Facing the Nation: Appropriation of Literacy to Question the Territory of Good Living
摘要
The Shuar Federation produced since 1972 books to study literacy and culture called Shuara Antukta and supported bicultural radio education. The chapter will analyze the textbooks and radio education through which the Shuar Federation appropriated national(ized) fundamental education and literacy campaigns in their territories as well as historically European tools and forms of education (greco-roman alphabet, Spanish language, books, class periods) to invigorate Shuar knowledge and question the relation of the Shuar Indigenous nation with the Ecuadorian nation-state. The practices around education served to interrogate what Sylvia Wynter calls a territory, in particular the territory of human life. In this case the Shuar Federation questioned the territory of human life, particularly of a good life, that instituted the national(ized) ideal of human/Ecuadorian citizen and its lifestyle. In doing so the Shuar Federation opened the meaning of what might mean to be human and to be a citizen in what is now known as Ecuador.