Indigenous Guard(s): Decolonial networking and social action

• In Event: Thread-ing: Imaginaries for Indigenous and Campesino mobilization in Colombia

Abstract

The past decade has seen the rise of “La Guardia Indigena” in Colombia. Initially, from the highlands of Southern Colombia, the NASA people had called the “kiwe Ten’za” (the Indigenous Guard) to protect their communities from the aggression of the arm agents -state and private forces- as part of the historical struggle for land and cultural autonomy, now facing resource extraction projects in their ancestral territories. The Guard is organized under a combination of historical ways of resistance, by military and political means, and by the strengthening of their core values via processes of autonomy, education, and the actualization and circulation of ancestral ways of governance, religious, science, medicine, and cultural practices. Today the “Guard” has developed a model for indigenous and campesino mobilization, organization, and action in Colombia. By combining conventional social mobilization with media related products (radio, video, and social media platforms) they are being part of the social transformation of the country.

Author

• Miguel L Rojas Sotelo, Duke University