Decolonizing education through Ayuuk indigenous praxis: Three visions from Oaxaca, Mexico

Abstract

This article examines how educators and students at the Instituto Superior Intercultural Ayuuk (ISIA), an intercultural university in Oaxaca, Mexico, are decolonizing education. They do so by drawing on forms of praxis that are salient in Ayuuk indigenous communities, across Oaxaca, and in Latin America. While scholars have demonstrated how indigenous “cosmopolitics” exceeds western norms, research on why some forms of knowledge gain traction outside of their original context has been scant. I utilize the framework of translation to examine three visions of Ayuuk praxis at the ISIA and to suggest why some forms of knowledge are successfully translated across the epistemological boundary between community knowledge and school knowledge. Focusing on the epistemological negotiations between Ayuuk students and professors highlights the challenges of decolonizing education, even when all key actors are indigenous.  This work thus contributes to a growing body of scholarship concerned with constructing robustly plural and decolonial societies and institutions.