Interculturality and alterity in research training: Epistemic and methodological considerations

Abstract

This article addresses the epistemic and methodological principles necessary for teachers to incorporate interculturality and alterity in the teaching-learning research process, considering that in Colombia there are numerous indigenous, afro-descendants and mestizos communities that have particular characteristics. When entering higher education, their members are treated in the same way as city dwellers without taking into account their singularities. The study was developed from the qualitative approach, using the ethnographic method and the analysis unit was composed of five professionals, who developed their work in the field of decoloniality, interculturality and / or research training. Each of the five professionals underwent a structured interview. As a result, the study allowed to establish that the production of critical thinking is key to seek intellectual decolonization and to lay the foundation of a methodology that commits education to reorient the meaning of curricula. In conclusion, it is considered that decolonial pedagogy contributes to overcoming cultural homogenization. In the same way, it claims the knowledge, traditions, identities, memories and ontological positions (worldviews) of those who have been violated by the colonial irruption. Therefore, research training should not focus only on knowing, but on knowing-how, on one's own, reflective, critical thinking, which allows solving serious contemporary problems, confronting western knowledge with local knowledge so that education is not unconnected, but pertinent to the context of the communities.