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Epistemologies of the south: A cosmovision approach to frame social justice and peacebuilding in language(s) teaching and research

Research is implicitly or explicitly guided by the researcher’s assumptions regarding the nature of knowledge and truth. The assumptions that underpin competing epistemological paradigms frame and understand phenomena in very different ways. Denzin (2000) argues that the interpretation of phenomena is not a mechanical, formulaic process; rather, it is similar to telling a story to oneself and then sharing it with others. Creswell (2013) suggests that social justice theories are participatory and advocacy-focused theories that describe and explore and tell stories that foster change in our societies. I believe for researchers and pedagogues, it is important to recognize that there are not definite, static, fixed answers, but different lenses, visions and beliefs of seeing the world that I call a cosmovision of the history of life. 

This presentation deploys two concepts as epistemological constructs from the global south: El Buen Vivir and Sentipensante. The first concept that builds my worldview represents the possibility to mesh humxnkind with nature from a respectful point of view for ethical human coexistence in diversity as an opportunity against systemic violence (Dávalos, 2008) and the second concept is a combination of two Spanish words: sentir, which means to sense or feel, and pensar, which means to think. Unlike schooling that teach us to divorce soul from body and mind and heart, Galeano (1992) invite us to be married with our hearts and our minds in order to speak the language of the truth. He conceives this synergic feeling/thinking construct as a stance for rationality and intuition that exists in counterintuitive synergic opposition that our ancestors have always shared as conscious and evolved beings which are in opposition to Western philosophies of rationality and logic. I posit that these two constructs amalgamate as one analytical and ideological framework that is the sum of synergic forces that feed each other in search of the common goal of balance, wholeness and human healing in which we do not see the other as an isolated object separated from us but concomitantly necessary as entry points for research and pedagogy.