Abstract
The Waorani population of 4,000 individuals covers a large area of the Ecuadorian Amazon. The wide dispersion of their communities, the orography, and the variety of globalized environmental and legal issues that they face make historical cohesion and social relationships difficult. Education is a key area of dispute and disaffection in the Waorani lands furthest from Quito, in which stark asymmetries are evident. In this study, a recently constituted community was analyzed, together with a diversity of associated elements. Data from this study suggested that students schooled in cities do not necessarily have better educational outcomes than those from schools in remote areas. Also evident was the lack of educational resources and their arbitrary deployment by the Ecuadorian government. The marginalization of ancestral characteristics and ways of life contradict the undertakings set out in the Ecuadorian constitution and in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
TopIntroduction
In Ecuador, more than one million people live in the Amazonian provinces, and 70 percent of the Ecuadorian Amazon land area is in indigenous hands. It is a place of extraordinary wealth in all senses of the word although it is also an area in conflict over the extraction of its resources and the domination of its population (Opendemocracy, 2022). Here, the Waorani population, comprising around 3,000 people, can be found; they call themselves the Wao, which means “the people”, as opposed to cowode, the “non-people”, which are all other humans. They are distributed over one of the largest territories of Ecuador; specifically, 200,000 hectares between the right bank of the Napo River and the left side of the Curaray River. The territory is divided between the provinces of Orellana (Orellana canton: Dayuma parish; Aguarico canton: Tiputini and Yasuní Sta. María de Huiririma parishes), Napo (Tena canton: Chontapunta parish) and Pastaza (Arajuno canton: Curaray parish). The population is distributed in 24 communities, of which 12 are in Pastaza: Toñampare (having the highest population density and a school), Tzapino, Tihueno, Quiwado-Quihuaro, Quenahueno, Daimutaro, Wamono, Tigüino, Shiripuno, Huahano.
Historically, they were a nomadic people due to their diet, which consists of seasonal fruits and game, but hunting and climate change displaced them from their original lands. The Waorani population was first contacted in 1958 (the most recently contacted in Ecuador), by an American missionary with the Summer Linguistic Institute (ILV) although prior to that date the Waorani population in the violent borderlands collected rubber for barter in the lower basin of the Curaray River (Wasserstrom, 2016). Later, the evangelizing zeal of the Church saw fit to organize the Waorani groups in larger, permanent communities. In many cases, these settlements were provided with basic services and amenities, which were welcomed by many Waorani. Indeed, their preferred method of resolving disputes—by moving elsewhere—was “greatly reduced by the political imperative to remain close to the sources of Western manufactures” (Ferguson 1992, p.205).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Public Policy: This refers to decisions and actions that a government takes when addressing public or collective issues.
Legalized Corruption: Dishonest processes that, both by act and omission, contribute to the demoralization of the individual and of all kinds of public and private organizations by benefitting these through regulatory protection based on the abuse of authority, conventions, legal vacuums, impunity, etc.
Resilience: Transformations within a complex system related to the capacity for self-organization while maintaining internal structure, together with the ability to create adaptive responses, generate knowledge, experience, and learning. Resilience and sustainability are directly related to changes within societies, economies, and the human system as a whole. The transformation of systems is inevitable since it allows systems to strengthen.
Economic Globalization: This is a phenomenon in expansion that causes profound changes on the world stage. It revolves around trade, the flow of investment, financial capital, division of labor and specialization. The concept is not limited only to economic variables since its effects extend to individuals, society to the state. Developing countries are experiencing stagnation in the face of their inability to cope with globalization, which is compounded by poor management of their financial markets, leading to an increase in the income inequality gap. Economic globalization brings with it the mobilization of goods and capital, reduces distance between borders and energizes international trade with some alterations to sovereignty.
Amazon Rainforest: Large tropical rainforest occupying the drainage basin of the Amazon River and its tributaries in northern South America spanning 6.7 million km2 (twice the size of India).
Waorani: The Huaorani people, sometimes called 'Waorani' or 'Wadoni' are a traditionally semi-nomadic hunter-forager-horticulturist indigenous group located in the Ecuadorian Amazon.