Somos Incas: Enduring Cultural Sensibilities and Indigenous Education

Abstract

This framing chapter presents four core elements of the concept of culture that are particularly salient for indigenous education. First, I examine how culture has been metaphorically constructed in terms of “human rights” and as a “resource” in international educational discourse and practice. I offer a critique of problematic aspects of framing indigenous education across cultures. Moving beyond this introduction to culture, I focus on cultural wisdom derived from indigenous ways of knowing. This second element grows from acknowledging that how we epistemologically make meaning in the world can help us to de-center Western worldviews and modes of inquiry. Third, I reflect on Native traditions of conceptualizing and visualizing that integrate deeply-rooted aesthetic and intellectual repertoires. Both the process of engaging in art-making and the products themselves are important tools for rethinking education. I then introduce the fourth element, the importance of interrogating what it means to do research in the academy, looking at modes of engaged scholarship that legitimate reciprocal partnerships, embolden embodied engagement, and lead to academic institution building. Throughout the sections, I provide ethnographic insights gleaned from a decade of academic service-learning with indigenous communities in the Andes.