A Wīnak Perspective on Cosmovisíon Maya and Eco-Justice Education

Abstract

This article responds to questions of relational ethics in Indigenous mobility with a critically conscious approach to cosmovisíon Maya in Soonkahni (Salt Lake Valley). An urban and mobile Mayan positionality, identified as Wīnak, guides an analysis of complex Indigenous experiences, and possibilities found in Eco-Justice. The limits from the prevailing and dominant colonial logics of conservation and environmentalism are re-imagined through Indigenous approaches to ‘Earth Wellbeing’. The application of critically conscious cosmovisíon Maya reveals a simultaneous challenge to systems of power, and to formations of an Indigenous relational ethic that is both locally meaningful and globally relevant. This essay concludes with examples of eco-justice community education events in Soonkahni that fused together different yet related knowledges to place and food.

Keywords

• indigenous mobility
• cosmovision maya
• eco-justice education
• indigenaitiy
• wīnak mayan-ness