tziteras

Leyla Noriega has been active for more than 20 years, campaigning and reporting on injustices against indigenous people and the natural environment across the northern regions of Chile. The newly independent state had conquered the area around 1880 to access mines and natural resources that had previously been under the rule of Peru and Bolivia, and before then, by Incas and Aymaras who called the area Qullasuyu. One day the mining companies which Leyla had seen tear towns apart before in the area arrived at her mother and grandparents' town of Belén, at around 133 km from the city of Arica and at an altitude of 2800m and it was a very different feeling.  Mining laws in Chile were created specifically to easily sell land and water to private companies, during the Pinochet dictatorship, so that any private company that finds an element in the mountain can claim it for their own, and exploratory machinery can be installed up to a total of 39 machines without requiring any specific p...

...Consideraciones en búsqueda de un punto de contacto y coordinación entre la gente del pueblo Aymara y entre pueblos originarios... El Ayllu Virtual Desde las protestas de George Floyd he podido experimentar un acercamiento a mis raíces Aymara, quizá dada la ola de información que se ha visto llegar desde toda la gente está divulgando la información que ahora se hace más presente entre las protestas de BLM, la destrucción de monumentos coloniales y su legado ya es algo que concierne el mundo occidental. También con mi familia extensa de la parte de mi padre y abuela Aymara, culpa de la cuarentena hemos comenzado a reunirnos y poder compartir cuentos, canciones, saludos, chistes y un poco de todo, y al crecer el conocimiento de la plataforma zoom, hemos podido presentar de manera más ordenada lo que sabemos de la cultura Aymara. Al pasar los meses, las conversaciones se han ido convirtiendo muchas veces en una especie de clase intensiva de historia y cultura propiamente Aymara de nues...

 A quick collection of links about Aymara hip hop, which was mainly active during the life of Abraham Bohorquez who is considered one of the founders of this type of music. During the time of Evo Morales´s government it then seemed to fade a bit as maybe it´s major impetus was the time leading up to the massive mobilisations which brought Evo´s party MAS to power, but there are various writings about it. http://upsidedownworld.org/archives/bolivia/rapping-in-aymara-bolivian-hip-hop-as-an-instrument-of-struggle/ https://rebelion.org/el-rap-en-aymara-el-hip-hop-boliviano-como-instrumento-de-la-lucha/ Known as Wayna Rap or Nacion Rap, it does manage to fuse a lot of sounds I love but Abraham´s girlfriend Nina Uma does mention it was certainly not a feminist movement for the most part, and it was not linked via a big industry so it could spread to other countries or continents, so remained limited to the El Alto area. Fortunately there are also female artists like Uma herself and...

De Jorge Cárdenas - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jorgefranciscocardenasvera/6020716668/sizes/l/in/pool-1163283@N21/ , CC BY 2.0 Once upon a time there was a mouse who wanted to take care of a valley he had found. One day a fox turned up and said it was his valley. "So be gone with you" said the fox, because he wanted to build houses for the humans who lived in the mountains. The mouse walked up past the humans and their animals, past the highest peaks and on towards a temple so grand and majestic that a stairway to enter it disappeared into a cloud on which the shining temple sat. In a huge waiting room the mouse sat for hours, then days, then weeks. Soon he could feel himself grow tired and ill from the light and lack of food. He asked a passing condor to send news to the valley of his illness. The king of the sun looked up from his work, planning the most ambitious constructions with all the cleverest humans. He said: "I really appreciate your issue but w...

An article by Richard Heinberg, " Economic History in 10 Minutes " which I read the other day, inspired me to look a bit more into more elaborate economies than simply gift/tribal based, that might escape people's thoughts as they search for alternatives to the current (failed?) economic system.  His article is a good summary of a lot of peak oiler economics although I've heard him and others say these things before lots of times and in different ways. Heinberg points to our  addiction to fossil fuels as the central reason for lots of current problems, and the article treasures hunter gatherer cultures with their gift economies as a possible future or as something to move towards. Doing something in 10 minutes is bound to leave something out. It would be easy to believe, reading his article, that we once were all happy and shared everything, then - boom! - iPods. (He actually says " So letting go of the gift economy was a trade-off for progress—houses, cities,...