Situating Development
| Autor | Giovanna Micarelli |
| Páginas | 65-101 |
Chapter 2
Situating Development
No one asked what i s the difference betwee n the indigenous thought
and Western thoug ht. Thought is how humans ar e related to the
land and its re sources, how they get by and li ve. For example,
housing goes a long with thought. Thought is t he axis. When it star ts
cracking, it s tarts failing.
Western thought , as we analyzed it in th e mambeadero, is the
advance of tech nology: is development. It leapt up hig h but now
it has to land. We mus t begin to break down such a s tructured
scheme. Dest ruction! Ruin! Failure! M aking people believe t hat
money is the most i mportant thing for liv ing! Creating need s! This is
an invitat ion to collaborate on how to weave a new b asket.
(mir aña-b ora L eader , Congr ess on territor iaL o rderin g, LetiC ia, 2 000)
Leticia, Capital of the Amazonas Department, February 28, 1998. It´s a rainy-
season afternoon and the administrative elite of the Amazonas Department is ex-
pected to gather in the main hall of the local branch of the Universidad Nacional.
Authorities are arriving with calculated delay. Some of them have sent delegates.
On one side of the hall, a group of indigenous leaders of various ethnic affilia-
tion is waiting. They are sharing mambe, the powdered leaves of the coca plant,
and ambil, tobacco paste, “to think well, speak well, and work well, and to turn
this into abundance for all.” A leader of the resguardo Indígena Tikuna-Uitoto1
1. Recently, scholarly and indigenous definitions have converged on the spelling that I am adopting
here. Accordingly, I use Uitoto instead of ‘Huitoto’ or ‘Witoto’.
Photo 2: The indigenous community “Nïmaira Naimekï Ibïrï , Muina-Murui,” also known
as Kilómetro 11. Photograph taken by its inhabitants during the Workshop of Social Photogra-
phy, TAFOS, 2000.
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Kilómetro 6-11, walks up to the stand: “To present this indigenous plan we shall
stand up and sing the National Anthem…”
With what has been perceived as a radical turn from previous admin-
istrations, the new government of the Amazonas Department sought to in-
volve indigenous participation in the formulation of the Development Plan
1998-2000. In order to gain political recognition, the five multiethnic com-
munities of the Resguardo Tikuna-Uitoto got organized in AZCAITA, the
Asociación Zonal de Cabildos y Autoridades Indígenas de Tierra Alta (Zone Asso-
ciation of Cabildos and Indigenous Authorities of the Upper Land). The plan
that today is to be presented to the authorities is an attempt to publicize the
version of development that the people of the resguardo hold.
Compañeros, good afternoon. Good afternoon, Señor Major of Leticia, Gov-
ernor of the Amazonas Department, Commander in chief of the Jungle
Battalion No. 50, Commander of the National Police, District Attorney, Rep-
resentative of the Legal Status Office, mister Ombudsman, Corpoamazonia,
Instituto Sinchi, Universidad Nacional, Monsignor, Court Officers, among
others compañeros y compañeras...
Through a work of knowledge and zone development for the unified inte-
gration of traditional ancestral criteria, seeking the identity and autonomy of
our biodiversity, planning the development of our children and descendants
so that they could preserve the customs and traditional cultures belonging
to our forms of life, how we are and how we think, with this indigenous
development plan we want to participate in the Municipal and Departmental
plans for their development...
The meeting at the Universidad Nacional is animated by another mo-
tive, just as compelling. A few weeks earlier, the military entered the resguar-
do, destroyed hundreds of coca plants, and jailed those who dared to protest.
This momentous event became a symbolic benchmark in the process of cul-
tural and political self-determination of the people of the resguardo, who de-
scribed it as a rising of awareness: “¡Nos conscientizamos!” Following the mili-
tary incursion, the indigenous authorities invited the representatives of the
army and the national police to the symbolically charged space of the maloca2
2. In 1998, the maloca located in the Kilómetro 11 community, and more precisely the maloca
council, assumed the role of coordinating the process of organization of the resguardo.
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