Tournament: 1AC | Round: 1 | Opponent: NA | Judge: NA

1AC

====The spread of colonialism across the globe marginalized many people, increased slavery, and transferred diseases. According to Wadajanjyu, of the Ye’Kuana tribe in Venezuela, the only way to reconnect with their roots is through education. Merchedun====
Published by Martinez et al in 2009, page 204
(Carlos Martinez, Venezuela Program Director for Global Exchange, Michael Fox, journalist and documentarian, Jojo Farrell, editor, translated by Martinez and Fox, Venezuela Speaks21: Voices from the Grassroots, interviews held October-November 2009, pg. 204, JZ)

The Struggle Then and Now
Wadajaniyu: When the Spanish arrived here, our peoples were dispersed. The Spanish
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. We have to study in order to recover what is rightfully ours.

Traditional education in Venezuela was spread with the Spanish, and teaches Eurocentric knowledge that marginalizes indigenous. We don’t argue the history of Europe is bad, just that Eurocentric knowledge blankets the cultures of the indigenous

Published by Martinez et al in 2009, page 197
 (Carlos Martinez, Venezuela Program Director for Global Exchange, Michael Fox, journalist and documentarian, Jojo Farrell, editor, translated by Martinez and Fox, Venezuela Speaks21: Voices from the Grassroots, interviews held October-November 2009, pgs. 197-199, JZ)
Mecheduniya 26 Wadajaniyu
Personal Histories
Mecheduniya: My name is Mecheduniya and I am Ye’kuana, from the municipality of
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going to be able have a genuine education that would benefit my community.

When I first came to the university I asked myself who I was, where
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place for young indigenous people to return to their community and their culture.

Wadajaniyu: My name is Wadajaniyu in Ye’kuana and Arturo Asiza in Spanish. I
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discussing this situation and came to an agreement to open the Indigenous University.

Origins of the University
Mecheduniya: The university was created with guidance from Brother Jose Maria Korta, who is now a nationalized Venezuelan citizen. He began his work here many years ago in the Caucari community and came simply as an adviser without trying to impose his religion on the indigenous peoples. He helped them with the creation of three major projects in agricultural production, honey production, and cattle ranching. The community managed them and they became very successful.

In 2000, when the government recognized the rights of indigenous peoples in the new
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the areas of study. We now have eight indigenous groups represented here.

Wadajaniyu: I always critiqued the traditional universities because 1 have two daughters who studied
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as in written form because I learned to write in a traditional school.

Contemporary debates reflect a system of knowledge, which only reintrenches Eurocentric knowledge. Eurocentrism shapes traditional policy-making knowledge production, and precludes the involvement of those who aren’t westerm

Frankzi, University of London, Birkbeck College, School of Law, Graduate Student, 12
(Hannah, Center for InterAmerican Studies, Bielefeld University, Universitat Bielefeld, "Eurocentrism," http://elearning.uni-bielefeld.de/wikifarm/fields/ges_cias/field.php/Main/Unterkapitel52, Accessed: 7/3/13, LPS.)

Researchers contributing to the Latin American Modernidad / Colonialidad research programme have drawn attention to
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violence inherent in the process which was a key part of European modernity.
Geopolitics of Knowledge
In contrast to more localised ethnocentrisms, Eurocentrism shapes the production of knowledge and its
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be recognised as valid and suggest that indigenous knowledge can inspire new methodologies. 

When we focus on solely Western modes of thought we inevitably see indigenous peoples as the Other. How we read, write, and speak are important – it shapes the way we view ourselves and the world.

Smith, University of Waikato indigenous education professor, 7
(Linda Tuhiwai, 2007, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples, pg. 35-36, JZ)

As I am arguing, every aspect of the act of producing knowledge has influenced
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that we are no good and that what we think is not valid.
Leonie Pihama makes a similar point about film. In a review of The Piano
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, they still do not entirely account for the experiences of indigenous peoples.
So, reading and interpretation present problems when we do not see ourselves in the
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true of academic writing, although journalistic and imaginative writing reinforce these ’myths’.

