"Indigenous people’s knowledge could be essential for mitigating the climate crisis"

An expert in feminism and indigenous peoples, Ana María Noguera Duran is a new researcher in the Gender and Information and Communication Technologies (GenTIC) Group at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) in the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC). She has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) postdoctoral scholarship for her project – Indigenous women interconnecting knowledge: bodies, territories and technologies for life (INDIWOMINT).

Your INDIWOMINT project is about indigenous women in Amazonian areas of Brazil and Colombia. What is the connection between how traditional knowledge is transferred and technology and climate change?

This international mobility project is based on a creative methodological model that interconnects topics relevant to innovative research from a perspective of decolonial ontological and epistemological openness. It recognizes the value of the ancestral and traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples, highlighting the role of Amazonian indigenous women's organizations in the preservation and defence of their knowledge, bodies and territories. This knowledge has been fundamental for the conservation of biodiversity in ecosystems such as the Amazon, especially given the global ecological and social crisis we are facing.

This perspective challenges dominant paradigms, calling for new ways of producing and transmitting knowledge at the intersection of gender, ancestry, nature and technology. It promotes a more inclusive approach that integrates indigenous women, technology and nature.

Can you tell us about your career and the importance of this project?

I have a degree in Performing Arts from the National Pedagogic University of Colombia and a master's and PhD in Education and Cultural Studies from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.

I have specialized in performance and gender studies, in particular the resistance processes of women who are victims and survivors of the war in Colombia. I also study the development of social movements in Abya Yala (America) for the defence of indigenous peoples, land and territory. This project is the result of my journey as an academic and activist. This makes it very important to me, as it makes it possible for me to take on one of the challenges of the academic world: linking the content of my work with the real needs of society.

Being awarded the MSCA scholarship raises my profile in the academic world and increases the number of exchange and knowledge platforms that I can access with my project. Within my career, INDIWOMINT can take my activism to different levels, enabling me to forge alliances to advance decolonial ontological thinking that rightly values the knowledge of native peoples and ancestral technologies, which have been undervalued and abused as part of the logic of colonialism for centuries. These strategies, thoughts and knowledge are essential for tackling the climate crisis.

How did the idea of this research arise and what are its main lines?

For a decade I have supported and participated in indigenous movements in defence of the land. This contact has helped me to reflect on studies whose practice and interdisciplinary perspective can favour these societies. In view of the social and climate crisis we are experiencing, I thought that indigenous voices and knowledge could be valuable for the construction of documented knowledge of ancestral technologies that can help mitigate the impacts of that threat and assist in a search for climate justice.

How will the project be carried out?

This research is based on a participatory approach. The dynamic involvement of communities in the processes of producing localized social knowledge is fundamental for its construction. The strategies we will use to collect data involve a mixed model, with quantitative and qualitative methods. We are planning visits for the ethnographic observation of participants, and a series of semi-structured individual and collective interviews will be carried out.

What do you hope to achieve with this research?

We aim to determine how a new understanding of evidence-based knowledge can be crucial for an ontological shift in the production and transmission of sustainable knowledge, with a view to slowing the destruction of Amazonian biodiversity and mitigating climate change. We focus on evidence regarding the role of indigenous women in the preservation and transmission of traditional knowledge. We study the relationship between indigenous women's organizations in the Amazon and their connection to nature. We also seek to understand and conceptualize how this research can intercept indigenous and non-indigenous technologies to create solutions that promote sustainable development and help mitigate climate change.

What practical applications will your project have?

We will develop an innovative, interdisciplinary, ecofeminist and decolonial methodological model of participatory research, to generate new knowledge about sensitive, critical and responsible forms of research, working with indigenous women's communities.

How will your project benefit indigenous women and their communities?

We hope to contribute to improving public policies to strengthen indigenous women's organizations and their commitment to mitigating climate change. One of the main objectives of this project is to provide an online guide to dynamic methodologies for indigenous researchers and policymakers on issues related to indigenous women's movements and decolonial ecofeminism.

What does it mean to you to join the UOC's GenTIC research group?

Joining the GenTIC team, which is at the forefront of creating and advancing knowledge about gender as a structuring principle of contemporary societies and social relations, means a lot to me. It will allow me to develop close collaboration and exchanges, and strengthen the work I have been doing on gender issues, giving me a wider geographical perspective and introducing me to new ways of thinking, which will be very beneficial for my professional growth. Furthermore, being part of the UOC will open up a world of new possibilities for me to venture into and strengthen the production and transmission of knowledge through technology.

The regions and the communities studied in your project are located in an area fraught with risks: exploitation of resources, armed violence, drug trafficking, deforestation. How does this situation affect indigenous communities?

Disputes over indigenous rights take place against a background of constant violence and abuse directed against communities and their territories. Understanding their struggle to defend the land is crucial for understanding all the risks faced by indigenous communities. The war for territory, whether to establish monocultures, mining operations, or drug trafficking, generates armed violence and forced displacement and leads men to abandon the land in search of new opportunities. It is women who are left in charge, which is why they are the focus of this research. This conflict brings about the loss of natural resources and ecosystems that sustain these communities physically and culturally, forces people to migrate in order to survive, leads to the loss of traditions and cultural practices that have been passed down for generations, and traumatizes societies. So, we understand that what affects the Earth affects us all

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