Higher Education and Indigenous Peoples in Latin America: from the “Dialogue of Knowledges” to the construction of “sustainable dalities of Intercultural Collaboration”

Abstract

In the latest three decades, the struggles and initiatives of indigenous peoples in several Latin-American countries have given rise to the creation of universities and other types of higher education institutions. Some were established and are managed by indigenous peoples´ organisations, other were created by governmental agencies. Additionally, various types of special programmes were implemented, in some cases through agreements between indigenous organisations and “conventional” universities, in other as academic units within the latter, or under the form of special quota programmes, grants and/or academic and psycho-social support. Some of these experiences have been able to develop “sustainable modalities of intercultural collaboration”, other are developing them, other keep on trying, while other just invoke the phrase “dialogue of knowledges” without reaching the expected progresses. Based on studies about approximately a hundred experiences of these sorts in eleven Latin-American countries, as well as in learning drawn from accompanying some of these experiences and exchanges with the working teams of several of them, this article provides some reflections on the difficulties, conflicts and challenges in the transition from the oft-proclaimed “dialogue of knowledges” to “sustainable modalities of intercultural collaboration” in teaching, research and/or extension.