Center for Latin American and Latinx Studies McNeil 473, 3718 Locust Walk (CLALS/ASAM Conference room)
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The Peruvian university system has had a Eurocentric historical tendency throughout the republican life. However, in recent decades, national and international agreements, laws, and declarations have forced the Peruvian state to recognize and include the national socio-cultural diversity in all its institutions (1993 Constitution, Convention 169 of the International Labor Organization in 1989, the Declarations and Plan of Action of Durban in 2001, and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007). What is the Peruvian socio-cultural diversity? Why is it necessary to transform university cultural policies? What is the role that interculturality can play in the cultural transformation of universities? What principles can guide this transformation? How to implement this transformation? What are the benefits and risks of this transformation? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this talk.
Luis Martin Valdiviezo Arista earned his EdD in Social Justice Education and his MEd in International Education at UMass-Amherst. Previously, he received his License in Philosophy and Bachelor in Humanities at Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Peru (PUCP) in Lima city. Based on intercultural, decolonial and critical education approaches, his research focuses on ethnicity, gender, social class, and formal education in Perú and Latin American societies. He is in charge of courses in Ethics and Philosophy of Education at PUCP.
He is also a member of the International Network of Intercultural Studies-PUCP, which promotes, together with the Peruvian Network of Universities, the adoption of intercultural policies and programs in Peruvian universities. In recent years, he has worked as a consultant for the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Culture in topics about intercultural education, cultural policies, and Afro-Peruvian studies. Finally, in 2021, he trained and advised a group of students from the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru who implemented a literacy course for minors in a detention center in Lima, Peru.
He is as well a member of the Latin American Network of Intercultural Studies and Experiences (recognized by UNESCO) that integrates researchers and activists from Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, Chile, Nicaragua, Argentina and Peru. This Network promotes intercultural dialogues to address different social and environmental conflicts that affect the region.
Likewise, he is a member of the Latin American and Caribbean Consortium of African Diaspora Teachers Training, promoted by the Afro-Peruvian NGO Center for Ethnic Development (CEDET) located in Lima, Peru. CEDET is committed to the promotion of Human and Citizen Rights of Afro-Peruvian peoples through research, activism and the implementation of education programs elaborated with local communities.
Currently, he is Visiting Scholar in the Center for Latin American & Caribbean Studies at Brown University. He is offering the undergraduate courses Andean-Caribbean Dialogues of Negritude and Different but Equal: Debates in Schooling of Indigenous and Afro-descendants in South America. In addition, he is doing a research on the representations of women, indigenous people, and Afro-descendants in textbooks for primary education in Peru.
His most recent book is Educación, Negritud e Interculturalidad. Ensayos en tiempos de neoliberalismo, pandemia y bicentenario en el Perú (2021). Also, he has published articles and book chapters on the educational situation of Afrodescendants and Indigenous Peruvians in academic journals and publishers of Latin America and Europe. In 2020-2021, he was the Custer Visiting Scholar of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) at Harvard University. He has written three novels and numerous short stories, some of which have obtained recognition in national and international contests. He comes from a Peruvian family with Afro-descendant, Amazonian, Andean and Hispanic roots.