The spiritual countryside. Notes about decoloniality in rural education

Rurality could be considered a mythical territory, where all things start and where urban people dream of going on vacations. An “idyllic alternative with low population and big distances” (Stark, Gravel, & Robinson, 2014, pp. 176–179). However, what is rural? In Latin America, some quantitative criteria are used to define urban and its opposite, rural areas: population, proximity of houses, primary activities and public and administrative services. All of these elements concern the land. In other words, rurality as a concrete concept is a way to live and identify the territory (Us-Soc, 2012, pp. 11–21).

This process is named by Osorio-Pérez (2014) as territoriality: “Places are producers of identity, of power and, at the same time, socio-spatial constructions that acquire meaning from the practices, representations, and experiences of their inhabitants”. All the diversity of the population groups that interact with the land are principal characters of this process and at the same time, the result of it (p. 568). Indigenous, Afro, peasants, gypsy and migrant people share an ancestral connection with the land and suffer together with the rural marginality. Indeed, the territory is a place to live and a symbol of identity, sociability and tradition. It is the heritage from generation to generation, a sacred place to develop ritual and even for some communities, an essential living being. Other non-rural understandings of the land as a simple resource for capital earnings are considered a sacrilege against them with mortal consequences.

Currently, the rural area is a mythical land. But as it happens with the concept, mythical is not only understood as a meaningful and symbolic tradition for Native people. Instead, it is a synonym for a lie, a fictional mirror of the artificial. The priorities are “the aggressive urbanization processes,” and, in this view, border poverty is unavoidable and a minor consequence of development, accessibility and luxury in the cities. It looks like rural life is old-fashioned and needs a path to be redeemed. The rural would be saved once it became urban, and the countryside would be part of the goals of the country. Equally, peasants as marginals are forced to follow the urban dynamics and abandon the territory if they dream of obtaining dignified conditions for life (Osorio-Pérez, 2014, p. 569; Osorio-Pérez, 2016, p. 42).

Symptoms observed around the world are evidence of a current rural crisis. In Australia, authors Butler and Ben (2021) denounced “the disinvestment of rural business”, the relation between migration and this lifestyle and “the denial of indigenous history” in the countryside (pp. 2180–2184). At the same time, Siwale (2013) highlights how rural people are treated as “ignorant and passive citizens” in Africa, “victims of the urban bias” (pp. 17–24). On the other hand, Soto and Martinez (2020) emphasize “the exclusion of the peasantry from their land” as a “material and symbolic” violence to advantage monopoly production and affect the especially vulnerable populations on the border, such as youth, women and minors in Latin America (pp. 109–133). That is to say, in the words of Cariño Trujillo (2022), “the dispossession of the territory as deprivation of the fields, dissolution of families and distortion of the social environment” (p. 203). And, it is not hyperbole to say with Osorio-Pérez (2014), that peace, food security and autonomy are at risk in rural areas because of the inequality and exclusion experienced there (pp. 573–578). These voices call for attention to a problem that involves all: rurality is not an available path and closing this way puts at risk being human as a project and a right for all people. This danger belongs to rural and urban people because they are interdependent.

In general, many areas of knowledge ignore this question. For example, philosophy has focused on abstract problems and has followed the modern conception of the Age of Enlightenment. Immediate reality has not been considered important, even less so, as it is talking about rural, equivalent to “primitive and savage” (Gómez-Quintero, 2010, p. 88). By this conception, “knowledge, practices and territorialities” from these lands are ignored, and the “plurality, multidimensional and dynamic” rural identities are unknown (Osorio-Pérez, 2014, pp. 570–573). This inhuman behavior is considered the right and “natural” punishment for those who do not follow urban standards.

On the other side, people are living in the periphery, which means, outside the central system “Western Europe, the United States, Japan, China, and Russia”. For them, “nonwhite”, victims of “oppression and violence”, just because of “a racial fact”, these questions are vital, and being oblivious to them means death in marginalization. Rural people are the most affected; peasants live in the most distant point from the center, deeply in the periphery (Dussel, 2013, pp. 265–432).

