Hay Festival Arequipa 2023 – Indigenous Cultures

Often, indigenous peoples and specific communities are excluded from participation in the designs of the political and cultural systems that influence their own lives. The inclusion and active participation of all citizens is the only way of achieving full and equal democracy. Three experts will talk to the writer and anthropologist Karina Pacheco about their work with Amazon and Afro-Peruvian communities. Pedro Favaron has a doctorate in Literature from the University of Montreal, is a social researcher into Andean, Amazonian and North American indigenous peoples, and is a lecturer at the PUCP. Mariela Noles Cotito lectures in Politics, Discrimination and Public Policy at the University of the Pacific and has Master’s degrees in Law, Latin American Studies and Politics; she carries out research into the themes of human rights, gender equality, non-discrimination and the analysis of public policies related to inclusion. Roberto Zariquiey has a doctorate in Linguistics from La Trobe University (Melbourne), is a lecturer at PUCP and has headed a range of research and social projects regarding Amazon languages.

The sociologist and researcher Josefa Sánchez Contreras belongs to the Zoque people of Chimalapas in Mexico. As a researcher, she writes about territorial defence, indigenous rights, the history of rebellions and colonialisms, and is the co-author of the book Colonialismo energético. As an activist she is a part of the Matza Collective, a group of young Zoques, which works to defend the rivers of the Chimalapas forests from extractive opencast mining megaprojects.
In conversation with Alberto Matarán and José Luis Ramos Salinas.

We talk about the Amazon, one of the richest and most biodiverse regions on the planet, with hundreds of cultures and languages, yet it is a territory threatened by negligent human actions. With the participation of Martín Ibarrola (Spain), author of the travel book La selva herida, which is the story of an expedition through Peru, Bolivia and Brazil; Vabi Miguel Toribio, Yanesha leader, translator and interpreter recognised by the Peruvian Ministry of Culture, she is also a social and environmental activist; and Roberto Zariquiey, a Doctor of Linguistics from La Trobe University (Melbourne), lecturer at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (PUCP) and head of many research and social projects linked to Amazon languages. They will talk to Pedro Favaron, who has recently published Non Onan Shinan: Los mundos medicinales y la sabiduría de una familia Shipibo-Konibo.