Own Education ¿Is an Indigenous Ancestral/Root Episteme Possible?

Abstract

The article presents an epistemic reflection on the proper education of the Nasa indigenous people, north of Cauca (Colombia). It shows that, in some way, from the indigenous worldviews it is also possible to build knowledge from know-how and experiences in the territories, which is valid and legitimate. In the same way as modern Western knowledge does and, as an emancipating process for indigenous peoples. Some pillars of self-education were analyzed, highlighting its role in autonomous education processes in the territories, which were consolidated at the founding of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca, aiming for the strengthening of cultural identity, ancestral knowledge, own language, the Law of Origin, spirituality, autonomy, and millennial resistance. In this way, more than a process to train students, self-education is a political project of resistance, physical and cultural pervivience. One of the main characteristics of self-education is the positioning of the school in, with and for the communities through community-oriented educational projects. That is, an education of defense, anti-establishment and contextualized according to the geographical, environmental, social and economic conditions of the territories. Also, a first approximation to the notion of indigenous root-ancestral episteme is developed allowing us to understand the processes of knowledge building from the same worldview that produces it.