AWASQA

  • Pachamama, Pachamamistas, and Other Labels: A Few Notes of Caution

    In political debates in general, as well as in discussions about development strategies, it is very common to appeal to generalized and, therefore, ambiguous labels. Among the best known cases are the use of words like indigenous or Indian, and more recently, Pachamama. Some believe that it is enough to mention them to turn their…

  • Illustrations by Christelle Enault

    The Serviceberry: An Economy of Abundance

    FROM THE EDITORS: This article was originally published in Emergence Magazine. We are grateful to them, who have authorized its publication and translation into Spanish in Awasqa. The cool breath of evening slips off the wooded hills, displacing the heat of the day, and with it come the birds, as eager for the cool as…

  • Thinking the World from Bolivia

    FROM THE EDITORS: Bolivia, before Evo, during his government and even after the coup, is a complex universe understood best by those who live its daily dynamic reality. That is why we turn to Rafael Bautista, an indigenous Bolivian philosopher, who makes an in-depth analysis of the political reality of his country. We leave you…

  • The Neocolonial Mayan Train

    Marxist theory is built upon a critique of the accumulation of capital in the hands of the bourgeoisie, through the exploitation of workers, for which Karl Marx visualizes a solution of redistribution of capital, now in the hands of the socialist state, with the support of the proletariat. However, within the “worker exploitation” concept and…

  • Photo: Tlacolulokos Facebook

    Tlacoculokos in Oaxacalifornia: Decolonizing Art

    Tlacoculokos is a collective of two self-taught artists from Tlacolula, Oaxaca, Mexico, Dario Canul and Cosijoesa Cernas, who define themselves as anti-capitalist, punk, and anti-fascist. They were part of the Contemporary Art Specialization Clinics (CEACO) of La Curtiduría in Oaxaca. Heirs to the teachings of the great Mexican muralists, with multimedia and multidisciplinary graphics, they…

  • Sacred Black Hills: An Origin Story that Breaks with Colonialism

    UPDATE July 6: At least 15 people were arrested Friday, July 3, as activists blocked a highway to protest Trump’s speech at Mt. Rushmore, to highlight the desecration of sacred lands and as a process of decolonization. For more information, please visit NDN’s website. The Mount Rushmore monument where the faces of George Washington, Thomas…

  • Language Is Not Culture

    For many indigenous peoples, land is a specific physical entity, but the notion of territory includes life associated with that land and the cultural manifestations linked to that physical entity, the sense of belonging and the way in which we relate to it. Territory, it has been said emphatically many times, is not just land.…

  • Pacto Ecosocial

    For a Social, Ecological, Economic and Intercultural Pact for Latin America

    FROM THE EDITORS: The COVID pandemic has exposed an urgent global need to generate fundamental changes that reject the unlimited accumulation of capital through the exploitation of our bodies and Mother Earth. In April, indigenous, Afro-descendants people and popular organizations of Latin America already made a call to change “the economic inertia of the neoliberal…