According to Maldonado-Torres (2007), it is the first step to understanding this crisis that began by putting “The European man” as an archetype and producing “racialized subjects” as prototypes since 1492, in the Colonization. Violence is the trademark of this model, and it has been blinded by European philosophers for centuries, such as Heidegger, who thinks of “the concept of Man as a metaphysical problem”, without finding his own bias for ignoring “the singular model of human” followed by himself (p. 143). The following section explores this problem and its impact on the rural context.

Coloniality is “a pattern of power” designed since modern colonialism. Colonizing America generated a particular interaction between nations, replied in different contexts and times as a bloody imperial seal. This symbolic behavior imposed the idea of race and became a ritual of divinization. White European men became masters, judges, owners and even gods of those American inhabitants for no particular reason other than to tell a story and believe it. It was the history of the discovery of a new land (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, pp. 131–132; Maldonado-Torres, 2008, p. 116).

This ideological system was developed over centuries in social sciences and considered “civilization”, the domination of some peoples over others. Being gods and priests of their worship, colonizers established the principal commandment: Eternal inequality beyond colonialism. Modernity is, par excellence, the sacrament of coloniality; it makes actual and real the sacrilegious concept of exclusion and redemption of others, and simultaneously, profits European Capital as sacrifice from them. Coloniality is an unfair, eternal cult made by and through the victims (Gómez-Quintero, 2010, p. 88; Quintana, 2009, p. 1; Soto & Martinez, 2020, p. 111).

In his words, Maldonado-Torres (2017) says, following Dussel, “Conquering ego precedes the thinking ego” colonization is a figure of the Cartesian method because it conceptualizes an inhuman paradigm. The disproportionate violence, “the non-ethics of the warrior”, is a ritual for the denial of the existence of others and this process is justified by the understanding of the colonizers. Just conquerors can progress and obtain wealth and heaven, trampling the no human conquered. They are nicknamed as others, racialized for their victimizers (p. 27).

The distance established during colonialism differentiates humans from others, a kind of priesthood. Thus, violence generated by the first group against the second is considered unavoidable to progress, and it is unpunished, just a simple offering. On the other hand, if those others defended their land or interests, this is considered a threat that must be annihilated with the subjects that produce it, a sacrilege to eradicate. This disproportioned reaction was consolidated implicitly in the Cartesian formulation. The formula was factual in the colonial age: “I think, or others do not think or do not think adequately. Therefore I am, or others are not, are devoid of being, should not exist or are dispensable” (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, pp. 140–145; Maldonado-Torres, 2021, p. 79).

From this view, centralized in colonization concepts, people from the border depend on colonizers. They follow the established hierarchies, subordination and negotiation that happen without them (Añón, 2021, p. 106; Butler & Ben, 2021, p. 2183; Stark et al., 2014, p. 180). Unfortunately, Human Rights are the modern formula to promote and consolidate a “Eurocentric and dehumanizing humanism.” On them, there is a particular way to describe who is a citizen and their interests. It is limited to a colonial frontier based on gender and racial differentiation, imaginary lines bordering an understanding of a nation. In the periphery are the condemned, ignored by this inharmonious hymn. Human Rights can be understood as an antagonist of Nazism and, simultaneously, a sacred grave ignoring victims and debts of imperialism (Maldonado-Torres, 2021, pp. 63–74).

However, it is fundamental to go back in history to understand why colonialism is dissonant and means sorrow and pain for the discovered and condemned. Five centuries ago, Native people were denigrated when chroniclers referred to them as similar to animals, savaged and sexualized without knowledge or a clear morality (Guerrero-Bucheli, 2017, p. 246; Quintana, 2009, p. 4). Then “Indigenous and Black were categories of racial dehumanization,” and this condemnation has been perpetuated, like litanies, until modernity (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p. 133).

This conviction was promulgated during the debate between Ginés de Sepúlveda and Bartolomé de las Casas in 1505. The arguments of Sepúlveda were considered more valid and became the rule to treat Amerindians as inferiors, heretics, barbarians and pagans, just for offering a solution for the problems created by their perpetrators. Fake ignorance became an excuse to provide a violent gospel to all (Mújica-García & Fabelo-Corzo, 2019, p. 3).

