Territoriality, indigenous autonomy and diversity in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Quito, miércoles 22 febrero 2017
Father Juan Bottasso during this talk
Father Juan Bottasso during this talk

 

The univesity's branch campus in Quito held a panel discussion titled "Territories, Indigenous Autonomy and Conflicts in the Ecuadorian Amazon: perspectives" that was attended by Father Juan Bottasso, director of the Abya Yala Cultural Center and UPS professor; Rosario Coronel, Pablo Ortiz and Diana Aviles, who was the moderator. The aim of this meeting was to talk about the current situation between the state and indigenous nationalities in the amazon regarding their territorial rights and self-governance.

During the event they presented the books: "Territorialidades, autonomía y conflictos. Los Kichwa de Pastaza en la segunda mitad del siglo XX" by Dr. Pablo Ortiz, sociologist, professor and director of the local management major at UPS; "Los desafíos de la plurinacionalidad. Miradas críticas a 25 años del levantamiento indígena de 1990", written by Dr. Pablo Ortiz, Iván Narváez, lawyer and professor at FLACSO and Víctor Breton Solo de Zaldívar, sociologist and professor at  sociólogo y docente de la Universidad de Lleida, Cataluña.

The welcome speech was given by UPS professor Alexandra Martinez, who spoke on behalf of Jose Juncosa. She congratulated all the professors for discussion a very important topic for this country. Milagros Aguirre, general editor of Abya Yala,, said both books are very interesting contributions since they are part of the country's situations, the right to territory and the right to organization, these topics should not only be discussed in academia but in society as well, and they should be part of the political agenda.

Rosario Coronel, a renowned professor of History of Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar, presented the book "Los desafíos de la plurinacionalidad. Miradas críticas a 25 años del levantamiento indígena de 1990" She said that the indigenous uprising of 1990 marked a historical milestone for communities. "Its presence as a social movement allowed the inclusion of debate and questioning of the colonial matrix in the national political agenda. Enough has been written and debated about this subject. However, we still do not have a theoretical study of educational scope that will bring together perspectives on the axis of state power and its model, therefore we welcome the publication of this book", she said.

For Father Bottasso, the territory is not only a place where a group survives, it is a place where people create their cosmovision from an essential experience with Earth. "I am glad that specialized people are dedicated to studying this issue deeper, that the concepts are clarified because it is not only a problem of the East, it is a global problem because there are populations violently displaced from territories where they have lived for centuries", he said.

 Ortiz spoke about the amazon experience which allows a better understanding of the reality of our country. "Ecuador is made of exclusion, of unfamiliarity of others, we don't understand each other because we don't know each other. Territoriality has been seen from a geographic discourse that is reduced to one resource so it can be exploited depending on the interests of capital", he said.