documentaries produced by the Weaving which reached greater dissemination is titled Somos alzados en bastones de mando (ACIN, 2006). It discloses the suppression of the indigenous movement exerted by the National Army in May 2006 in the Reservation La María, in the Cauca, when a national referendum was demanded concerning the Free Trade Treaty with the United States and the devolution of land. The documentary also addresses the covering up of national mass media under the deceit of neutrality. The documentary Y siguen llegando por el oro (ACIN, 2013) deals with the complex question of mining in the Cauca Department. It narrates the story of Ezequiel, an inhabitant of the indigenous reservation of San Francisco, who claims that due to economic hardship, lack of land and a large family to provide for, he was compelled to work as a miner. Unfortunately, transnational companies and gold-related mafia settled in the Cauca region, in places such as Canoas in Río Mondomo, inflicting irreparable damage to the environment with false promises of development. More recently, Radio Páyumat broadcast the documentary: ‘La Liberación de la Madre tierra no se vende ni se negocia’ (ACIN, 2016).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Universidad de Málaga: [Grant Number Plan Propio de Investigación].