| Bibliotecas, pueblos indígenas, identidad e inclusión = Libraries, indigenous peoples, identity & inclusion = Bibliothèques, peuples indigènes, identité et inclusion (intégration, amitié) (2007) | |||||||||||
Abstract | |||||||||||
| Indigenous people represent a demographic majority –as well as a social minority- in Latin America. They form the basis for the cultural diversity of the continent, a diversity made up by hundreds of different languages, customs, religions, literatures and oral traditions. Hardly included in social development –even if they have achieved a great success in several of their struggles- these human groups have been discriminated and left behind by almost every government. Their losses include their mother tongues as well as much of their original culture. And, since they have always transmitted their memories through oral tradition, their history is also being lost. Library services for aboriginal populations are scarcely developed in Latin America, though several interesting proposals exist. Among these ones, the author’s work in NE Argentina included the development of sound collections in little libraries placed at schools, inside native communities. These collections recovered oral tradition and connected it with the curriculum of the school. By means of this recorded material and its full transcription, both in their mother tongue and in Spanish, an important part of the community’s cultural heritage was saved from oblivion and was employed –using the original language- for bilingual intercultural education. Other services –such as “living books”- were also implemented in order to revitalize ancient information channels. Through this kind of services, libraries can recover vanishing identities and support them in order to push indigenous people to believe in themselves, forgetting social exclusion. And by supporting education –for adults as well as for children- libraries can avoid the perpetuation of ignorance and misinformation, a misinformation that have kept aboriginal communities in the shade for centuries. The conference presents a summary of the author’s experiences and ideas about indigenous libraries, as well as a brief panorama of this kind of work in other parts of Latin America. | |||||||||||
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