Talking Maps: Spirituality and territorial Re-existance through Art in the Mazatecan region
Publication information:
Abstract
Within a context of commodification of nature and culture coupled with increasing violence and environmental degradation, different Arts based initiatives, specifically visual arts, are being deployed in the Mazateca Region, Oaxaca, México. This region and culture are known within the Mesoamerican context for the use of entheogens, particularly psylocibin mushrooms in a ceremonial shamanic context. An arts based research methodology inspired by the Talking Maps developed in the Cauca Region, in Colombia has been used to create paintings for community engagement and discussion committed to strengthening a deeper reflection and understanding of the connection between spirituality, environment and culture.
Presenter Biography
Rita Valencia is an activist scholar born and raised in the Mesoamerican highlands of Mexico City. Moving across disciplines (literature, agroecology, anthropology, and political organizing), she sits uncomfortably in the existing boundaries that divide ways of learning, knowing, and feeling. She was politically formed by the Zapatista uprising and the National University (UNAM) student strike of 1999-2000. She has studied and worked in India, England and since returning to Mexico in 2010 has worked with and for indigenous communities in different capacities in Chiapas, Oaxaca and the Cauca region in Colombia. She completed her PhD working and learning about the relationship between native bees, territories, and different ways to resist and re-exist amid the Capitalocene/Plantationcene and is now involved in research and pedagogical efforts in different communities about the Soil Food Web and ways of increasing soil fertility.