As a consequence, new convictions required new myths to support them. They named it Civilization. It was necessary for primitive lands and people, so Eurocentrism turned into the goal to be achieved over the years. Subsequently, the destruction of traditions was linked to the consolidation of legal knowledge, “epistemicide” next to the bias of power. Therefore, this perversion remained an ideal for elites during the Independence movements. A type of “ontological schizophrenia”, in other words, obtains the European Enlightenment and annihilates the Indigenous roots. As a result, in Latin America, identity remains a serious mental illness and the denial of all ancestral cultures. The impersonation was done, and a lot of people in America believe with faith, even today, in the myth of development and foreign redemption (Gómez-Quintero, 2010, pp. 90–93).

The misconception about culture, transcendence and morality described in the previous lines requires ancestral rites of memory and healing. However, before considering reparation, it is important to understand the offense that calls them. The lived experience is named by Maldonado Torres as “coloniality of being”, the process that profanes Indigenous people and “subalterns” to them. It is caused by mistakenly believing they don’t have a religion or any sacred beliefs to consider human. Puerto Rican philosopher attributes the divulgation of normalized violence and condemnation as a result of the lack of concern about coloniality and its current structures inside Western Modern Civilization. By way of explanation, a perverted society justified its actions against others based on dehumanization. Caused by human differentiation, “Gender, caste, race, and sexuality” have been the colonial forms. They are opposite to the transcendence relation between humans as masters and slaves. In the end, condemned are the other pole of the conquering ego was condemned and upon their shoulders was built the modern imperialism. It is a debt to explore their experiences, understand their injuries and recognize their perspectives as valid. It is an indemnification prayed by centuries (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, pp. 129–153; Maldonado-Torres, 2008, p. 217; Quintana, 2009, p. 6).

Meanwhile, alienation remains and means guilt and statelessness. Condemnation is processed as the only option, the dream of development and the culture imposed. Then, mimicking the culture of colonizers and kneeling in front of them means worship, honor and dignity in front of supremacy. Therefore, it is unable to recognize the connection between the land and the traditional knowledge that sews this link (Mújica-García & Fabelo-Corzo, 2019, pp. 2–4).

The submission of the will implies a sacred knowledge that justifies it. Indiologization is the epistemic basis promoted in different areas of knowledge to shape specific creatures. This coloniality of knowledge reinforced the coloniality of being. Teaching Indianness as “an essential otherness” became the daily preaching (Restrepo, 2007, pp. 293–295). Inside the imperial sermons were described fictional Indigenous people belonging to the past and lived outside the cities, or others are mentioned without identity and can not be distinguished from common citizens (Walsh, 2022, p. 218).

Similar stories and prayers were built for Nature. “The idea of rural and remote did not exist before the arrival of European colonists”. It was and still is a consequence of being called other. Marginalization is the Indiologization of land. Rural is the opposite of city, as mestizo is the antagonist of European, both contrast expressions of the coloniality of being, “trauma, grief, and loss in many communities” (Roberts & Guenther, 2021, pp. 18–19).

The correlation of these concepts is a product of understanding culture as a result of evolution from “natural human” to “historic human”. Peasants as barbaric and citizenship as civilized are replicas of conceptualized antagonism. Dispossession and stigmatization become logical consequences of these dichotomies, understood as dogmatics (Soto & Martinez, 2020, pp. 109–111).

Ironically, these stories remembered the Exile described in the sacred text of the masters, a social and spiritual experience, feeling like a foreigner on your ancestral territory (Deutoronomius 26: 5–11). The discovery and settlement of America, and centuries later, of Africa and Australia, globalized a “non-belonging” culture in “rural images”. Consequently, the countryside was excluded from the country. Initiatives of homogenization ignore the rural richness and dynamics. These were huge damages beyond “privatization and pastoralization of Indigenous lands” (Colvin, 2024, pp. 11–3;Gómez-Quintero, 2010, p. 91; Osorio-Pérez, 2014, p. 582).

