Portal U de A

By: Sergio Alejandro Ruiz Saldarriaga, journalist at UdeA Communications Department 

Arnulfo Hurtado Cerón, known as "Timanco," is the first Indigenous person to graduate from UdeA’s Doctorate in Social Sciences. Originally from the Nasa community in Cauca, he arrived at the university over a decade ago and earned his bachelor's and master's degrees. He is a professor and researcher and has maintained what he calls "permanent resistance." For his research on intercultural teaching for indigenous peoples and " interculturality," he received a meritorious thesis award. 

There are currently 115 indigenous communities throughout Colombia. Furthermore, according to the 1991 Political Constitution, the State must guarantee indigenous communities an education consistent with their worldviews. Photo: Communications Department, UdeA / Alejandra Uribe Fernández 

"Our navel is planted in the hearth," says Arnulfo Hurtado Cerón, sitting on a tree trunk around a bonfire in the indigenous council space near Block 9 of the University campus in Medellín. In his words, fire is more than an allegorical representation. For the Nasa people, the hearth is the spiritual, educational, and cultural center of community life. 

Arnulfo comes from there, although he also goes by the name "Timanco" in honor of the son of Chief La Gaitana, the woman who led the resistance against the Spanish colonizers in what is now the Cauca department, in southern Colombia. His ancestral name makes him feel connected to his community and ancestors. 

This professor of Universidad de Antioquia’s University Institute of Physical Education recently became the first indigenous graduate of the Doctorate in Social Sciences, a postgraduate program of the Faculty of Social and Human Sciences. Timanco's teaching and learning methods contributed to the recognition of indigenous peoples. 

Arnulfo didn't walk this path alone. He did so with his community, hand in hand with his elders, the living force of his ancestors, and a history of resistance that strays from the margins of conventional research. His doctoral thesis led him to go down the paths of the Nasa people, especially those of his hometown, Sa'th Tama Kiwe —an ancestral territory located in the municipality of Caldono, Cauca— whose name means "Land of the Ancestors" in Spanish. 

His childhood was surrounded by mountains, crops, fog, and conversations around the communal hearth, where he learned the core of his culture. "Fire, besides keeping us warm, enables connection, dialogue, and life itself. It's our first school." However, that ancient heritage of his people has been rendered invisible, or, as he himself puts it, "devalued," even by mainstream Colombian education, which he attended for a few years but dropped out of. 

His parents, punished in childhood for speaking Nasa Yuwe— a language considered "diabolical" by evangelists— decided not to teach it to him or his siblings. "They didn't want us to suffer the same humiliation," he recalls. Thus, Arnulfo experienced a painful silencing that he has tried to reverse over time. 

Everything would change when he learned about the Intercultural Bilingual Education Program (PEBI) of the Cauca Indigenous Regional Council (CRIC), a collective initiative by indigenous peoples for their own education rooted in oral tradition, the minga, and ancestral knowledge. Arnulfo completed his schooling there thanks to the program's recognition by the Cauca Department of Education.  

At 22, he arrived in Medellín at the invitation of an uncle, who had arrived in the city as a child to study with other indigenous children at a boarding school run by priests. Following his uncle's advice to continue his education at university, he decided to apply for a UdeA history degree, albeit with some hesitation. However, the academic shock and the theoretical language led him to drop out a few months after entering. 

However, Arnulfo's journey at UdeA was just beginning. He enrolled in the Bachelor's Degree in Physical Education, where he discovered a vital connection between pedagogy, the body, play, and culture. During his undergraduate studies, he met Professor Saúl Franco, who shaped his path by promoting indigenous knowledge. "He asked me not to bring examples of Eurocentric games or sports to class, but rather our own native games. He said it was a space to learn from our cultures," he recalls. 

Over time, guided by Professor Víctor Molina, he joined the research group Leisure, Motor Expressions, and Society (GOCEMOS), affiliated with the University Institute of Physical Education and Sport, where he found a place to cultivate and investigate what had interested him since childhood by drawing on the epistemologies of the South, critical pedagogies, and popular education. This laid the foundation for research and, later, a master's degree and doctorate. He is also the current coordinator of that research group. 

