Postcolonial Seminar: "Intercultural Bilingual Education in the Peruvian Andes" Dr. Martina Tonet
About the event
Postcolonial Seminar: "Intercultural Bilingual Education in the Peruvian Andes" — Dr. Martina Tonet
We invite you to a postcolonial seminar with Dr. Martina Tonet.
Intercultural Bilingual Education in the Peruvian Andes: the silencing of the indigenous Quechua language, a consequence of the coloniality of power.
Colonial power is not over. It permeates post-colonial societies, as it continues to disrupt indigenous ways of living. The silencing of specific aspects of indigenous identities, such as the Quechua language in the Peruvian Andes, is one of its repercussions. The inherent disavowal of the indigenous Other through the endorsement of a fundamentally racist and discriminatory Peruvian education in the 20th century has prevented Intercultural Bilingual Education programmes from thriving among Quechua Andean indigenous communities. These communities have at times opposed teachers who attempted to implement education inclusive of the Quechua language and culture by widely rejecting it. The presentation will dwell on the controversial aspect of the “Peruvian Anomaly,” exposing how a violent, discriminatory, and racially imbued legacy has eroded a sense of self-identification with the Quechua language among its speakers and has further fomented racial discrimination against the indigenous Other.
About the speaker:
Dr. Martina Tonet is Assistant Professor and Research Assistant at the Department of Anthropology, University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities (UP - FHŠ) in Koper, Slovenia. She is currently participating as a researcher in the project Ethnography of silence(s) and the CERV Re4Healing: Cross-border Remembrance, Reconnection, Restoration, and Resilience project (University of Primorska, Slovenia). Her research includes indigenous and minority struggles in postcolonial North and South America and Europe, as well as the analysis of historical trauma in these communities.
📍 Location:
Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Warsaw, Żurawia 4, room 13.
This seminar is part of the "Americas in IEiAK" series.
- 📅 March 4, 2026, 10:30 AM — IEiAK seminar (in Polish) — Dr. Anna Przytomska: "Q’eros z Andów peruwiańskich: dynamiki relacyjne w świecie więcej-niż-ludzkim" — Event link
- 📅 Second half of March 2026 — Postcolonial seminar — Prof. Lionel Larre: "The society of American Indians (1911-1923) in the history of Indigenous activism"
- 📅 April 15, 2026, 10:30 — IEiAK seminar — Dr. Susana Rosales: "Traditional Markets in Transition: Culture, Consumption, and the Politics of Public Space in Mexico City"
