RP3: Why it Matters How it Gets Done...

In class today we discussed this idea about there being something to the matter in how certain things get done. I think it would be safe to say that colonization is the underlying reason for why the manner in which things are completed is important. After having read Mignolo, I could not help but think that weight and value are attributed to certain mannerisms and methods, but in actuality neither is better. Both should be valued. 

While watching the movie and in class I kept going back to the reading. Watching the movie, El Norte, I could not rid myself about how colonization kills indigenous languages and practices. I looked at Rosita and Enrique learning English and was upset that their main language was being replaced in another form. After reading Mignolo on Indigenos, I realized “Interculturalidad” brings non-Indigenous knowledge and teachings together with Indigenous ways of producing knowledge and frames of thought. It is not about excluding Indigenous teachings of Western ideology or frames of thought, but rather incorporating them together. To reject Western knowledge would mean that Indigenous scholars would,” act under the same Western logic and to change only the content and not the terms in which knowledge is produced” (Mignolo, 122). This idea really resonates with me and helps me understand how non-Indigenous forces with underlying ideology of creating capitalists structures, like Adam Smith’s invisible hand, were able to push out and  oust Indigenous knowledge from curriculum. The work and definition of “interculturalidad” according to Mignolo is to not adopt the colonizers way of ousting out knowledge and teachings, but to include them within your own structures because they still have valuable knowledge to contribute to the practices of Indigenous people.

I cannot but help to think about my role in higher learning and how being Mexican and even calling myself Mexican has connotations attributed to the term. The Mignolo reading made me think about the “othering” that was created through colonization and how the structure of “Latin America” was even created. There are aspects of non-Indigenous knowledge we will adopt, but the placing of “Latino” on people and accepting it is accepting border lands and spaces established by colonization and the politics of a deemed superior force, essentially this invisible hand. This is the “something that matters about how it (washing of clothes) gets done” as Dr. Gómez spoke about in class. “Interculturalidad” cannot often be achieved because there is a perceived right and a perceived wrong in the politics of colonization. The perceived wrong of colonization is generally the Indigenous population who gets ousted by the invisible hand with very visible consequences.