The justification of violence stems from Eurocentric knowledge - current debate prevent us from having discussions that include the voices of those marginalized by Eurocentric practices.

Sundberg, University of Helsinki political science professor, 9
(Jan, Published 2009, "Eurocentrism", International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, Volume 3, Pg. 638, JB)

Eurocentrism has been variously de?ned as an attitude, conceptual apparatus, or set of
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, as it is intimately tied to and indeed constituted in the violence and
asymmetry of colonial and imperial encounters. Eurocentrism is what makes this violence not only
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to haunt the production of knowledge in geography in signi?cant and disturbing ways.
In conventional Eurocentric tellings, Europe is the engineer and architect of modern agricultural,
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progress and development ride what James Blaut calls ’the westbound Orient Express’.
As a consequence of the perceived historical movement of the westbound express, ’Europe’
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and academic and institutional narratives, that reality is continuously brought into being.

Status quo Eurocentric education endorses racism because of governmental attempts to promote power over natives.

Araújo and Maeso, University of Coimbra, Center for Social Studies, 12 (Marta, Silvia, August 31, 2012, Ethinic and Radical Studies journal "History textbooks, racism and the critique of Eurocentrism: beyond rectification or compensation" http://peer.ccsd.cnrs.fr/docs/00/72/66/61/PDF/PEER_stage2_10.1080252F01419870.2011.600767.pdf accesed 7-10-13, KR)

All textbooks analysed refer to racism for the first time in the period at the turn of the 20thcentury, focused on ’Imperialism and Colonialism’ – emphasising the British and French cases. Subsequently racism is thoroughly discussed as a prejudice characteristic of the Italian and German totalitarian regimes of the 1930s and 1940s (LH9-1; NH9). Racism is only mentioned again in relation to the ’situation of minorities’ in Western societies during the 1950s and
1960s, illustrated by the Ku-Klux-Klan as an example of a
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operates in ¶ ¶ the (Eurocentric) concept of racism: ¶ ¶
the concept of racism is doubly-bound into revealing (nationalism) and concealing
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was natural, inevitable, and unalterable’ (Ibid: ¶ ¶ 345)

Thus, Lindsay and I affirm that the inclusion of those marginalized by Eurocentric knowledge in Venezuela be brought into debates for this resolution

The status quo attempts at engaging Latin America are merely one point in a long line of destructive economics plagued by Eurocentric thought.

Lander, Central University of Venezuela Professor, 2k
(Edgardo, Sociologist, Venezuelan, professor at the Central University of Venezuela and a Fellow of the Transnational Institute, 2000, Nepantla: Views from South, Volume 1, Issue 3, "Eurocentrism and Colonialism in Latin American Social Thought", pp. 519-523, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nepantla/summary/v001/1.3lander.html, Accessed 7/5/13, JB)

Political and social thought regarding Latin America has been historically characterized by a tension between
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It would be imperative to whiten, westernize, or exterminate that majority.

====This round is a call to action. The content of knowledge we present has a responsibility to recognize and attempt to de center western modes of though from our educational spaces====
Jones, University of Aberdeen, Scotland, International Relations Professor, 4
(Branwen Gruffydd Jones, August 2004, University of Cambridge, "From Eurocentrism to Epistemological Internationalism: power, knowledge and objectivity in International Relation," http://www.csog.group.cam.ac.uk/iacr/papers/Jones.pdf, accessed July 10, 2013, EK)

A fundamental problem which underlies the origin and reproduction of IR’s eurocentricity is the overwhelming
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which have been glaring in their absence from the discipline of International Relations.
Overcoming eurocentricity therefore requires not only concerted effort from the centre to create space and
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, genocide and dispossession which have characterised European expansion over five hundred years. 

We must have a radical rethinking in hopes to undo eurocentrism.

