Land-based literacies in local naturecultures: Walking, reading, and storying the forests in rural Colombia

Abstract

Land-based literacies scholars have worked to expand understandings of literacies to include often marginalized cultures who understand literacy as resulting from human and more-than-human relations. In this article, we contribute to this broadening of literacies with an analysis of how nature influences the meaning-making practices of rural, subaltern communities in the Global South. Our inspiration stems from indigenous scholars who have advanced indigenous and relational epistemologies, seeking to bridge the nature/culture divide that remains prevalent in Western thinking. The central question that guides this article is: How are Land-based literacies produced through the felt and sensed relationships with nature, history and culture in the Callemar community? Drawing on micro-analysis of participant-generated video data from two walks with Colombian youth and adults from the Callemar community, we illustrate ways naturecultures, specifically the assemblages of Land, collective memory and cultural practices, produce Land-based literacies. We describe Land- walking, including forest- and creek-crossing practices, as literacies that require reading and meaning-making with the Land, and that which allow individuals to relate to other beings and thrive in the changing landscape of their rural community. Our description and discussion of Land-based literacies in this rural community poses important implications for informing pluriversal literacies pedagogies that draw on local knowledges and contexts to make literacy learning more relevant and equitable. Furthermore, we describe the relevance of Land-based literacies for sustainable stewardship of the Land during times of drastic environmental change.