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Sustainability, ‘Linked Research’ and Citizenry: A Five Year Experience in Intercultural Education in Rural Veracruz
A five year experience in intercultural education for sustainability in four rural-indigenous regions of the state of Veracruz (Mexico) is described and analyzed from the point of view of its contribution to more participatory governance in those regions. The basis of this education experience is in the collaboration of students with community groups and organizations in order to enhance the quality of life and the management of territories, strengthening peasant economy and ethnic identities, and trying to build grassroots power and a citizen participation culture. Specifically, the experience deals with a multi stakeholder project aimed at enhancing access of indigenous communities to water and strengthening of sustainable forest management by those communities. Issues such as social organization, territorial management, cultural worldviews and power relationships and alliances between stakeholders are considered.
Humankind, and the ecosystems we depend on, are facing risks due to the dominant civilization model. In this context, in the middle of social, political and environmental conflicts at global, national and regional levels, there are citizens trying to develop more sustainable ways of life; examples of such kind of search are some ethnic group experiences around the world, as well as citizens which are questioning consumerist and individualistic paradigms.
In this context, at the turn of the century a current was born in Mexican educational policies to foster the creation of intercultural universities in rural regions inhabited by indigenous peoples, previously excluded from higher education opportunities. Their aim was to create capabilities in those regions so as to increase the quality of life, and to enhance the terms of their relationships with the broader society. These communities are suffering poverty, their youth need to migrate, but at the same time we acknowledge a wealthy cultural capital in terms of knowledge, organizational strategies, etc.
Meaningful learning and meaningful research are key-words in the educational model of these universities. Courses and student research processes are or should be linked to collaboration with local and regional actors. This implies interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches, in which all kinds of knowledge are valuable.
In the Universidad Veracruzana Intercultural (UVI), as in the rest of Mexican intercultural universities, sustainability is a central topic. Sustainability is a Department in the institution; and it is also one of five ‘orientaciones’ in the undergraduate program called ‘Gestión Intercultural para el Desarrollo’ (GID). The Sustainability Department has worked with several student teams and with colleagues from sister institutions, around issues such as the participatory management of territories, of water and forests.
The objective of this educational project is to build citizenry and regional sustainability in the multiethnic regions in the state of Veracruz, through an intercultural dialog between different kinds of knowledge, different world visions, and different stakeholders. Through ‘linked research’ we aim for enhancing capabilities not only of undergraduate students but also of community groups and of teachers and researchers. The ultimate goal is to build bridges between knowledge, action and power, in the search for sustainability.
The UVI has its central offices in Xalapa, Veracruz, and regional sites in four rural communities of Veracruz. It is institutionally hosted and supported by the public university of Veracruz, receives funds from the state and federal governments, and belongs to a national network of intercultural universities. A wide array of agents has had a role in its genesis and development but, unfortunately, it has been unable to maintain the four Regional Councils once created.
The Sustainability Program is oriented towards the acquisition of a set of capabilities by the youth in those regions: communication skills, assistance to local initiatives, action-research, intercultural translation and networking, etc. During most of the undergraduate shedule, student work is framed within agreements set with local actors, to collaborate for one or one and a half years. Students work in the communities at least one day per week and in parallel, they feed on the courses: participatory methodologies, indigenous languages, ethnoecology, management of agroecosystems, etc., which try to respond to the specific needs of each linked-research project. In this search, students develop abstract thinking: they link the local short-term experiences to global long-term processes, and propose policies needed to address local needs.
One of the Sustainability Department projects is CBA-Diálogo (‘CBA’ for watersheds, forests, water). We have worked with students participating in local initiatives related to solid and liquid pollutants in rivers and wells, and also in the management of community protected areas. The struggle of several communities pursuing domestic access to water has found solidarity in UVI students and CBA-Diálogo project. In all four regions, the management of forested areas has been a key issue.
The work at a community level is by no means idyllic. There are conflicts and also passivity, as a result, perhaps, of the lack of hope, or the influence of client-oriented policies. Any attempt to reinforce local institutions and to create grassroots power, in order to gradually build sustainability, is by all means meaningful.
CBA-Diálogo is an attempt to blend education, research and reinforcement of community participatory processes. It is also an effort to interculturally translate and value traditional knowledge regarding, for instance, the concept of ‘well-being’ (different from ‘development’), as well as the bond between all living things. We have, to a certain extent, succeeded in giving voice to unheard opinions and worldviews and in opening dialogs than allow us all, through collective action, to nurture ourselves in terms of awareness and attitudes. Little by little we are building citizenry and creating real social networks. Our successes, and also our failures, are a source of learning regarding not only regional processes, but also our own institutional culture. Academic institutions have still a long path ahead in order to achieve Social Responsibility and to orient their every-day practice towards social participation in the creation and circulation of knowledge. There is a hidden curriculum in which the criteria for evaluating the performance of students, teachers and the institutions themselves, are mainly individualistic, and promote competition instead of synergic collaboration.
The results have been very diverse, but on the mainstream, we have had successful experiences in multi-stakeholder involvement. Reciprocal prejudices and fears have been dissolved, through collective action, and hope is being recreated. Indigenous languages have been a platform to build diagnostic knowledge and to envision possible and desirable futures, involving as well the emotional meaning of rivers, water sources and forests, and the spiritual conection with Nature. Students are committed to collaborate with their communities; links have been created with local agents; teachers are learning to promote the dialogue between local and scientific knowledge; and our workteam at the UVI has built a fruitful partnership with researchers from the Center for Tropical Research (CITRO-UV). Methodologies for participatory appraisal and planning in multicultural contexts have been developped, which may contribute to educational projects concerning the management of water, forests and watersheds. Some of our former students are now participating in local initiatives aimed at achieving sustainability in natural ressources management. They seem to be able to think and act globally and locally. Even if they are increasingly linked to national and global processes, they maintain their root firmly anchored in their communities, their culture, and their ethnic identity.
The bond between education, research and community involvement; the curriculum based on multi stakeholder dialogs; the holistic learning processes including attitudes and feelings; these are all innovative elements of our experience. Linked research as an educational strategy builds citizen participation, slowly, at a local level; agents, once invisible, begin to express themselves; local knowledge is being valuated and enriched with other sources of knowledge. Students and their classmates or colleagues no longer discuss whether to be open to globalization or to resist it; instead they discuss which future to build, which roots to reinforce, and which networks to create at different levels.
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