AWASQA

  • The Voice of Ckuri: The Revitalization of the Kunza Language in the Salta Puna Region, Argentina

    We agreed to meet at a linguistics conference in the city of Salta. Our common interests were joining the sessions on glottopolitics and sociolinguistics and scant opportunities to discuss current research on the country’s indigenous languages. We wondered whether the topic had made it on the research and academic linguistic event’s agenda, after the United…

  • Guatemala: Freedom for Bernardo Caal and for all water defenders

    FROM THE EDITORS: Bernardo Caal Xol has become a symbol of resistance in Guatemala, as well as of the criminalization of people defending Mother Earth. Caal is Maya Q’eqchi and together with his community organized a campaign against Oxec S.A., a transnational in charge of the construction of two hydroelectric dams on the Cahabón River,…

  • Port Harrison, Quebec, circa 1890

    In Their Own Words: Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc’s Press Release on Finding 215 Missing Children

    FROM THE EDITORS: The remains of 215 indigenous children were found in mid-May in the courtyard of a Catholic residential school in Kamloops, British Columbia, as a product of the systematic and dedicated work of the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc of the Secwepemc Nation in Canada. These children were kidnapped by Canada’s government in a genocidal…

  • Ecuador: Communication Law Reform Threatens Communal Rights

    FROM THE EDITORS: In Ecuador, one of the first legislative actions of conservative President Guillermo Lasso has been to attempt to reform Ecuador’s Communication Law. By highlighting “freedom of expression” as an individual right, the new law would supersede rights already won under the Communication Law, which guarantee the right to information and communication as…

  • Peru: Rights of Nature Legislation Debated in Congress, Indigenous Women Call for Action

    SOURCE: Originally published by SERVINDI, translated to English by Awasqa. The National Organization of Andean and Amazonian Indigenous Women of Peru (ONAMIAP) held a sit-in to demand the approval of the bill that seeks to recognize the rights of Mother Nature. Following a call for action by the ONAMIAP, people gathered Monday morning [May 31]…

  • Complementary Duality and the Popol vuj: Patriarchy, capitalism, and dispossession

    SOURCE: Originally published and with authorization of La Revista de la Universidad de México, and the authors. English translation by Awasqa. Interview by Yásnaya Aguilar to Aura Cumes YÁSNAYA: From the point of view of community feminism, when the colonial order was established, there was a confluence between ancestral and Western patriarchy; other positions maintain that it…

  • Mural en recuedro de Camilo Catrillanca en el muro del apartheid, Cisjordania, Palestina

    Indigenous Support for Palestine

    Since the bombing of Gaza began in early May, killing at least 240 Palestinians and leaving behind scores of flattened buildings and family apartments, indigenous people across Abya Yala have called out for an end to settler colonialism of Palestine. Although a cease fire has been called, many see clear parallels between the resistance of…

  • Treaty People Gathering

    Urgent Call for “Treaty People Gathering” to Stop Tar Sands

    We are facing a critical moment of extinction, staring at us straight on, with burning eyes that spell climate disaster. While global agencies like the International Energy Agency, a body created in 1974 specifically to ensure oil security, are calling for a phasing out of fossil fuels to transition to alternative energies; corporate oil can’t…

  • Mural Brigada Ramona Parra

    Chile: Constitutional Assembly Process Mired in Inequity for Indigenous Nations

    FROM THE EDITORS: This weekend, May 15 and 16, Chileans will return to the voting booth to elect 155 delegates that will convene to draft a new Constitution to replace the one drafted in 1980 under Pinochet’s dictatorship. Indigenous people were able to secure 17 reserved seats (escaños reservados) from those 155 delegates, and although…