Cross perspectives on the past of the Arhuaco people - proposals for collaborative research.

This research proposal - which arises from the encounter between the interests of the Arhuaco people's authorities and a group of researchers from various faculties of the Universidad del Rosario - is part of the continuity of an interdisciplinary project already underway on the history of violence and power in the Sierra Nevada in the first half of the 20th century. Based on the exploration of various archive collections, as well as on oral history work, this historical research project seeks to address the following general question: What have been the diverse experiences lived by the members of the Arhuaco people, in the face of the presence of various external actors (local representatives of the State, missionaries, settlers, etc.) in their territory?
More specifically, the project will focus on five main areas of work: (1) the various forms of interlocution that have existed between members of the Arhuaco people and the State; (2) the process of separating Arhuaco girls and boys from their families after the creation of an "Orfelinato" in San Sebastián de Rábago in 1917; (3) the functioning of a labor contracting system called the "matrícula" that has marked the history of the Arhuaco people; (4) the diverse experiences of the Arhuacas women in relation to the double context of evangelization/colonization that characterized the Sierra Nevada in the first half of the 20th century and (5) the different forms of production of traditional knowledge sustained in time such as music and other sonorous expressions.
One of the main characteristics of the project is related to the will to develop a "collaborative" research, which aims to involve different members of the Arhuaca community in the interpretation of the past and the discussion of written, visual and sound documents that we have rescued and organized. To this end, one of the main methodologies will consist of eight workshops, organized in different regions of the Sierra Nevada.