Exploring the implications of long-term mutual learning within a Mapuche-led context in Southern Chile
Abstract
Budi Anumka is a biocultural restoration project led by Lafkenche Indigenous Communities at Lago Budi territory, Southern Chile. The project currently aims to expand the circle of biocultural modules/nurseries communities, restoration corridors, and regenerative value chains of forest products, in three communities that will be the space for learning, exchange and experimentation to, from here, amplify the impact at the basin level.
Based on the documentation and analysis of this experience, itself the culmination of a decade of collaboration between the authors and these communities, we propose long-term learning through co-design is necessary in order for indigenous knowledge and leadership to fully participate in co-creating holistic systems of norms, criteria, and indicators that can help to guide, communicating and evaluating in self-determined ways the paths towards kvmemongen, a mapuche term to designate a good way of living. The longer-than-usual Mapuche-led mutual learning processes such as the one analyzed, has enabled our perspective to expand beyond a conservation-only framework, embracing a holistic indigenous-led approach of living well, humans and non-humans, that aligns with the needs and capacities of indigenous communities at the forefront of climate challenges. This work calls for a new understanding of indigenous co-design as a necessary form of grassroots mutual learning toward climate resilience through kvmemongen.
