Ana Belén Palacios

WomenAmasamientoNature: A historicization of Ecuadorian women’s socionatural ontological design practices

Fall Semester 2024

This research explores Ecuadorian women’s socionatural ontological design practices and knowledge production in the Amazonian, Andean, and Pacific territories of Ecuador through their oral tradition and living memory. In Latin America, women and nature have been designed as concepts fixed in the coloniality of gender and the nature-culture divide, subjecting both as resources for exploitation (Lugones, 2018; Walsh, 2015). Nevertheless, the stories told by women disclose their diverse interactions with nature rooted in modern and non-modern temporalities, transcending these predesigned concepts. Their designed lifeworlds embody healers, witches, housewives, shamans, weavers, abortionists, and midwives, among others. Interpreted as socionatural experiences, they create a space of resistance against epistemic injustice (Barrera, 2021; Lara, 2005). This study employs literature review, testimonio, and speculative design methods to explore Ecuadorian women's oral traditions and living memories, inquiring into their knowledges and practices. Drawing on scholarship from history, gender studies, decolonial studies, Andean and Amazonian philosophy and medicine, this work advocates for a radically contextual and situated understanding of design. The results will advance in-depth characterizations of specific Ecuadorian design practices and provide a conceptual instrument to further analyze other situated ontologically oriented design practices. Moreover, they will also contribute to establishing design as a relational space to bring women's conocimientos y saberes to the forefront, shedding light on their experiences within the intersections of coloniality, gender, and nature.