This course is taught from Ecuador by our study abroad partner, Pachaysana.
According to indigenous Andean scholars, Pacha refers to the time-space continuum, or as the "everything around and inside us." This course asks students to challenge their identities by broadening their epistemological and ontological lenses to see their individual and collective lives as they relate to Pacha. To synthesize this complicated process, we ask participants to examine who they are as related to the ever-changing ecology in which they live. For this course, ecology is approached broadly, referring to the Greek origin on the word oikos, meaning home. We take advantage of our virtual exchange and examine home as an interconnection of how we relate to "place and space," exploring our ecology as the triad of our immediate territory (llakta in Kichwa), our surrounding natural environment (allpa in Kichwa), and our global and pluriversal space (pacha). Throughout the course, we use an interdisciplinary lens to examine "who we are" as related to this diverse understanding of ecology, taking into consideration that our ever-changing environment includes an ever-changing human story. Readings are transdisciplinary, coming from the fields of anthropology, sociology, human geography, gender studies, ethnic studies, history, the arts, and development studies. Toward the end of the course, after examining certain theories and case studies, we will imagine the reconstruction of our identities contextualized to pacha, space, place, ecology, oikos, and home. |