As an example, it is an “equivalence between culture, place, and group”. If rurality is considered a “self-contained entity” without plurality, history and connections, then it is to draw an icon of “the culture as an island” (Restrepo, 2007, p. 296). As a result, the image materializes devotion to exclusiveness, exoticism and the unusual. The Countryside became picturesque; it was adequate for tourism and souvenirs, not for political actions or social restoration.

Even worse, cultural proposals in the metropolis accentuate binary narratives when they are based on “fixed cultural differences”. In this way, rurality is limited to the urban references and must be adapted to the needs and structures of the city. That could become cultural discrimination behind “multicultural success stories”, especially if it is not built on respectful dialog. That means a meeting considering the muted histories and the painful consequences exposed previously from the perspective of each community and specific context (Butler & Ben, 2021, pp. 2188–2189).

However, the heretic worship named “coloniality of being” remains. It does it through its priests, sacraments, myths, icons and temples. In this context, some rural schools are like small chapels, colonial structures reflecting the big cathedrals of the city. In particular, this imitation works if it replies to a pedagogical proposal designed before for urban contexts, then it would “obscure the conditions of schooling in rural areas” regulated by centrist policies and promotes dependence on the urban, as a sample of coloniality of knowledge. Again, the city’s progress differs from the countryside’s delay (Galván-Mora, 2020, p. 49).

Meanwhile, some fallacies are pronounced in the school to hide the violence against the peasants such as: development is necessary for those fields and progress is fundamental. It does not matter if traditions and handmade goods are going to be eradicated if industries arrive here to help. In other words, “coloniality through development”. Unfortunately, the school became a colonial instrument for development, which helps to reinforce dualities and naturalization of delay in rural areas, and puts into application development as a solution without question (Gutiérrez-Gómez, 2005, pp. 252–254).

To exemplify how it works, a colonial school ignored the context of rural cultures and promoted a “non-legitimacy of one’s own culture”. Whereas colonial teachers prioritized imperial materials such as North American or European textbooks, related content with pop music and motivated students to follow leaders from other countries, those unconscious priests believed progress would arrive in the peripheral lands. More precisely, this is problematic because, at the same time, it contributes to the reproduction of society in the same standards. To memorize, follow instructions and reply to the roles means to learn the Coloniality of being implicitly in school (Gutiérrez-Gómez, 2005, pp. 255–259).

The colonial practices experienced in the classroom could be maximized by other dimensions of the school. For instance, sometimes it could be worse if the rural school includes a negligent administration without clear criteria between the educational policies and the way to adopt them in the school; or rural families and communities surrounding the school, but with no sense of belonging to it, may believe in its structures or find no interest in the pedagogical model. Even today, the school remains a colonial shrine if it obscures the rural references that could prompt questions about its actions.

Overall, a rural school with an institutional pedagogical project based on coloniality performs again the sacred ritual of a civilized school found in the city, and all its people should feel proud of it. Furthermore, under this ideology, rural areas are not perceived at all and the invisibilization of the countryside is considered part of the development. More aligned to outside standards, more similar to another kind of business and more uniform to the global perspective, then more colonial prizes would be obtained.

These thoughts are a perpetual validation of victimization for taking advantage of this role. If rural people are recognized as victims and it is considered a possible misunderstanding, it would open possibilities such as resignation or dependence. Both alternatives reinforce the same criticized colonialist perspective and imprison them as condemned. As a result, the options are limited: repress violence and transform it into guilt, or multiply violence through revenge. However, being accepted as a victim is just one step in the social and personal process of new beginnings. The following section explores another option.

Indeed, until this point, many reasons have been provided to understand why coloniality is a synonym of sacrilegious violence and how this ideological structure has been argued for dogmatic validation and normalization of war by European thinkers. In contrast, other understandings of knowledge could fight against imperialism and this suggests their task is to design and manage ethical and political relationships, a “subversion of the paradigm of war” (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p. 129; Maldonado-Torres, 2008, p. 245).

