Agroecology and Interculturality

On August, 20, 2011, I attended a monumental event in José Maria Morelos, Quintana Roo, Mexico, a small town in the center of the Yucatan Peninsula. I had the privilege of attending the graduation ceremony of the first generation of the Mayan Intercultural University of Quintana Roo (UIMQRoo). As part of a national program of Intercultural Universities located in many of the centers of the different ethnic cultures of Mexico, UIMQRoo is the campus focused on the Maya. Students from the many small towns around the Peninsula are given the opportunity to study at a university where courses are given bilingually in Mayan and Spanish, with multiple opportunities for English study as well. Everything they learn is presented in an intercultural context, with a focus on seeing how multiple cultures bring strengths and possibilities to developing systems of knowledge and making contributions to society, from local to global. Rather than think that a culture has to isolate itself to prosper, UIMQRoo emphasizes the importance of simultaneously strengthening one’s own cultural foundations, from language to history to customs, while integrating knowledge and experience from other cultures. Students return to their communities every summer during their four years of study to plan and implement livelihood development strategies that create opportunities for the students as much as for their communities. The four major areas of study are degree programs in community health, language and culture, alternative tourism, and agroecological production systems. It is this last one that is of special pertinence to JSA. Agroecology is grounded in knowledge systems that integrate science and research, practice and experience, and the need for the social change that brings justice and equity to our food systems. The Maya culture is well known for being one that is rich in agroecological knowledge, practice, and tradition, with a long history of developing sustainable food system strategies. These strategies range from the traditional “three sisters” of intercropped corn, beans, and squash, to diverse forested home garden systems, to the pre-Hispanic raised field systems in flood-prone areas that probably gave rise to the Chinampas of Central Mexico. When we realize that such traditional knowledge, much of which continues to function today, is the result of the long coevolution of a people and the landscape where their agriculture is practiced, we begin to see another way that agroecology is part of the knowledge system of a culture. When we look back and also