Author Archives: Angela Novoa

Indigenous Institution

Instituto Indígena is a foundation that was created in 1962 by the Bishops of Araucania and the Bishop of Temuco, part of the Social Action of San José de Temuco and National Commission on Indigenous Pastoral South Zone. They intend to support the struggles of the Mapuche people so they can live in full dignity and culture, protect their natural resources, exercise their rights and move forward to achieve recognition as a people. Historically, the this foundation has provided a space for community protection, rights safeguard, and promote indigenous participation processes. This foundation offers courses and seminars, provide support and advice to Mapuche people in their relationship with the Government, and offer different media related to the current situation of Mapuche people.

ICHCAP

This is the site for the Intangible Cultural Heritage Centre for Asia and The Pacific driven by the Government of Korea in alliance with UNESCO. This centre intends to maintain the understanding and safeguarding the intangible cultural heritage of humanity that has been transmitted over generations of history and promote international collaboration in this area. The site provides information about aboriginal cultures of Peru, Chile and Bolivia.

Objectives.

  • Promote the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and contribute to its implementation in the Asia-Pacific region
  • Increase the participation of communities, groups and individuals in safeguarding ICH, and raise awareness of and ensure respect for ICH in the Asia-Pacific region
  • Enhance the capacity for safeguarding ICH in the Asia-Pacific region through coordination and dissemination of information
  • Foster regional and international cooperation for the safeguarding of ICH.

FOLIL Foundation

Mapuche Foundation FOLIL (Folil means “ roots”) was founded in the Netherlands on March 17th 2000. The founders of FOLIL are mainly Mapuches who left Chile in the Pinochet era. The main goal of this foundation is to share information about Mapuche culture. FOLIL organizes and supports exhibitions, lectures and organizations∫. The site provides a dictionary, documents related to the current situation of Mapuche in Chile and a list of videos that are published in Youtube. Access to radio Mapuche and publication of activities (seminars).

ECHO Foundation

ECHO Foundation is a non-profit organization devoted to encourage Rapa Nui people to forge their own destiny in a conscious and responsible way. Their goals are:

  • To inform, educate, and integrate the family as the heart of the Rapa Nui community.
  • To promote, develop, and support activities that preserve and stimulate Rapa Nui’s sense of community and culture, in a variety of fields including art, history, education, and agriculture.
  • To encourage self-appreciation and cultural interaction to promote the respect, value, and understanding of different cultures.
  • To create a community consciousness to care for and respect the environment
  • To promote the use of Rapa Nui language in daily life.

To encourage and foster opportunities for senior citizens to transmit their family lore, oral traditions, narratives, and life experiences.

Wallmapu

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhm2V8SwWy0[/youtube]

Wallmapu is a documentary filmed by Jeannette Pillán. It addresses Mapuche claims for land recovery, their struggle for self-determination and resistance to repression and invasion of Chilean and Argentine states. Since the Occupation of Araucanía, most of Mapuche lost their lands and were relocated in other places. This process was driven by Chilean and Argentinian states in the nineteenth century. Based on evidence of traditional authorities, leaders, and researchers Jeanette Pillán seeks to narrate history delivering the theme of the Mapuche territorial loss or so-called “Mapuche conflict”. The clip is the trailer of the film.

Connecting Weblog to Research Interests

Since the start of this course, I have been thinking that I have a lot to learn from indigenous cultures around the world. Respectively, Ginsburg (2002) and Hearne (2008) speak of the efforts made ​​by communities in Australia and North America through the production of filmmaking to preserve and transmit their traditions. I am interested on learning about the effort done by aboriginal cultures of South America and Chile in order to preserve and diffuse their traditions through the promotion and distribution of media and the educational benefits of these actions.

According to Prins (2002) indigenous communities can develop cross-cultural communication through the World Wide Web. Aboriginal groups utilize media for educating their own communities, encouraging self-reflection, and communicating to the rest of the world. My weblogs postings will focus on the attempt of Chilean and South American indigenous groups to transmit and maintain their traditions through the production and sharing of media. I will search for websites, resources, projects and organizations that have worked on the cultural preservation of indigenous communities.  Particularly, I am interested on searching for resources about Chilean aboriginal traditions, such as Mapuche, Aymara and Rapa Nui, the most representative indigenous communities of Chile.

References:

Ginsburg, F (2002). Screen Memories Resignifying the Traditional in Indigenous Media. In: Ginsburg, F, Abu-Lug-hod, L, Larking, B. (Eds.) Media Worlds. Antropology on New Terrain. pp. 39-57. NJ: University of California Press. 

Hearne, J (2008). Indigenous Animation: Educational Programming, Narrative Interventions and Children’s Culture. In Wilson, P, Stewart, M. (Eds.) Global Indigenous Media. Cultures, Poetics and Politics. pp. 89-110. Durham: Duke University Press.

Prins, H (2002). Visual Media and the Primitivist Perplex. Colonial Fantasies, Indigenous Imagination and Advocacy in North Ameirca. In: Ginsburg, F, Abu-Lug-hod, L, Larking, B. (Eds.) Media Worlds. Antropology on New Terrain. pp. 58-74. NJ: University of California Press.

Community Being Indigenous

Community Being Indigenous is an organization devoted to the diffusion of Chilean aboriginal cultures, such as Mapuche and Aymara. This organization was formed under Chilean Ministry of Education, but since 2004 it was transformed into a NGO. The site of this organization provides resources (e.g. dictionary, documents, books, magazine) and multimedia (e.g. animations, video, interactive map of the location of indigenous cultures in Chile) about indigenous cultures of Chile. It offers information in different languages: English, Spanish, Aymara, Rapa Nui and Mapudungun.

Indigenous People Issues

http://indigenouspeoplesissues.com/

This site provides information about aboriginal communities of the world. It is a website devoted to provide resources (news, books, articles, video and audio) for people interested in learning about indigenous communities around the world in order to help them in the preservation of their language, culture and identity. This site provides information categorized in regions, issues (e.g. climate change, heritage, language, human rights, etc.), resources and books.

Center for World Indigenous Studies

http://cwis.org/

This is the site of the Center for World Indigenous Studies, a non-profit research and education organization devoted to build an understanding about indigenous knowledge and the social, economic and politic realities of aboriginal communities. The site provides information related to indigenous cultures categorized in archives, media (video and audio), research, education, medicine, publications and forums.

Aboriginal Media in Australia

http://www.pawmedia.com.au/

This is the site for PAW (Pintibu Amatiere Warlpiri) Media and Communications, an aboriginal organization located in Australia. This organization is a Remote Media Organization (RIMO) in charge of providing coordination services to community radio stations known as Remote Indigenous Broadcasting Services (RIBS) in Australia. They have contributed on the production of community radio and video in language. This web site provides access to video, music, radio and document archives of the communities that are involved with PAW Media and Communication.