It is true that altering a solid composition, which is useful for a few and sacred for many, is a titanic task. Despite this, it is necessary to work a miracle, a transition from condemnation and remove the titles of being a freed slave and a low-status citizen. Dignity must not come from civilized institutions following capitalist interests. It is fundamental to find new ways to share power, talk about knowledge and construct oneself. These alternative ways of transmodern existence are named “decoloniality”. It is a prophetic duty closer to being a postcolonial process than an anti-colonial one. So, it is not enough to build something antagonistic; it is also necessary to understand the consequences of colonialism during all these centuries and work since then (Gómez-Quintero, 2010, p. 91; Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p. 135; Maldonado-Torres, 2017, p. 27).

If truth be told, the first step of this new philosophy is to emphasize the deep connection between modernity and colonialism, as a current fact; to recognize the global modernity goal of establishing war as daily and normal and to denounce the centric intentions of any kind of Imperialism. Say no to “racial hierarchies, obliteration of traditional knowledge”, standardized ways of parasite life, or understanding the other as the enemy. These actions break the imposed cycle of death and are the opposite of normalization because they fight against colonial power at all levels (Añón, 2021, pp. 111–112; Restrepo, 2007, pp. 290–291).

The decolonial project analyzes coloniality from multiple academic perspectives, considering non-canonical sources and it is the result of plenty of discussions from the Global South. Simultaneously, it wonders about the production, circulation and tension of Eurocentric knowledge. The epistemological work is crucial to understanding the colonial paradigm and its imposition and concurrently, to imagining alternative paths (Añón, 2021, pp. 103–107; Quintana, 2009, p. 2). From this point, a utopian world where all “the non-Western ways of seeing the world” are included, with an exception. The diabolical perspective that is not recognized says, “Everything and everyone that exists in the territories is a target of oppression”. It is a perspectivism where every voice is heard and goes against the doctrinal colonizer view (Cariño Trujillo, 2022, pp. 211–213).

This implies a restoration of ethics against the “sub-ontological difference”. It is a new and ancestral kind of spirituality based on dialog and social relationships. Transcendence is understood as an ontological experience. However, it is not a vertical relation, an “onto-theological” one that justifies being over others just because of being chosen for conquering and evangelizing. In contrast, is “tras-ontological” one based on “subjectivity, reason and being” as communion with others recognized with dignity and participation. It is a restorative relation of “generous receptivity”; it happens after visiting the cemetery, it is a mourning and rebellious linkage for love and justice, seeing the scandal of the corpses caused by war (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, pp. 143–157).

As a consequence, it follows five possible pillars of subversion, values of decoloniality and alternatives of being: Search for identity, liberation, diversity, “metaphysical insurrection” and alternative epistemology (Maldonado-Torres, 2008, pp. 189–233; Maldonado-Torres, 2021, p. 71).

First, people and communities that have lived as condemned have an identity crisis as a consequence of the selected mutism imposed in the colonial structures. They have the task of recovering ancestral sources and building new ways to find a reconstructed identity. Decoloniality implies “the condemned are subjects of transformation of their reality” (Quintana, 2009, p. 6). They should observe, be responsible for their past and find how to heal themselves. Maybe someday, colonial institutions will recognize their responsibility as perpetrators of violence, but the decolonial project can not depend on it.

Second, liberation as an antonym of emancipation from abstract reasoning, involves multiple dimensions of being and society to express freedom and reciprocity. That means “displacing Europe from the center of historical, epistemic and political imagination” (Restrepo, 2007, p. 292). This is not a federalism of any kind, but an anarchic expression of autonomy and free relations outside the conventional schemes. It is to “engender an otherwise of relational being, thinking, feeling, doing, and living”, it is to restore humanity after coloniality and humanize it all (Walsh, 2022, p. 238).

Third, it celebrates the variety of contexts, traditions and perspectives and avoids rigid uniformity for production and violence. Different points of view question the unique and convenient way colonizers do it and promote multiple debates and fair agreements in many fields, transmodernity ways of thinking and living (Añón, 2021, pp. 108–110; Mignolo, 2015, p. 362; Restrepo, 2007, p. 293).

