Episode #61
Ep. 61: Spatial and Community Planning with Joaquín Lopez-Huertas
Am'aj Q'in, Dr. Joaquín Lopez-Huertas joins this episode to discuss Indigenous planning. He is a K’iche’ scholar from Xelajuj No’j, Iximulew who begins by sharing some of his background in architecture and urban planning. Lopez-Huertas adds insights on identity and global Indigeneity as it relates to spatial relationships with land, pushing beyond a technical field of planning with an Indigenous futurity lens. He challenges dominant frameworks of research and community engagement, amplifying how Indigenous communities already plan and design space for themselves based on values that prioritise well-being. He shares experience with Mayan communities including K’iche’-Maya in Xelajuj No’j, as well as Ixil-Maya in Chajul, in order to highlight alternative governance systems that advocate for land/nature and Indigenous rights. Additionally, this is put into conversation with contexts such as Diné Bikéyah or Navajo Nation and its constitution and land policies. We discuss different theories that appear simultaneously when working with a global Indigenous lens like settler-colonialism and coloniality. This provides an opportunity to expand how we think and govern by considering multiple complex settings, identities, and experiences. Lopez-Huertas offers a rich critical reflection on Indigenous ways of being and knowing in relation to place and community that thrive in the decolonial cracks of re-existence. Notes on Terms: K’iche’ means many trees when literally translated, and it is also an ethnolinguistic community, and a highland Maya group that is prominent in Iximulew; Xelajuj N’oj literally means ten wisdom and is derived from ‘xe’ meaning ‘under/beneath’ and the number ten (lajuj), and the nahual or calendrical totem ‘no’j,’ which refers to wisdom, ideas, thought, intelligence. Xelajuj N’oj can be interpreted symbolically as beneath ten wisdom/mountain because it is surrounded by mountainous and volcanic peaks and is temporally located to a sacred calendar date. Alternatively, there are also some other interpretations like the ten thoughts, ten mountains, ten wise-persons, ten domains, or ten guardians/deities. Xela (pronounced Shell-ah) is a common shorthand for the contemporary town that has the colonial name of Quetzaltenango that comes from Nahuatl speaking allies of the Spanish conquistadores. The Pop Wuj also records Xelajuj K’ej as the ancestral name of this place referring to the nahual or calendrical totem of ‘K’ej’ or deer, meaning Ten Deer or Under Ten Deer, perhaps in reference to a foundation date; ladino is a Guatemalan term for mestizo or mixed race person but often delineates a class-culture ontological identity rather than a strictly ancestral or racial one; Iximulew is a Maya term for Guatemala that literally translates to corn earth, but can symbolically refer to the land of corn or the world of the corn people; Diné Bikéyah refers to the homeland and territory of Diné or Navajo peoples; Tółikan refers to sweet or pleasant water, which is also a community near the four corners region on Navajo Nation; Alcaldías indigenas refers to the Indigenous mayoralities or mayor offices in Guatemala; Pop Wuj or Popol Vuh is a text that contains a K’iche’ version of Maya cosmogony recorded in Latin characters in the 16th century, which means the book/paper of the mat/woven mat/council in the K’iche’ language. References: Joaquín Lopez-Huertas – Beyond Refusal : Balancing Colonial Land Ownership in Planning; Planning in Re-existence : Decolonial Cracks and Indigenous Futurities; ‘ We don’t believe they are dead, they are just resting ’: Indigenous knowledges as epistemological reclamation in planning. Joaquín Lopez-Huertas, Maggie Low, James Miller, and Michelle Thompson-Fawcett – Indigenous Planning : Cracking Coloniality Through Everyday Practices Audra Simpson – Mohawk Interruptus : Political life across the borders of settler states Adolfo Albán Achinte – Prácticas creativas de re-existencia : más allá del arte… el mundo de lo sensible. Adolfo Albán Achinte – Pedagogías de la re-existencia : Artistas indígenas y afrocolombianos. Catherine E. Walsh – Rising Up, Living On : Re-Existences, Sowings, and Decolonial Cracks Walter D. Mignolo and Catherine E. Walsh – On Decoloniality : Concepts, Analytics, Praxis.
