Team:UAAAN/Integrative Human Practices
Abstract
The Promise of Protein-based Technologies
.
Dr. Mary Hitt
- Associate Professor
- Department of Oncology
- University of Alberta
The indigenous population in Mexico represents almost 15 per cent of the total, inhabiting one fifth of the territory, but our indigenous peoples face the most difficult social conditions in the country, with high migration and exclusion of basic elements such as education, water, electricity or decent housing..
.In order to contribute to the improvement of the current situation of the indigenous peoples, we thought of working on indigenous inclusion with our human practices project, In the first instance we visited counties of the Zapalinamé mountain range located in the south of Coahuila, we knew their needs and talked about how our energy project could benefit them..
We also organized, in collaboration with the Secretary of Culture and our university, a meeting with fellow native speakers of the Universidad Autónoma de Chapingo, which we call “Regional Circles of Indigenous Thought”, this activity was carried out on September 9 and 10 of this year in the facilities of our university. With the support of colleagues from indigenous areas, we were able to translate informative leaflets in Nahuatl and Chatino, which presented a simple way of making a home-made solar oven, this in order to make available easy, accessible and pollution-free alternatives..
We made videos with information about our project in Nahuatl language, this in order to make our idea known and have a greater reach, in addition to taking into account that our indigenous peoples can also be part of scientific projects, In our team we have members from indigenous areas who have supported and incentivized the population to show that we can all do science..
We are proud to be one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world, and we are committed to the inclusion of our indigenous peoples, who are part of our culture and roots as Mexicans..
IMPACT
In Mexico there are no statistics that indicate the status of participation of indigenous peoples in scientific creation. No systematic documentation designed to determine whether a scientific or technological development was generated by an indigenous person or not.
Strong discrimination in the country shows that the educational gap is not the only problem that indigenous peoples must face when trying to participate in scientific development. There are also a factor devaluation of all knowledge that has not been generated by the scientific method accepted by Western culture. This scientism, which claims valid only knowledge of the dominant culture, as has been noted by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco). .
The inclusion of indigenous peoples in the scientific and technological development is happening, and although sometimes it is not easy to translate to statistics, as the experts at the General Coordination of Intercultural and Bilingual Education (CGEIB), there are tangible examples..
STRATEGIES
To address this need to incorporate intercultural education in Mexico, is bornGeneral Coordination of Intercultural and Bilingual EducationWhich has grown to offer alternative education relevant to the cultural and linguistic contexts in the country. From basic education to higher education that people whose mother tongue is not Spanish have stimulating spaces for learning, intercultural education is creating new educational spaces for people who have been historically marginalized and discriminated against in education, because education has been taught in one language and other languages are not considered in the national education system. .
In Mexico there are communities with large percentages or volume of native languages monolingual population suffering from isolation and solitary confinement, for example, not understanding, by language, health campaigns, attention to disasters, among others. In analyzing such a situation the iGEM-UAAAN team devised a strategy for engaging in the scientific area peers from various indigenous areas, which is why we organize regional circles of indigenous thought, where we hear proposals and different viewpoints that helped generate ideas on how to handle the issue of inclusion of indigenous people to scientific areas. .
GOALS
Indigenous knowledge is sometimes described as folk, other mystical, remains rooted among the people, not only by tradition but because it provides results in different activities. In fact, sometimes this knowledge are subject to plunder by organizations or individuals outside the communities of origin, without any clear legal tool to prevent it so far..
Indigenous knowledge is sometimes described as folk, other mystical, remains rooted among the people, not only by tradition but because it provides results in different activities. In fact, sometimes this knowledge are subject to plunder by organizations or individuals outside the communities of origin, without any clear legal tool to prevent it so far..
Our approach was to develop a novel, sustainable technology that is available to indigenous areas do not have electricity. To address this problem we interact with people living in suburbs do not have electricity, we make regional circles of indigenous thought to hear opinions and views, also we devised a way to let them get information to communities for the development of a solar oven , brochures translated into two indigenous languages so that the information had a greater reach. .