Fourth, beyond politics, decoloniality judges colonial dualism and explores other concepts of good outside the system. In other words, “pluralize, decenter, and understand otherness in its positivity”. Colonial dichotomies reduce reality and are insufficient conceptually and politically to recognize the hidden richness of the wounded communities. Simultaneously, it is the recognition of hybrid societies where people, territories and cultures are dynamic and are not tied between them. Migration is essential in human groups, and decoloniality would be the paradigm for studying and valuing this human phenomenon (Restrepo, 2007, pp. 292–294).

Fifth, typical cognition reflects the coloniality of knowledge. Its colonial bias limits and perverts because it is oriented to particular interests. Following Césaire, Maldonado-Torres (2007) suggests new decolonial sciences for the definition, diagnosis and analysis of current coloniality. This approach is different because it highlights the ontological implications of the conquest perspective for victims and raises questions about its metaphysical efficiency for everyone. It is a change of paradigm, a force against the naturalization of war and a start for coexistence (pp. 157–162). It condemns privileges and encourages a change named by Maldonado-Torres “new humanism” and explains it like this (2007):

The decolonial pillars proposed here could be a practical form of Puerto Rican philosophers’ words. They are the beginning and invitation for critical and transmodern dialog and can not be imposed without betraying themselves. They are expressions of human encounters (Maldonado-Torres, 2007, p. 162). On the other hand, this conversation is urgent in the most vulnerable places, where violent obligations produce more injuries, the countryside.

Therefore, it is relevant to restore the territory and materialize the previous principles, especially in rural areas. There could be a holy place for decolonization, the place of the condemned, outside the limits imposed by the city (Maldonado-Torres, 2021, p. 72). Latin American ruralities are ancestral, dynamic, plural and patrimonial. Their goods require exploration and recovery. But, this mission must be developed by the peasant people, all its communities. They live on the border and understand it differently; they can avoid the messianic intervention of colonial agents, “their frontier knowledge is opposite to the lineal global knowledge” (Mignolo, 2015, p. 352).

An example of this traditional epistemology inscribed in the rural paths is Qhapaq Ñan or Main Andean Road, a world heritage site from many countries: Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Peru. Its ancestral roads are the place where traditions live from generation to generation and challenge the modern concepts of frontiers and nations. This way is also a representation of Sumak Kawsay, a current indigenous concept that recovers the ancestral communion with Nature and reminds reciprocity called by decolonial authors (Guandinango & Carrillo-Maldonado, 2013, p. 6; López-Oliva & Vásquez-Morales, 2005, p. 11).

Other places of decoloniality are rural schools and other centers of knowledge. The same institution that followed the colonial structures in the past could have the power to repeal it. Rural schools are the place for research and learning about critical histories of, and written by, Indigenous, Peasants, Afros, Gypsies, Migrants and all the communities of the countryside. There, new ways of being, new areas of knowledge, and powers could be restored and projected. Rural Schools are the place for “different epistemologies and critical consciousness” like Qhapaq Ñan (Colvin, 2024, p. 8; Maldonado-Torres, 2008, pp. 204–234).

Consequently, rural education must provide specific skills to fulfill the goals mentioned in the previous section. These abilities could be the way to rewrite history and consider a better form for the countryside. Those are listed here: to revindicate the rural voices, restore communion with Nature, heal the colonial wounds, recognize rural knowledge and develop resilience against symbolic violence.

To start with, vindication means “hear the people on the periphery”. Also, they must be heard, not studied as objects, but engaged as equals and principal agents in the educational process. Their claims, objectives and cosmogonies are the most important in the decolonial process because they live the consequences of modern structures and understand in their bodies and their lands why it is important to build something new (Maldonado-Torres, 2008, p. 246; Us-Soc, 2012, p. 98).

Simultaneously, revindication is a synonym for “recovering, reproducing, and developing” ancestral cultures. Buried voices, oral traditions and new voices dialog together. This conversation does not allow possible isolation: To learn in a rural field, ignoring rurality (Us-Soc, 2012, pp. 130–140). So, authentic rural education must be historic and contextual. It implies that multiple rural institutions, like farms, cultural houses, quilombos, or Indigenous cabildos, are welcome in the school and can build educational alliances with it.

