Shawi & Ashaninka
Location:
Shawi: Balsapuerto District - Loreto Region
Ashaninka: Perene, Pichanaqui and Satipo Districts - Junin Region
Shawi
The Shawi territory has diverse altitudes and generally represents a sloping landscape. Most of the communities are located in regions of perennial non-seasonal flooding, although there are places that suffer periodic flooding in the rainy or wet season, especially those close to the edge of the larger rivers and down to the confluence with the Huallaga river. Precipitation occurs throughout the year, although rainfall is particularly intense from December through April (wet season), with lighter rains from May through October (dry season). High temperatures over the year vary with altitude from an average of approximately 19°C in the highest part close to Balsapuerto to an average of approximately 27°C in the lowlands close to Yurimaguas.
The Shawi are one of the five most numerous Indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon, with a population of more than 20,000 inhabitants residing in more than 200 communities. Shawi settlements are located in the northern Peruvian Amazon along minor streams and rivers at the foot of the eastern slope of Peruvian Andes in Loreto and San Martin region.
Evangelization, exploitation of natural resources, so-called “legalization” of native communities, and imposed education are among these changes. Thirty years ago, for example, Shawi were described as an Indigenous society with two main production systems: one based on the utilization of the natural environment (e.g. shifting cultivation, hunting, and fishing) and a second related to trade and the market, but not necessarily through extended monetary transactions. Instead, some domestic animals or crops were bartered for goods or cash that were utilized for local livelihoods, such as fabrics to make blouses, batteries for radios, and ammunitions for hunting. After centuries of interaction with the Peruvian-Spanish dominant society, Shawi continue to speak their own language and practice hunting, fishing, and subsistence farming, demonstrating cultural resiliency.
Ashaninka
The Ashaninka are located in the Amazon region of Perú and they are the largest Amazonian indigenous people in the country. The work in this region is based on an ongoing collaboration with OMIASEC, the Ashaninka Women Organization of the Central Rainforest.
Prior to colonization, the Ashaninka traditional territory started from the Chanchamayo valley and extended to Ucayali region on the eastern slope of the Andes mountains, in the Amazon basin head. However, now they have settled in communities deep in the Amazon.
Ashaninka people are proud to resist colonization in 1742 with the uprising of Juan Santos Atahualpa and to expel the Shinning Path revolutionary army from their territory in 1990´s.
Currently, the Ashaninka people has a great connection with the cities nearby, where they go to sell coffee and cacao. Some communities have still access to the forest, meanwhile, others have lost this. Diet in varied and it is mostly dependent on the food from farming or breeding small animals, although they recognize this activity was forced to be developed because of losing access to the forest. Fish from the river is a preferred food however many of them suggested a decline in fish population due to river pollution by mining companies.
The Ashaninka people of this region claim that COVID-19 did not kill them because it arrived at a time when they were in the forest occupied on coffee plantation. Aditional, it was an opportunity to bring back traditional medicine practices because the connection to the city was cut as a preventive measure to avoid COVID-19 spread.
Team Members
MEMBER
BIO
Carol is a Researcher at the School of Public Health of Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia. Her areas of specialty include Indigenous and Intercultural Health, Climate Change, and Food Security.
She is a physician from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia; PhD in Human Geography from McGill University, Canada. She is also an international fellow of the Wellcome Trust of United Kingdom.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Planetary health
Climate change vulnerability
Indigenous health
Food and nutrition security
Mixed methods approach
Ingrid Arotoma-Rojas is a Quechua researcher who is currently studying for her PhD at the University of Leeds. She is based in Chanchamayo, her hometown, in the central Amazon rainforest of Peru where she is collaborating with Ashaninka indigenous women to understand and respond to climate change and COVID-19 impacts on their food systems.
Qualitative Research Methods
Participatory Video, Photo Voice
Climate change
Environmental governance
Public policy
Victoria Chicmana Zapata
Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú
Victoria Chicmana is a sociologist from Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Perú. She has research experience with indegenous orgnizations in the Central Amazon, in proyects about women´s participation and politics of coca crops control.
Indigenous women's movement.
Environmental governance, socio-environmental conflict in Amazonia.
Physician trained as clinical epidemiologist in Peru and the UK with interest in public health and policy. Extensive experience of local and international research collaborations. Currently researching on non-communicable diseases, including mental health and injuries, in low- and middle-income countries.
Epidemiological and health policy aspects of chronic non-communicable diseases in low- and middle-income countries.
Biologist trained in Epidemiology at Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia. Currently, she is part of the CRONICAS Center of Excellence in Chronic Diseases. She has research experience in high altitude physiology as well epidemiology.
Epidemiology
Occurrence and factors associated with cardiovascular and metabolic conditions