ECHOES OF THE AMAZON: Reimagining Respect through Indigenous Wisdom and Collaborative Inquiry

Vásquez-Fernández A.; Sangama M.S.; Lizardo R.S.; Otto J.C.; Pinedo M.P. · Being Indigenous: Perspectives on Activism, Culture, Language, and Identity, Second Edition (2026) · DOI: 10.4324/978100361976-21

Resumen

Chapter 16, “Echoes of the Amazon: Reimagining Respect through Indigenous Wisdom and Collaborative Inquiry, " brings the experiences of five Indigenous student academics: Andrea Vásquez-Fernández (Andean-Quechua), Maria Shuñaqui Sangama (Asheninka), Raúl Sebastián Lizardo (Yine), Judith Canayo Otto (Yine), and Miriam Pérez Pinedo (Asheninka). The chapter tells how believing themselves to be experts, they traveled around the country as forest science students proud to know the cultural diversities of Peru. In actuality, as the chapter reveals, they were disconnected and neither listened nor did they seem to learn from the Peoples who had lived for millennia in the realities they, as the students, were aiming to understand. The chapter further elaborates on how concepts taught from one way of seeing the world were forged from perspectives of students who had not lived in the Amazon. What resulted was an incomplete understanding that held the potential of being dangerous.