This podcast is inspired by the idea of weaving, an activity undertaken since ancient times by the indigenous peoples of Latin America and Asia. It involves arduous, manual and creative work, which is performed mostly by women. The ‘woven fabrics collect and transmit the thoughts, memories and feelings of each weaver, her community and her times. As has been documented in several archaeological and anthropological studies, weavings have historically been, for indigenous peoples, “the mirror of their cosmovision and identity and a form of trans-generational communication”. On the other hand, we also invoke the meaning of weaving from a political perspective, in which it is linked ‘to the exchange of words, to community processes and practices of resistance and transformation and to their construction and reconstruction.
Similarly our podcast, titled Weaving Waters, seeks to ‘weave a mosaic that brings together the diverse voices of filmmakers, judges, lawyers, journalists and academics from indigenous and ethnic peoples in different parts of the world. We will navigate the life stories of women and men from excluded peoples who transit between their language, culture, community and territory, and the modern Western world. We will talk with them about their life trajectories and challenges, but we will also get closer to their diverse definitions of water and law. Each of their stories and testimonies will take the form of a thread that will be woven together in the course of the chapters to form a diverse and multicolored sound fabric.
In the first chapter of Weaving Waters, we talk to academics from indigenous and ethnic peoples in Asia and Latin America who are experts in legal studies and human sciences. Taking into account their status as people located in between, as experts in international frameworks but also in the realities and ways of community life, we asked our guests about their experiences in the academic world and about their diverse views on water and law.
We had the participation of Aura Cumes, anthropologist and thinker of the Katchiquel people of Guatemala; Abadio Green, linguist and ethno-educator of the Gunadule people of the Colombia-Panama border; Pedro Garzón, lawyer and traditional authority of the Chinaneco indigenous people of Mexico; Lisneider Hinestroza, lawyer, teacher and researcher of the Afro-Colombian people of Chocó, Colombia; Valmaine Toki, lawyer and teacher of the Maori people of New Zealand; and finally, Jonathan Liljeblad, teacher and consultant of the Pa-o people in Myanmar.
Concept and production: María Ximena González and Digno Montalván Zambrano
Script written by: María Ximena González
Recording and editing: Digno Montalván
Sound production: Carlos Bricio
General coordination: Ana Paula García Nieto and Digno Montalván
This podcast has been produced by the RIVERS ERC project “Water/Human Rights?”: Indigenous water ontologies, plurilegal encounters and interlegal translation. This project is coordinated by Dr. Lieselotte Viaene at the University Carlos III of Madrid. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s ‘Horizon’ 2020 research and innovation programme, grant agreement No 804003.