Chapter 3
Interview with Rafael Chanchari Pizuri
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Abstract
Born in the Peruvian Amazon, Rafael Chanchari Pizuri is a philosopher and Amazonian from the Shawi ethnic group, whose spiritual ecological discourse, rooted in indigenous cosmovisions of the indigenous cultures of the Peruvian Amazon, foregrounds the current environmental challenges and complex symbolic narratives of indigenous Amazonians. He is also a shaman and a teacher, who has contributed a great deal to the education of indigenous bilingual teachers of many ethnic groups in the Zungarococha FORMABIAP-AIDESEP Educational Centre in Iquitos, Peru. This interview discusses the sophisticated knowledge systems and story cycles that Amazonians have developed over millennia to interpret globalization, climate change and human relationships with forests, rivers and ecosystems. It also considers indigenous notions of “el buen vivir” (good living) and education in Amazonia and the way these are represented in indigenous oral narratives and literary texts, which invite us to reimagine the world’s environmental crisis from the perspective of Amazonian thought. The interview draws on multiple conversations over the past ten years, as well as interviews conducted for the films The Trees Have a Mother (2008) and El Río (2018), both directed by Juan Carlos Galeano.