How to Bridge Ch’ixi-Epistemology with STS?

• In Event: Indigenous Knowledges and Technologies - III

Abstract

After centuries of racism, insurgence, formal and spontaneous political struggle, the de-colonialization of epistemology appears as an alternative approach for interrupting (neo)colonial realities in the Andean region. This attempt is nesting innovative and situated practices and discourses, which are paradoxically recovered from forgotten or obliterated pasts, by actualizing them to meet the present-day political and ecological challenges. In concrete, this de-colonial epistemology “crafted” on the Bolivian high-plateau, avoids the simple identification with indigenous principles of the past, by problematizing and juxtaposing them, actualized, to urban-modern knowledges, practices and discourses. Its name, ch’ixi-epistemology derives from an Aymara word meaning a form of grey, where small black and white parts never merge, remaining distinct to each other, and still making the grey tone possible through contrast (Rivera Cusicanqui, Un mundo ch’ixi es posible, 2018).

Other characteristics of ch’ixi -epistemology include a regenerative ethical horizon for both, the local and the planetary level; a non-linear conception of time as Qhipnayra (future-past) and Akapacha (the present as a syntagmatic surface); a productive treatment of contradictions in-place or Taypi, which does not look for final solutions or synthesis, but rather “stays with the trouble” (Haraway); the acknowledgement of subjectivity to non-humans, specially textiles, death ancestors and “earthbeings” (de la Cadena). These epistemic elements and processes, allow speculating on the possibility of theoretically, methodologically and practically bridging ch’ixi -epistemology with the STS. My proposal is to reflect on (1) how this could work, (2) which benefits it may have for non-indigenous communities, and (3) which problems would arise from these connections.

Author

• Marco Paladines, Technical University Berlin