Como Los Antiguos Caminantes: Walking the Land Undoing Learning with Indigenous Grassroots Research

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 3:45 pm - Gold 2
  In Roundtable Session: Storywork, Healing, and Creative Sovereignties: Indigenous Pedagogies of Resurgence Across Lands, Languages, and Generations

Abstract

This ethnographic study explores how a Quechua family in Bolivia maintain their onto-epistemologies while navigating post-colonial forces. Using Critical Latinx Indigenities framework and Entre Mundos methodology, I collaborated with a Yampara family through platicas, listening within margins, and short story composition. The research examines living "in-between" Quechua and Latine realities, where onto-epistemology interconnect through Indigenous knowledge systems rooted in ancestral wisdom and spirit. Through stories, participants revealed Watjimanta Kawsayninchista Uqharikapuy—a Quechua worldview embodying cosmic Indigenous understandings and regeneration. Findings demonstrate how stories serve as vessels for onto-epistemological resistance, connecting families to ancestral knowledge while healing intergenerational trauma. This methodology contributes to decolonizing research practices by centering Indigenous voices and recognizing liminal space as a site of knowledge creation rather than deficit.

Author

• Ymasumac Marañón Davis, University of San Diego