Abstract
The Muisca community of Suba, located in Bogota, Colombia, is a place-based community whose epistemology is rooted in what is now an urban environment. After enduring over five centuries of segregation, marginalization, displacement, and near cultural obliteration, the Muisca community has thrived to the present day and is currently undertaking the task of re-indigenization through the revitalization of their traditional knowledge and the process of ethnogenesis. The effects of urbanization on the Muisca have not only changed the physical spaces which they inhabit, but it has also disrupted the relational patterns between the community and their sacred places. This severing of the community from their sacred places has had the effect of further invisibilizing the Muisca’s ethnic identity in the national social imaginary. As a form of resistance to their marginality, the Muisca are engaging in symbolic practices, in both public and private spaces, as a means of cultivating ideological resistance, memory revitalization, and generating new meanings of their collective identity. This article, based on an ethnographic case study, seeks to examine how the Muisca community is symbolically re-appropriating their sacred places in this urban context to mend the social fabric of the Muisca community. As such, this revitalization project represents an attempt to reconstruct a forgotten indigenous identity by rewriting the historical memory of a community that disappeared from the national discourse.
Highlights
Mi territorio, ‘jicha,’ es la conjugación de varias cosas
While the local government of Bogota has officially recognized the presence of Indigenous communities throughout the city in Decree 543 written in 2011 (Alcaldía Mayor de Bogotá, 2011), there has yet to be a restitution of lands to the Muisca community of Suba to this day
In addition to fostering this coexistence, challenges to the “coloniality of being” (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p. 242) are being undertaken by the Muisca community, whose resilient nature attests to the human potential to recreate and transform crisis into hope
Summary
Mi territorio, ‘jicha,’ es la conjugación de varias cosas. La superficie [y] el espíritu que habita allí. Communities undergoing revitalization processes pose a direct challenge to the identity imposed onto them by the State and the academy, which have served to perpetuate essentialisms of indigenous identities (Ellison, 2018; Kuper, 2003) In contrast to those imaginaries, indigeneity in the urban environment is lived, negotiated, and constantly re-interpreted; it is negotiated within the spaces where it is present, while it undergoes continuous change. I have conducted participant observation in events such as general assemblies, elections (which take place every year), seasonal festivals, census, palabreos (reasoning gatherings), hikes to the sacred mountains, rituals in their orchards, and educational sessions Likewise, during those events, and in private sessions, I have conducted over 50 semi-structured and unstructured interviews to adult members of different groups, such as the Consejo de mujeres (women council), Consejo de abuelos, mayores y sabedores (elders and wise council), Consejo de jovenes (youth council), and with the political authorities of the community to gather a diverse set of experiences.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
