“Miradas desde el Chaco”, the bet of Wikimedistas de Bolivia to territorialize the narratives of the Guarani indigenous people

As part of the Wikimixtura Tarija contest that took place in April, the group of Wikimedistas of Bolivia reached the Gran Chaco Boliviano region, in the south of the country, with the regionalized contest “Miradas desde el Chaco”, which was organized in response to the invitation extended by the Assembly of the Guarani People (APG) to learn how they can contribute to Wiki projects, especially information about their region and their people.

It took about two months of intense coordination, exchange of ideas for the work, and integration of allies such as SERNAP, which finally resulted in virtual workshops and face-to-face workshops that took us on a journey of just over 1,200 kilometers, to the Gran Chaco region in southern Bolivia, along with a group of enthusiastic volunteers in the work of environment and revitalization of the languages of indigenous peoples.

The Gran Chaco Boliviano is located in the department of Tarija, and includes the municipalities of Yacuiba, Villa Montes and Caraparí. It is well known for being the site of the Chaco War (1932-1935) and for being one of Bolivia’s most important reservoirs of hydrocarbon resources.

This region is also home to three of the Guaraní, Tapiete and Weenhayek indigenous peoples; the latter two are considered vulnerable due to the small number of inhabitants registered during the last census (Tapiete, 99 members; and Weenhayek, 3,322 members), and the scarce access to basic services they have.

The Assembly of the Guaraní People, or APG, groups together the Guaraní indigenous organizations in Bolivia, mainly in the Bolivian Chaco, and is the main defender of their territorial rights, natural rights, collective rights and human rights.

Construction of own narratives with own information

In this process, we highlight the work of the Guarani’s own narratives that they contributed in the information they shared in the Wiki projects during the workshops held in the three municipalities. This without leaving aside or violating the five pillars that support Wikipedia, in addition to the values that govern it.

Topics such as the care and protection of the Aguarague National Park and integrated management natural area, the conservation of its aquifers, the defense of the right to prior consultation, the defense of their territorial rights, as well as their human rights are some of the issues that came up again during the previous coordination discussion we held with the board members to agree on the topics in which they could contribute.

This resulted in the search for and identification of information authored by the APG, Guaraní authors, publications of state institutions such as the National Protected Areas Service (SERNAP) and the Ombudsman’s Office – who also participated in the workshops – where important information on this region and this indigenous people is generated.

These documents were systematized by Wikimedistas de Bolivia in order to guide the work in the workshops, which is one of the essential elements of this process, because it allowed the information published to come from the same stories and narratives of the Guarani. In other words, everything came from the Gran Chaco region.

Deysi Melgar, one of the Guarani women who participated in the three meetings, stressed the importance for the Guarani people to learn and learn new technological tools that allow them to amplify their voice in the demands they have from their region.

“From the Guarani people should be their uses and customs, the environment, information about the Agurague, so that we can continue to take care of the environment. We came with this fight from our parents and now as young people we are following the teachings they left us,” she explained.

Other acquired skills

In addition to learning how information is constructed in Wikipedia, its sister projects and the platform’s environment, the Guarani people of the Gran Chaco learned other elements and lessons that go beyond the liberation and collective construction of knowledge, and that is, precisely, the demand to the State for access to information.

This, basically, was translated into the request for exact data -such as years and dates of publication of their documents, names of authors and sources of information- in the materials provided to them to support as data sources for the encyclopedia.

This also represents an achievement, because it allows citizens to empower and take control of each of the elements that make the construction of reliable and verifiable information, which we celebrate from Wikimedistas de Bolivia.

The importance of continuity

During the preparation and coordination that was previously held with the Mburubichas (leaders or representatives, in Guarani language) and in view of their interest in learning about all the Wiki projects, Wikimedistas de Bolivia decided to continue the information process with the Guarani indigenous people.     

This implied the transfer of the participants between the three municipalities during the three continuous days. The work began in the border municipality of Yacuiba, where the headquarters of the APG Guaraní del Gran Chaco is located. On this first day, the Wikimedistas volunteers were able to introduce the participants to the Wiki projects, their pillars, values and the importance of releasing information to contribute to the construction of global knowledge.

The second day took place in the municipality of Villa Montes. This municipality was also attended by those who participated in the first session in Yacuiba, so they were able to continue their learning process. This second meeting was characterized by the participants’ practice in publishing photographs and content in Wikipedia articles.

The third day moved to the municipality of Caraparí, where those who participated in the first and second days also arrived, as well as new participants.

It is in this third workshop where the continuity of the process showed the collaborative work of the community, that is to say that those who participated from the first day were in charge of training and transferring the information they received, in addition to guiding them in the process of publishing photographs and content on Wikipedia.

But, the process began much earlier with two virtual workshops in which participated, mainly, young people from the three municipalities that began with the process of publication in Wikimedia Commons; this served as a basis to begin the face-to-face processes, where those who attended the virtual sessions, assisted those who participated for the first time.

The important presence of women

Something we should not fail to mention is that the current leadership of the APG is made up mostly of women, which, we believe, was a determining factor for the large participation of women in the three workshops.

In Bolivia, these women have been called the “Guardians of the Aguarague”, especially for their defense of their territory against the construction plans for a tunnel planned to cross the Aguarague National Park without prior consultation with the indigenous communities, which would directly impact the water sources that provide water to the communities of the Tarija Chaco, according to them.

The theme was no different in the workshops, as the agenda included the need to refer to and show the importance of this protected area for the Gran Chaco region, especially for the Guaraní women, who are responsible for finding these sources to carry water to their homes, or to use the medicinal plants extracted from this area to heal their ailments.

The results

The tangible results of this work can be seen in the improvement of the information in the article on the Aguarague National Park and Integrated Management Area, where they incorporated the title “Water” which highlights the importance of water for the community; the incorporation of content to the title of Cosmovision in the article on the Weenhayek indigenous people; and 180 photographs that are part of the more than 600 images that were published during the period of the Wikimixtura Tarija contest.

But, we reiterate, the real importance of this work is not translated in the number and extension of documents, but in the contents that were published from the territorial and defense work developed, especially by the Guarani women, who from their own stories and experiences incorporated information in the Wikimedia projects.