Book

Description

The articles deal with challenges indigenous peoples in Latin America and Norway experience in interaction with the nation-states in which they live. Historically, indigenous peoples have been neglected by the nation-states. By the slogan ‘decolonise the state', the Aymaran president Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador initiated a rewriting of the constitutions based on the indigenous worldview Good living/Buen vivir, radical in recognising the indigenous people’s collective rights to lands, territories, and resources.
Education has been given in the state's national language, a foreign language to the indigenous children. The articles on education deal with illiteracy and the literacy programme 'Yo si Puedo', intercultural education and bilingualism. The lack of focus on the needs of indigenous peoples from the nation-states is the background for the developmental assistance from developed countries such as Norway. An article on faith-based development projects analyses the impact evangelistic and developmental work of Norwegian evangelical missionaries has made on the living conditions of the Kañaris population in Ecuador.