Nurturing bonds through education

By Lina Álvarez Villarreal1)

It is beyond doubt that we are going through a deep civilisational crisis. This crisis has expressed itself in a multiplicity of crises: political, economic, ecological, and, more recently, health crises. I believe that the driving principle of this devastating situation is to be found in the breakdown of the relationship of modern societies with the Earth (understood as a living web of relationships). This rupture is manifested in the exclusion of nature from the social contract, in the pre-eminence given to the growth economy that treats nature as a mere resource to be exploited, and in modern conceptions of politics where anthropocentric elements (such as human reason or power) are conceived as the only source of normativity. I believe that the antidote to this crisis lies in the re-establishment of this primordial relationship with the Earth, an objective that can only be attained through practices that enable rootedness in a living place.

To re-establish the relationship between humans and the rest of the Earth, it is not necessary to start from scratch. On the contrary, it is a matter of focusing our attention on those peoples who, setting aside from the cosmocidal politics of modernity, have managed to weave a “politics of the inhabited Earth”. This term, inspired by the thought of the Cameroonian philosopher Fabien Eboussi Boulaga, designates those practices in which human beings, aware of their belonging to the fabric of life, organise their social forms by giving a central place to the Earth. This awareness is expressed in everyday practices that build relationships of closeness, care, and reciprocity with the humans and non-humans that live in a given place. I would like to take this opportunity and focus on the Ala Kusreik Ya Misak University, a process of autonomous education that the indigenous Misak people have been building for 12 years in the territory of Guambia, Colombia. My association with the process began in 2019 when I participated in a seminar dedicated to the topic of seeds2)). Here, I will not focus on the Misak people's notion of seeds, but rather on analysing how the organisation of their own education produces a profoundly democratic and non-anthropocentric politics3).

Rooted education

In February 2019, when I attended the first session of the seed seminar at Misak University, the first point that caught my attention was the way in which the University decided on the subject matter for the first semester of the year. In fact, this decision was not taken by the faculty of the institution, rather it was part of a community-led deliberation in which the following question was posed: “How can we equilibrate the territory?”. I found this way of formulating the question interesting mainly for two reasons. First, because of the way it de-centred the place of the human being towards a relational sphere such as the territory; and second, because it was addressed to different members of the community and not just professors of the University.

The fact that this question was posed in a community assembly indicates the existence of a deeply democratic and rooted education, as it assumes that no one knows the problems and potential of the territory better than those who live and work in it. Consequently, these people must have the possibility of intervening in the determination of educational content, as this will have a medium- and long-term impacts on the territory, and therefore on their lives. The active participation of the commoners is not limited to the determination of the contents to be worked on during the academic year. Within the framework of the development of the academic programme, the Misak University works on the basis of pedagogies that involve students in the elaboration of a diagnosis of the problems that afflict the Misak people, and in the elaboration of proposals that contribute to solving them. To do so, students must consult with elders, thus activating collective memory and engaging in intergenerational dialogue. In this way, the methodologies employed at the university may be seen as a technology that contributes to heal the torn social fabric, and to nourish the bonds that already exist.

In the case of the 2019 seminar on seeds, a diagnosis was established where the main cause was identified as the oblivion of ancestral ways of nourishing and cultivating the Earth. Thanks to the activation of the participants’ memory, it was concluded that this forgetfulness was not natural. On the contrary, the students concluded that it has been constructed by different means. These include:

1) Development policies imposed by the state that encourage monocultures and biopiracy; 2) The expansion of drug trafficking that increases poppy plantations and introduces new armed actors on the political scene; 3) The shift from agricultural production that seeks to satisfy the needs of the community to a production that seeks to satisfy the needs of the market.

By opening the discussion of the University's pedagogies and educational contents to the community assembly, and by encouraging the collective construction of knowledge, the Misak people are building two things. First, a topological rationality4), that is, a way of organising society in which situated knowledge, constructed from experience and in relation to the place, is valued. Second, the Misak University is nurturing the political capacity of the members of the community, which can be understood as the capacity to critically reflect on their social organisations, and as the right to partake in decisions that interest the members of the community, because they affect the community. These practices constitute an alternative to the modern episteme that privileges the figure of the expert, an episteme that is based on the hijacking of the ability to decide by a small oligarchy that lives far from the places where its decisions are to be implemented. Finally, the Misak University is the expression of a path where knowledge is a tool that, instead of being aimed at increasing the wealth of a few or the prestige of some intellectuals, contributes to the establishment of bonds between humans and non-humans, solving the problems that afflict the community from which the knowledge emerges and to which it must return.

2)
For further information of this process, see: https://www.misak-colombia.org/misak-universidad-2/ (last visit: 01/24/2022
3)
I would like to thank James Montano, professor of the Universidad Misak, for his teachings and for sharing with me his thoughts on alternative education. James Montano morales, “Reciprocidad para una educación intercultural y diálogo de saberes”, Trenzar. Revista de educación popular, pedagogía crítica e investigación militante, 2020.
4)
Fabien Eboussi boulaga, “Lecture hérétique de John Rawls”, dans L’affaire de la philosophie africaine. Au-delà des querelles, Paris, Karthala/Terroirs, 2011.