Juan García

Abstract

The Afro-Ecuadorian Master Juan García is considered an important reference in the Latin American Afro-descendant community. Since the end of the 1960s, Juan García undertook the task of recording and documenting the oral tradition of the Afro-descendant people in Ecuador. Known as the ‘worker of the process,’ he has left an epistemological legacy which allows for the deconstruction of what has been learned and the relearning of ancestral Afro-Ecuadorian knowledge and wisdom transmitted orally from generation to generation. This legacy is studied from a methodological approach divided into two distinct areas: ‘inside house’ and ‘outside house.’ The ‘inside house’ is associated with local spaces where the Afro-descendant community learns from the collective knowledge to strengthen its culture and promote the ‘right to be’ from an ethno-political identity positioning. The ‘outside house’ consists of spaces shared with the society and the State, using as a basis the project of interculturality, which, as an alternative to multiculturalism does not only aim for the recognition of differences, but for a transformation within the societal structures which maintain racist and discriminatory practices. To achieve this transformation, the connection with the ‘inside house’ is fundamental. In other words, society in general learns everything which has been produced in this space. History, knowledge, and know-how are incorporated, valued, and learned. One path for this is ethno-education, where all this epistemological legacy is embodied, and which also shows a long-lasting epistemic resistance. This knowledge is positioned as an epistemology belonging to the Afro-descendant population and aims to strengthen the Ecuadorian intercultural project as an integral part of the nation.