202557(en)/15 - Educating Through Attenton. Legal-Resistant Practices in the Work of the Qhana Pukara Kurmi Indigenous Association, Bolivia

Koen De Munter, Beatriz Bautista, Felipe Trujillo y Carla Fuentes

This article presents a theoretical-anthropological discussion based on the results of a study on the legal-ecological-cultural education practices promoted by an Aymara association based in the city of El Alto. The group advises indigenous communities in interjurisdictional disputes in Bolivia, a plurinational state in which painful gaps continue to exist between what the law declares, and the norms lived or the cosmo-convivencia desired by certain communities. The reflection approaches Aymara cosmopraxis from the perspective of an anthropology of life and focuses on the correspondence that occurs between uraqpacha, communities and the association, exploring certain resistant achievements that result from what we conceive, in line with Tim Ingold’s theorizations, as an education through attention. The educational and affective dynamic generated through frequent visits that intensely relate the association, uraqpacha and the communities encourages the latter to resume certain ancestral justice practices that allow them to reinforce mutual raising and to reaffirm themselves guided by ancient principles of the ayllu. Special attention is paid to the emergence of a community Casa de Justicia as an alternative, decolonial path to hegemonic jurisdiction.

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