Chandra, Post-Doctoral Researcher Planck Institute, 13
(Uday, Max Planck institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Department of Religious Diversity, Post-Doc, PhD Yale, Aug 2013, Yale University, "The Case for a Postcolonial Approach to the Study of Politics", http://academia.edu/2364123/The_Case_for_a_Postcolonial_Approach_to_the_Study_of_Politics, Accessed 7/12/13, NC)

Following Said, the Subaltern Studies collective significantly influenced humanistic disciplines that had welcomed the
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, culture, and history that would inform historical and social scientific scholarship. 

We need to decolonize and decenter education because engaging in one methodology falls short. Institutional debate about these issues creates the possibility for difference

Lander, Central University of Venezuela Professor, 2k
(Edgardo, Sociologist, Venezuelan, professor at the Central University of Venezuela and a Fellow of the Transnational Institute, 2000, Nepantla: Views from South, Volume 1, Issue 3, "Eurocentrism and Colonialism in Latin American Social Thought", pp. 519-523, http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/nepantla/summary/v001/1.3lander.html, Accessed 7/5/13, JB)

These debates create possibilities for new intellectual strategies to address the challenges posed by the crisis of modernity for Latin American critical theory. In view of the fact that "we are at a point in our work where we can no longer ignore empires and the imperial context of
our studies" (Said 1993,6),it is absolutely necessary to question
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(Escobar 1995; Mignolo 1996a,1996b; Coronil 1996, 1997).

"Economic" engagements is a view that perpetuates Venezuela as an area to be colonized for resources.

Mignolo, Duke University Cultural Anthropology Professor, 9
(Walter D., The Idea of Latin America, pg. 96-98, Google Books, EK)

The global idea of "Latin" America being deployed by imperial states today (
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, could be as high as fifty or sixty thousand dollars a year.
The section on "Latin America" in the CIA’s report Global Trends 2015 relies
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oil reserves are second only to those located in the Middle East.’
However, from the perspective of many who are being looked at and spoken at
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generate radical political projects, new types of knowledge, and social movements.

The Indigenous University was their movement against western education, eventually gaining some support from the government. Social movements directly lead to political action.

Published by Martinez et al in 2009, page 204
(Carlos Martinez, Venezuela Program Director for Global Exchange, Michael Fox, journalist and documentarian, Jojo Farrell, editor, translated by Martinez and Fox, Venezuela Speaks21: Voices from the Grassroots, interviews held October-November 2009, pgs. 194-197, JZ)

A Ye’kuana elder slowly recites the lyrics to an ancient story in his native language
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a rector and one of the founders of the Indigenous University of Venezuela.

The university lies in the vast territory known as the Guyana region, which sprawls
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the region’s abundant natural resources and wildlife are still the stuff of legend.

Like in the rest of the Americas, colonialism brought devastation to Venezuela’s native peoples. As Venezuela entered the modern era, they continued to suffer the loss of their traditional cultures and lands as evangelists and development encroached upon their communities.

Located four hours outside of Ciudad Bolivar, the capital of Bolivar Stale, and
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sleep in hammocks in the small villages divided amongst the varying ethnic groups.

Representing around 2.2 percent of the population with approximately twenty-eight ethnic
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Venezuela (CONIVE - National Indigenous Council of Venezuela), created in 1989.

With the accumulation of significant experiences, indigenous peoples found themselves prepared for the unprecedented
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to push their proposals forward amidst opposition from the assembly’s more conservative representatives.

With the weight of an entire chapter committed to indigenous peoples, the Venezuelan Constitution
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while requiring that the government work with indigenous communities to implement these rights.

The Guaicaipuro Mission was created in 2003 to bring these promises to life by aiding indigenous communities with the processes of self-demarcation and local development. In 2007, the government created of the Ministry of Popular Power for Indigenous Peoples to catalyze further energy in meeting the needs of Venezuela’s indigenous peoples.

While indigenous peoples recognize that they have been provided with unprecedented opportunities, they also
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new constitution and the many statements that have been made by President Chavez.

The Indigenous University of Venezuela exists within this challenging space between opportunity and obstacles and
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able to resist the onslaught of the Western world upon their peoples.

Beginning with just a handful of students, seventy indigenous youth representing eight distinct ethnic
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which it is engaged that Venezuela’s constitution is being transformed into a reality.