Quyca Muysca: Urban Coloniality of Nature, Cuerpo-Territorio [Body-Territory], and Muysca Resurgence
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Major/Program
Global and Sociocultural Studies
First Advisor's Name
Dr. Juliet S. Erazo
First Advisor's Committee Title
Committee chair
Second Advisor's Name
Dr. Roderick P. Neumann
Second Advisor's Committee Title
Committee member
Third Advisor's Name
Dr. Benjamin Smith
Third Advisor's Committee Title
Committee member
Fourth Advisor's Name
Dr. Victor Uribe
Fourth Advisor's Committee Title
Committee member
Keywords
Cuerpo-territorio, Participatory Action Research, Coloniality of Nature, Urban Political Ecology, Muysca.
Date of Defense
11-6-2023
Abstract
This dissertation investigates the territorial dimensions of the Muysca community of Suba’s process of Indigenous resurgence through the ethical and methodological framework of Participatory Action Research (PAR). In drawing on the meanings and embodied practices attributed to, and associated with, territory by members of the Muysca community, I argue that the Muysca Indigenous resurgence movement both challenges processes of urban coloniality while also cultivating novel expressions of urban indigeneity. Building on three years of prior engagement with the community, in addition to twelve months of ethnographic research guided by PAR, in Bogota, Colombia, I analyzed archival material and employed ethnographic techniques such as in-depth participant observation, semi-structured interviews, participatory mapping, and visual methodologies. Informed by critical feminism, decolonial thought, and urban political ecology, I mobilize the Indigenous notion of cuerpo-territorio [body-territory] to analyze the Muysca urban experience in two interrelated aspects. First, I argue that encounters between the Muysca and the state are characterized by continuously being immersed within regimes of authenticity that structure how the Muysca interact and negotiate with governmental institutions toward territorial recognition and sovereignty. I particularly explore how the Muysca have embraced performance as an instrument mediating between the institutionalized demands for diacritic markers and the Muysca identity revitalization. Second, I present the notion of body-territory to highlight the relationship between the Muysca bodies and Suba. By examining Muysca meanings of territory, this study reconceptualizes space as an extension of the Muysca body. It presents the effects of urban coloniality on the Muysca, focusing on urban development, environmental degradation, urban planning policies, and the erasure of Muysca socioecological epistemologies. Nevertheless, I present how the Muysca of Suba contest this logic by engaging in everyday bodily practices of resurgence, such as the conservation of urban gardens called Muysca Tâ, the occupation of sacred natural places, and the revitalization of their language, Muysc cubun. In illustrating how the concept of body-territory provides an ontological foundation for approaching the experiential, semantic, performative, and contested aspects of the Muysca of Suba’s territorial struggles, this dissertation provides a novel lens through which to better understand urban indigeneity in the Global South.
Identifier
FIDC010979
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Sanchez Castaneda, Paola A., "Quyca Muysca: Urban Coloniality of Nature, Cuerpo-Territorio [Body-Territory], and Muysca Resurgence" (2023). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 5164.
https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/5164
Included in
Environmental Studies Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Food Studies Commons, Human Geography Commons, Indigenous Education Commons, Indigenous Studies Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Social Justice Commons
Rights Statement
In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).