Presentation of the book “Returning to the Origin”

On Thursday, September 24, UNESCO and CLACSO presented the book “ Returning to the Origin – Ancestral Narratives about Humanity, Time and World ”.

The opening remarks were delivered by Lidia Brito (UNESCO) and Karina Batthyány (CLACSO). Susana Vidal (UNESCO) moderated.

Participants: Eduardo A. Rueda, Colombia / Ana María Larrea, Ecuador / Augusto Castro, Peru

Text comments: Pablo Vommaro (CLACSO).

Organized by: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and CLACSO.

The CLACSO Working Group on Political Philosophy participated. Thinking about Latin America, reinventing utopia.

“Returning to the Origin” gathers stories from five Elders and one Elder from six Indigenous communities in Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia, focusing on the origins and history of humanity. The stories were recorded through direct interviews with the Indigenous Elders, within the framework of strong bonds of solidarity and, in several cases, deep friendship with them and their communities.

The book is organized into three parts. The first offers a text, intended as a mere threshold for the reader into the narratives that form the book's central section, on the emancipatory potential inherent in the work of recording and sharing these ancestral narratives. This introductory reflection aims to provide the theoretical foundations upon which the project, and this book, can be understood as an ethical and political act. The second section integrates the narratives of the Wise Men and the Wise Woman, and the account of a meeting with the Kogui Council of Wise Men. The narratives are accompanied by authorized photographs and succinct explanations of traditional terms, historical and demographic events mentioned within them, presented as concise phonetic transcriptions. The final section offers a concluding text in which the individual narratives from the second part converge, reflect upon, and reveal one another. Within this interethnic and intercultural narrative fabric, the narratives acquire enormous transformative potential. By capturing them within this integrative framework, the epistemic, ethical, aesthetic, and political structure and power of ancestral thought seem to be revealed more clearly to our eyes. Thus interwoven, their shared firmament emerges.

Original Knowers: Carmen Yamberla (Kichwa People), Marceliano Guerrero (Muina People), Domingo Sayritupac (Aimara People), Wilder Güegia (Nasa Yuwe People), Ampam Karakras (Shuar People), Council of the Mama (Kogui People).

Editors: Eduardo A. Rueda, Ana María Larrea, Augusto Castro, Óscar Bonilla, Nicolás Rueda, Carlos Guzmán.

To download the preprinted version of the book, click here: https://www.hhasur.net/retornar-al-origen