Kincentric Media Ecologies: Indigenous Women, Ancestral Knowledge and Technology in the Andes

Indigenous women in the Andes cultivate an embodied relationship with their natural, social, and spiritual territories—categories that do not always align with Indigenous ontologies—in which humans and the more-than-human cohabit and collaborate as kin. Dr. Valdivia will discuss how this relationality shapes not only their collective and individual political struggles, everyday survivance, and practices of joy, but also the ways they see, use, and produce media. In other words, Indigenous women’s media ecologies cannot be understood apart from their kincentric modes of being. During this presentation Dr. Valdivia will examine the work of social media content producers Solischa and Alessandra Yupanqui, two Quechua women who mobilize and adapt media technologies to foreground ancestral knowledge and science for new Indigenous generations. Their work also envisions alternative relations with media, proposing new terrains of media sovereignty. 

This presentation is part of the series Woven Together: Braiding Indigenous and Western Sciences for Shared Solutions to Environmental Challenges and Women's History Month. The presentation is co-sponsored by the Hanson Center for Inclusive STEM Education, the Indigenous Studies Program, the Engineering Division, and the Engineering Studies Program.