Insurgent knowledge and popular practices in the climate crisis
reports on research and university outreach experiences in an Andean community in Peru
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14393/REP-2025-79135Keywords:
Insurgent Knowledge, Climate Crisis, Popular Education, Andean Cosmovision, University ExtensionAbstract
This article presents an action-research experience report conducted through a partnership between the National Autonomous University of Tayacaja (Peru) and the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), in collaboration with the high Andean community of Centro Unión, located in the Huancavelica region of Peru. The aim was to collaboratively and interdisciplinarily develop responses to the water crisis experienced by the community, expressed in the disappearance of natural springs, by articulating scientific knowledge and ancestral Andean knowledge based on the principles of popular education. The methodology was based on participatory action research, emphasizing horizontal dialogue, appreciative inquiry, and the recognition of traditional popular knowledge as legitimate knowledge. The results indicate that the Andean worldview, expressed in the ethics of Sumak Kawsay (Good Living) and in practices of reciprocity with Pachamama, offers concrete and culturally situated responses to contemporary socio-environmental challenges. The experience also revealed that university outreach, when guided by the principles of popular education and the decoloniality of knowledge, can mediate processes of recognition and strengthening of insurgent community knowledge. It is concluded that addressing the climate crisis demands epistemological alternatives that recognize Indigenous knowledge as an irreplaceable contribution rather than merely an object of academic documentation.
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