His journey at the University has also led him to what he calls "permanent resistance" because, as an Indigenous professor, he feels that many of his university colleagues do not understand that Colombia is a multicultural country. "The University sees us all as equals, but we are not culturally equal," says Hurtado Cerón. 

A thesis "from the heart" 

Arnulfo Hurtado Cerón arrived in Medellín in 2005, and his first errand was to obtain his military service card. Although he wasn't obligated to serve because he is indigenous, he did so "to live the experience". He faced what he describes as "an indoctrinating discipline," which he would later question in the academic environment. Photo: UdeA Communications Department / Alejandra Uribe Fernández 

He came to the doctorate in social sciences after completing a master's degree in motor skills and human development, for which he received the financial benefit from UdeA for adjunct professors pursuing postgraduate training as institutional faculty. His academic career has constantly been marked by themes such as leisure time, decolonial pedagogy, and intercultural education based on a critical analysis of significant experiences, such as those offered at CRIC.  

Seeking answers to this vital concern about the teaching and education processes of indigenous peoples, he developed his thesis entitled "Entretejidos de la educación propia intercultunatural con el Pebi, para el posicionamiento político y social de los pueblos originarios en el Cric, Cauca (Interweaving of Intercultural-Natural Education with the PEBI for the Political and Social Empowerment of Indigenous Peoples in CRIC, Cauca). He undertook this process through the Intercultural and Decolonial Studies research group (GIEID), which addresses issues related to the visibility of other ways of thinking and ways of life that have historically paved the way for intercultural dialogue and social transformation. 

This work unfolded through "corazonar" or "catear" within the Üus kipx tandxi’na methodology: a spiral-shaped research approach rooted in the Nasa people's conception of life, which sees time as a spiral connected with multiple dimensions of existence. It was carried out through an experiential and community-based process.  

That's why the hearth has been the main setting for these discoveries. It brought together elders, educational facilitators, and community members from the ten villages that make up the CRIC to discover primarily an epistemic and political axis of ancestral knowledge. All of this is accomplished through the proposal of the concept of "interculturality," which not only aims to address dialogue between human cultures, but also extends to the link between people, Mother Earth, and spirituality. 

“I spoke about interculturality not as an anthropocentric issue, but from a more biocentric position, where the center of life is not in humans but in all who inhabit this great house, Uma Kiwe, our Mother Earth. We are all equal before her, and we live with her. An education of our own not only connects peoples, but also spiritual beings and the wisdom of nature. 
  
During the process, it wasn't all drive and clarity. He came close to quitting this academic journey because of the challenges of collecting information, given economic factors, distance, and other reasons. So, he returned to his roots and, through the Thê ' Wala —a traditional Nasa doctor— received a message in a spiritual bath telling him that he was on the right path and would receive help to complete his research. 

Months later, that help arrived. According to Arnulfo, the push to complete his work came when his proposal was selected by the Committee for Research Development (CODI), which supports students and researchers from the University. Thanks to this resource, he overcame the hurdles and completed his fieldwork in Nasa territory. "The support was vital," he says, "because it truly resolved important logistical issues so I could spend more time and move between communities."  

Educational booklets resulted from this research process. They are called "La madre Tierra sabia enseña cómo convivir y ser en el territorio" (Wise Mother Earth Teaches How to Live Together and Be in the Territory). They comprise a series of guides with stories and texts to strengthen the cultural identity of indigenous peoples and will be used in the communities belonging to the CRIC. 

Arnulfo is working on knowledge return processes and strengthening research and collaboration with the Universidad Autónoma Indígena Intercultural (UAIIN), the first indigenous university in Colombia. He also dreams of making a documentary in his community in the future to empower the voices of his elders through modern media.  

"We seek these alternatives to disseminate and also to continue deliberating, building, and empowering our organizational processes. Our own education has been a fundamental pillar for this discovery of resistance and the re-existence of the people." 

This master seeks to transform knowledge into an element that ignites others' paths from the concept of interculturality through integrative connection. As he says, "There is no education without territory, nor thought without spirituality." Beyond a doctoral thesis, Arnulfo pursues a life project shared with his community that never fades and remains alive in the hearth.