From the 21st to the 23rd of November, our branch campus in Quito, along with “Fundación para la Educación en Contextos de Multilingüismo y Pluriculturalidad” (FUNPROEIB) and Universidad del Cauca ,Colombia, held the 6th International Seminar “Revitalizando Ando”, an event to discuss indigenous languages and cyberspace, as new ways to revitalize these languages. 

The seminar was attended by 200 people and was also broadcast live through the university’s digital platforms and reached 1500 people in ten countries. The aim of the event was to analyze and discuss linguistic revitalization processes that take place in the digital environment. Teachers from the Anthropology and Bilingual Intercultural Education majors coordinated the conferences, panels and talks.

 
The opening ceremony was attended by Juan Cárdenas, UPS president; Luis Enrique López, president of FUNPROEIB Andes; Martha Corrales, from the Department of Intercultural Studies at the University of Cauca; María Sol Villagómez, vice president of our branch campus in Cuenca; and Sebastián Granda, director of the Bilingual Intercultural Education program and coordinator of the event.

 
Juan Cardenas stressed the importance of native languages as bearers of a unique and ancestral cultural wealth of knowledge, beliefs, science and technology. He explained that when people stop speaking a language, invaluable knowledge is lost for society. Therefore, academia plays a fundamental role in the revitalization and preservation of these languages.

 
Luis Enrique López spoke about the settlement of indigenous communities in urban areas and the work between UPS and the UNESCO Indigenous Chair in the City for focusing on training programs designed for these urban environments using new digital devices. Martha Corrales described this meeting as an opportunity to learn about and present proposals that strengthen the social use and daily, political and vital presence of the indigenous languages of Abya Yala.

A keynote speech was led by Fernando Garcés who presented the topic: “Cyberspace: territory of dispute”, and explained digital environments as part of the communicative repertoires that speakers have to maintain, revitalize, revalue, awaken or position their languages, speech, writings, ways of representing themselves and questioning the colonial discursive order.

Some of the discussion panels were: 

“Social networks, digital activism and the revitalization of indigenous languages” by Sacha Rosero from Ecuador, Elías Ajata from Bolivia and Yanira Cceencho from Peru

“Online communication and indigenous languages” by Cecilia Tuyuk from Guatemala; Joaquín Illescas from Mexico; Jorge Luis Romero and Jhon Janil Trochez from Colombia

“Community and institutional revitalization experiences” by Yaneth Pacho from Colombia, Leonardo Tello from Peru, María Gabriela Albuja and José María Cacacela from Ecuador 

“Artistic expressions, indigenous languages and cyberspace by Eriberto Gualinga from Ecuador, Ricardo Flores from Peru and Ana Cachimuel from Ecuador. 

“Trajectory and perspectives of cultural linguistic revitalization” by Martha Corrales, Daniel Guzmán from Bolivia and Sebastián Granda.