The UConn Women’s Center hosted a talk by the Departments of Geography, Sustainability, Community, and Urban Studies (GSCU) and Social and Critical Inquiry assistant professor Alexandra Lamiña on her research surrounding Amazonian geographies, the Kichwa women who live there, the cultures, geography and oppression by settler-colonialism on March 12.
Interim director of the Women’s Center Elise Delacruz gave a short personal introduction before introducing Lamiña.
Lamiña is a Kitu-Kara Indigenous woman geographer and urban planner born and grew up in Nayón community, Kitu (Quito), Ecuador. She said “My life has always been affected by colonization,” later citing urban gentrification as the ongoing force of dispossession for her and her community. “Today, I will not be focusing on my community, but my research,” she continued.
The presentation was split into five parts: “Historical Urban Precursors in Amazonia,” “Amazonian Urban Development,” “Migration and Mobilities,” “Indigenous Urbanities and Placemaking” and “Revitalizing Indigenous Geographies.”
“We are working with women, but in particular we are focusing on the missing voices,” she said, specifically talking about Amazonian Kichwa women in the analysis of Indigenous geographies. Lamiña mentioned that the scholarship of decolonial thinking in Latin America fails to grasp the ways in which Amazonian Kichwa women have reshaped the history of cities. “As Indigenous women, we continue seeing that our voices are being disregarded in this mainstream dialogue,” she said.
Lamiña started her collaborative work in Ecuadorian Amazonia 10 years ago. Her efforts and advocacy aimed to deconstruct the colonial logics of enlightenment, development and discovery doctrine by recentering the Kichwa intercultural and organizing power in the region.
Lamiña said that both Western and European imperialism dispossessed Indigenous lands to convert them into settlers’ and missionaries’ private property, and today that the neoliberal, capitalist and environmentalist agendas continue causing tensions in Amazonia. She cited the genocides and violence dealt to the Indigenous people by settlers and colonizers.
Lamiña also insisted on the importance of recentering both geography and history of Amazonian peoples in the context of Abiayala. “On a daily basis, in our society, we have a shared history with the Black community, the African community,” Lamiña said, citing Haiti and the Dominican Republic as examples in the intercultural geography of Abiayala and wanting these experiences to unite instead of divide. On these shared pasts, Lamiña added “We reject our settler-colonial past,” instead promoting decolonial thought and Indigenous and Black feminisms in reaction to the institutions of slavery and genocide. Caste systems forced upon the Indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples by settlers and colonizers ruin intercultural relationships. “We survived the genocidal procedure.”
Lamiña took a moment to ask the audience, “Have you read something about Indigenous feminist theory from an Indigenous woman?” The audience was silent. She then shared a quote by Dolores Cacuango, the first Andean Kichwa Indigenous woman to create a political platform to combat settler colonial power. “Our aim is to restore the oral history of our women,” she said, referring to her work in geographic thought.
Beatriz “Bacha” Gualinga, an Indigenous activist, was next to be discussed. Lamiña showed a video of Amazonian Kichwa leader, Gualinga giving a speech in Spanish about the injustices of the Indigenous and their land by settler-colonialism set over film of Indigenous people marching, including the Wihpala flag, the symbol of the collective fight of the Indigenous peoples in Abiayala. “The point is that you appreciate the voice and strength of the women,” Lamiña said, referring to the Amazonian Kichwa women. After showing the segment of the video, she said “These are the kind of archives we like to collect..” Lamiña said this is the representation not seen in decolonial geographic thinking.
A photo of Puyo City depicting men and military occupying public spaces was shown. In reference to Indigenous women’s existence, Lamiña said “When we revise this visual archive, it’s like ‘where are we?’” Along with saying that there was no place for Indigenous women, Violence Against Women Prevention Program facilitator Izabella Neiger said “Women are required to uphold the society behind the scenes which is unfair.”
Two startling statistics were shown by Ecuador’s National Institute of Statistics and Census in 2020 and ProAmazonia in 2022 respectively: “75% of Indigenous women face socio-economic poverty” and “80% of Indigenous women suffer sexual, physical and psychological violence.”
Lamiña described a picture depicting labor exploitation and servitude systems on Indigenous people as “forced immobility.”
Lamiña proposes an Indigenous geographic theory that integrates Kichwa-Kitu-Kara epistemology, ontology and technology.
Lamiña also shared the various Kichwa women-run initiatives to combat economic injustice in Amazonia. When describing women’s creations with their hands, Lamiña said, “We don’t produce handicrafts, we make art.” The art itself depicts the importance of nature and power of the history and familial legacy. There were pictures of the art pieces in the form of animals Indigenous women made displayed on pictures with traditional stories attached to them provided by the Napo Kichwa women-run organization Awakkuna.
“We love academia, but we also care about the collective,” Lamiña said, talking about the life outside of the space of universities and colleges.
Lamiña ended the talk by discussing a multiplicity of genders and sexual orientations in Indigenous communities and cities, which opposed the gender binary of colonial and Western thought. For example, the Kichwa ritual beings, such as the Supais can be depicted as many genders.
There are also universities in Amazonia, but only mestizes and white people are represented there and not Indigenous or Afro-descendants.
Lamiña will be teaching the geography course Indigenous Geographies in Abiayala and Turtle Island (The Americas) and the women’s, gender and sexuality studies course Black and Indigenous Geospatiality in the Améfricas.
Note: Edits made for clarity.