Colonialità e Decolonialità nel Soggetto Subalterno: uno studio su una comunità Waorani-Kichwa nell'Amazzonia Ecuadoriana

Can colonial and decolonial practices coexist within the subaltern subject? And, if so, how does such coexistence articulate? The present study aims at investigating such matters through a qualitative approach applied to a case study, constituted by the context of a specific Indigenous community in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Specifically, the research analyzes the relationalities at play within such context, given the inherently relational nature of the categories of colonial and decolonial, particularly exploring from a processual perspective the fracture between the local Indigenous elite and the remaining inhabitants of the community, in the constant attempt to comprehend such relationality in the light of macro and meso-level dynamics and processes that extend far beyond the micro-level of the community taken into account. In particular, the research highlights the influence of national neoliberal policies and politics centered on discourses of progress, which implied more or less veiled assimilationist intents towards the Indigenous population: in this framework, Indigenous elites were chosen to play the role of intermediaries, and therefore they were subject to educational processes aimed at inculcating the discourse of progress into them so that they could consequently propagate it in their communities. The case study analyzed offers an example of the extent to which such discourse was internalized and also reproduced by the local Indigenous elite, which nonetheless also interprets its own otherwise individualistic entrepreneurial spirit as part of a decolonial fight for the empowerment and self-sufficiency of the community, in the face of statal neglect. The instances explored throughout the research highlight the complexity of intra-communitarian social relationships, problematizing them on the base of notions related to autochthonous principles and concepts, but also of larger-scale dynamics, taking into account both the macro and micro-level geographical, historical and ethnic context, which are interpreted also in relation with political and cultural processes in which the context of the community is embedded. The exploration of such matters might reveal itself to be useful in the attempt of better understanding the practices and relationality of the contemporary subaltern subject in their complexity, adopting a decolonial perspective that tries to overcome an image of the subaltern that is forged within the eye of the hegemonic and that therefore undermines the possibility of any actually fair exchange, collaboration and coexistence between the two parts.