Epistemicidio y extractivismo: implicaciones de la colonialidad en las transformaciones culturales de las comunidades indígenas Curripaco de Chaquita y Playa Blanca

Abstract

Both evangelization and extracting minerals in indigenous communities’ territories are processes by which north-center countries occupy economic, political and social dominant positions over the south-periphery countries. However, to assure their power, they must transgress cultural and epistemic aspects through implanting ideas of subordination and inferiority in the deepest indigenous subjectivity. This is done in order to avoid any kind of resistance against the neoliberal dynamics that seek to appropriate their territories. Given this context, this research observes the transformations in the cultural elements (material, organizational, knowledge, symbols and emotions) that the indigenous community of Curripaco has had due to two moments: the Protestant evangelizing process in 1945 and the arrival of mining rafts to the territory in 2012. To analyze the relation between these moments, Epistemicide and Extractivism are taken as on the assumption that due to the effectiveness of the former the presence of the latter is guaranteed. This is explained by the fact that the ancestral knowledge of indigenous communities´ negation and forgetfulness will facilitate the establishment of an extractive enclave process in their territory.