PARADIGM SHIFT

The urgency to maintain the diversity of life forms on Earth has clearly revealed the necessity to also restore and foster the vast diversity of knowledge which coevolved with them. In light of the unprecedented deterioration of our Earth systems, narratives envisioning future-oriented alternatives to Western anthropocentric science have gained a lot of traction in the humanities and social sciences in recent years. Universities play a major role in this paradigm shift.

The vision for this institution is carried by several interconnected paradigm shifts that we see necessary for achieving greater socio-ecological justice and epistemic diversity in this world. Today, we need a profound change not only in our mindsets to perceive reality, but also in the practices, norms, and tools we use to transform it.

The project is committed to a biocultural paradigm which recognizes that nature and culture are forming inseparable ecological relationships. Rather than streamlining knowledge into the utilitarian purpose of mastering and capitalizing on natural processes, the biocultural paradigm advocates for the ethical cohabitation between humans and all other beings. The urgency to maintain the diversity of life forms on Earth has clearly revealed the necessity to also restore and foster the vast diversity of knowledge which coevolved with them. In light of the unprecedented deterioration of our Earth systems, narratives envisioning future-oriented alternatives to Western anthropocentric science have gained a lot of traction in the humanities and social sciences in recent years. Universities play a major role in this paradigm shift. Education has been complicit with our current socio-ecological crisis but can now become a powerful instrument of mutually-enhancing human-earth relationships. These universities, by necessity, will be totally different “social institutions” or rather socio-ecological institutions.

To begin with, the plurality of knowledge practices opens a dialogue between different knowledge systems. At the same time, it also draws in a much broader assembly of species involved in knowledge making.

We live in a world where the territory is animated, that is, where rivers, forests, animals and plants are not only living beings but also sentient, cognitive, and even right-bearing entities. In a word, they are cultural beings as they have never been the backdrop of human action and history, but rather active participants in an animated world. This means that the territory teaches, and humans learn with her. Learning takes place in and through the territory, together with the vegetal, mineral, animal, cosmic and invisible worlds it encompases. Actively cultivating these pluriepistemic relationships, the project probes the questions of how nature, forest and territory can be conceived as active partners in the co-creation of knowledge and how this vision shapes territorial research, epistemologies, methodologies, and pedagogies.

The recognition of the plurality of knowledge and life forms is also intended to decolonize education and foster cognitive justice in the Andean-Amazon region of Colombia and beyond.

Drawing from teaching and learning experiences across different backgrounds and knowledge practices, we have come to define teaching and learning as a deeply collaborative and, ultimately, transformative process. Co-learning stands for the collective conversation of socio-ecological issues and the contexts where they emerge, creating spaces for grounded imagination. We see this approach connected to decolonial ways of teaching and learning.