Decoloniality and Critical Interculturality in Higher Education: Experiences and Challenges in Ecuadorian Amazonia

Abstract The struggles for decolonisation involve problems of coloniality of knowledge that persist in postcolonial states and shape their national educational programmes. In Ecuador, the request to decolonise education has been part of the agenda of Indigenous organisations for decades, and has successfully led to the formulation of programmes of intercultural bilingual education. In its radical acception, intercultural education theoretically aims to represent and revitalise knowledges and languages that have been for long under processes of invisibility and erasure. Moreover, the offer of culturally pertinent education would shorten the epistemic distance that plays a role in the access and retention of Indigenous students, especially in higher education. In line with these principles, this study analyses the situation of higher education programmes in the Amazonia region, with a focus on the Universidad Estatal Amazonica (UEA), who claims to integrate ancestral knowledges in its study programmes. The research aims to see how the study contents and pedagogical approaches respect the pluriversal worlds of the Amazonian region. Using official reports, observations and interviews, the study reveals, on the one hand, a persistence of approaches that deny the validity of intercultural education, and on the other hand, a growing presence of decolonial spaces claimed by the students as a reaction to the coloniality of knowledge within the UEA.