Language, Culture and Power: Intercultural Bilingual Education among the Urarina of Peruvian Amazonia

Abstract

An Urarina elder made this statement at a community assembly meeting in July 1996, which adults from the primary long house community on the Pangayacu River had called to discuss the educational future of their children. The unrelenting economic, cultural, and political pressures accompanying Peruvian national expansion into Amazonia have led indigenous peoples like the Urarina to question their prospects for future linguistic and cultural survival. Over the past decade I have worked with the Urarina, both as a social anthropologist and as an advocate working on behalf of the Amazonian Peoples' Resources Initiative (APRI). In 1995 APRI launched an integrated community defense program among the Urarina. In collaboration with a local NGO (Programa de Formación de Maestros Bilingües de la Amazonía Peruana), APRI has begun developing an educational program that promotes the political and economic empowerment of the Urarina peoples. It works to secure Urarina access to primary health care, culturally appropriate education in the face of perceived language endangerment, and sustainable natural resource management.