Abiayala Working Group
The Abiayala* Working Group is made up of NAISA members who are committed to maintaining hemispheric Native American and Indigenous dialogues across the Americas and the Caribbean, emphasizing the importance of maintaining North-South relations in our scholarship and activism. In particular, we aim to create, facilitate and maintain accessibility for Indigenous academic as well as community voices and views from south of the settler US/Mexico border, to assure these perspectives continue to shape Native American and Indigenous Studies at large.
Coordinadores para el Ciclo 2022-2023 del Grupo de Trabajo de Abiayala
Emiliana Cruz originaria de Cieneguilla, San Juan Quiahije, Oaxaca. Es antropóloga lingüista. Actualmente es profesora-investigadora en [CIESAS-CDMX]. Sus líneas de investigación son diversas e interdisciplinarias destacándose principalmente en el ámbito de educación, derechos lingüísticos, territorio, documentación y revitalización lingüística. Ha recibido el premio Distinguished Community Engagement Award otorgado por la Universidad de Massachusetts por su Proyecto de Documentación de la lengua chatina. Su trabajo se distingue por una amplia experiencia de colaboración comunitaria, además es parte del colectivo “Diálogos entre Académicos Indígenas”. En sus publicaciones se destaca su reciente publicación “evitemos que nuestro futuro se nos escape de las manos: tomás cruz lorenzo y la nueva generación chatina”, este fue el resultado de un trabajo colectivo con chatinos; y Reflexiones teóricas en torno a la función del trabajo de campo en lingüística- antropológica: Contribuciones de investigadores indígenas del sur de México.
Adam W. Coon es profesor en la Universidad de Minnesota Morris. Su área de estudio se centra en las literaturas nahuas contemporáneas, con un enfoque en cómo esa producción literaria ayuda a procesar traumas y proponer estrategias descoloniales. Colabora con la iniciativa nahua Xochikali (La Casa Florida) en Tepeko, Ixhuatlán de Madero, Veracruz, México. Esta iniciativa promueve cuatro “surcos” o proyectos principales: 1. Las epistemes nahuas y de todas las naciones originarias; 2. El bordado; 3. La milpa y el cultivo del maíz; 4. Las ceremonias en la casa florida. Profesores y activistas nahuas ya llevan más de diez años trabajando en esta iniciativa, y han seguido adelante aún durante la pandemia.
Coordinators for the 2022-2023 cycle of the Abiayala Working Group
Emiliana Cruz was born in Cieneguilla, San Juan Quiahije, Oaxaca, Mexico. She is a linguistic anthropologist and a Professor-Researcher at CIESAS-CDMX. Her trajectories of research are diverse and interdisciplinary, emphasizing education, linguistic rights, territory, documentation and linguistic revitalization. She has received the Distinguished Community Engagement Award from the University of Massachusetts for her Chatino Language Documentation Project. Cruz’ extensive experience with community collaboration is the mark of her work. She is a founding member of the collective “Dialogues between Indigenous Academics.” Her more recent publications include “evitemos que nuestro futuro se nos escape de las manos: tomás cruz lorenzo y la nueva generación chatina,” a product of collaboration amongst Chatinos; and Theoretical reflections around the role of fieldwork in linguistics and linguistic anthropology: Contributions of Indigenous researchers from southern Mexico.
Adam W. Coon is Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota Morris. He specializes in Contemporary Nahua Literatures to focus on how that literary production aids in processing trauma and proposing decolonial strategies. He collaborates with the Nahua initiative Xochikali (The Flowered House) in Tepeko, Ixhuatlán de Madero, Veracruz, Mexico. This initiative promotes four “furrows” or projects: 1. Nahua epistemes and Native knowledge production writ large; 2. Embroidery; 3. Small-plot farming and corn cultivation; 4. Ceremonies in the flowered house. Nahua professors and activists have engaged in this initiative for over a decade, and they have continued in these efforts during the pandemic.
*Instead of “Latin America” or “Americas” to refer to this geographical, religious, cultural, and linguistic region, we use the term “Abiayala”, which in Kuna Language means “Land in its full maturity”. The term was proposed by the Bolivian Aymara leader Takir Mamani to epistemologically rethink the Americas from Indigenous perspectives and cosmologies and to resist “subjecting our identity to the will of our invaders and their heirs.”