Curriculum, knowledge and territory: Tensions and re-existences in ethno-educational experiences of Putumayo (Colombia)

Abstract

This article analyzes the curriculum as a field of epistemic, symbolic, and political dispute in three ethno-educational experiences in the department of Putumayo (Colombia): the Santa Rosa del Guamuez Rural Educational Institution (IERS), the Carlos Tamabioy Rural Educational Institution (IERB), and the Kamëntŝá Bilingual Ethno-educational Center of Mocoa. Drawing on the theoretical frameworks of critical interculturality (Raúl Fornet-Betancourt) and the epistemologies of the South (Boaventura de Sousa Santos), it argues that these schools embody processes of educational re-existence, in which the curriculum is redefined as an instrument of cultural resistance, epistemic justice, and territorial affirmation. Far from being merely technical spaces, these schools operate as settings for the community construction of knowledge and as pedagogical territories where diverse worldviews, languages, and historical memories converge.The research shows how, despite tensions with the standardized national education model, these institutions have advanced in consolidating their own pedagogical models, adapting the curriculum to the specific contexts of their respective communities. The study concludes that ethno-education cannot be conceived without a radical transformation of the curriculum, understood as a space of political possibility for recognizing subaltern knowledge.