Furthermore, the conventional knowledge acquired in school must be reoriented because it has ignored the territory and its inhabitants. In other words, peasant communities develop valuable knowledge and it is important to explore it. Enriched knowledge should include an interchange between local and global, but emphasizing this time the first one over the second (Us-Soc, 2012, pp. 145–163). As Zapata-Olivella (2020) eloquently states:

Consequently, a decolonial school in the countryside could be the beginning of political changes in the rural communities. Its reflections must fructify in the empowerment of students to promote cultural enrichment, social justice and increased representation. However, these desirable results could be painful for those communities that have lived more recently and deeply the violent implications of colonial structures. At the same time, it could imply resistance, even in a hostile way, from those who benefit from the imperial understanding of the countryside. Then, revindication is as risky as necessary and implies other skills to fulfill the decolonial change.

In the same line, the pedagogical process could restore communion with Nature. Indigenous people build a different relationship based on a holistic perspective and animistic spirituality. But colonial dichotomies are antagonistic and imply a reification of living beings, an ecological violence that “destroys the ancestral balance of territory and land”. Then, it is necessary to go back to the traditional expressions and recover from them, including nature as a mother, being and spirit. This poetical language transforms it into another voice to hear and respect (Niviayo, 2021, p. 76).

In particular, food, medicine, dwelling and other goods obtained from her became symbols of interconnection. Rural daily life is an expression of belonging to a territory because it is an interdependence between peasants and the countryside, and both can defend each other. Nature can provide food sovereignty, and peasants can teach observation of natural phenomena.

Simultaneously, a mutual transformation would occur, the ancestral equilibrium once it had. It is not a coincidence that the most preserved pieces of land are the same home of Indigenous people. Rural schools can reply to this connection and teach ancestral mysticism through understanding and taking care of the environment and its details. Then, this correspondence will favor ecological balance, moving back to sustainable practices and human wellness through deeper connections with all living beings.

Consequently, the concept of citizenship must be reevaluated to understand equality beyond Nature. Citizens can not be linked anymore to the cosmopolitan ideal, and it must include the rural population. This will be possible if it contemplates the positive impact of a reborn countryside in the cities, and reflects on who is behind holding the heritage. Then, education policies would be designed according to the specific needs of the countryside, questioning the usual hierarchies (Butler & Ben, 2021, p. 2191; Carrero-Arango & Gonzalez-Rodríguez, 2016, p. 88).

The next step is to recognize rural knowledge. This skill would reinforce rural voices, communion with the Environment and the healing process after coloniality. Rural people consider territory an expression of the most precious gift. This understanding is reflected in the national idiosyncrasies of many countries of the Global South. However, this specificity is uncovered under the “homogenization of the curriculum” and is not recognized because of the imperial priorities. On the contrary, a decolonial consequence is a new understanding of geopolitics. It reflects how valuable and necessary the countryside is, not in a productive way, but instead in the cultural, ecological and social perspectives (Galván-Mora, 2020, pp. 59–60; Mignolo, 2013, p. xii; Soto & Martinez, 2020, p. 120).

In other words, institutionalizing new rural education means the understanding and promotion of the living heritage of the peasantry communities over other pedagogical lineaments. This exploration implies respect and protects the context where they are developed, the times of the Environment and the study of them. Rurality must not be isolated from the national or global perspective and its pedagogical politics and laws. They must ask: What kind of schools are harmonious to this specific rural context and peasantry? Which politics or laws put one of these at risk? How can this rural school be in dialog with the cities around it without losing its essence? How can rural schools be linked to others of the same kind or other rural institutions? (Dussel, 2013, p. 47; Galván-Mora, 2020, pp. 61–64).

Consequently, these questions are the result of a rural epistemological background. Schools and other pedagogical institutes are invited to research what peasant knowledge means and its methodology, value, context, conditions, needs and bias. Decoloniality is a social and academic fight. New concepts, subjects, roles and practices are required for empowerment. So, it is not enough to make handicrafts, encourage compost processes, or name the species around without considering the spiritual ancestral basis of these practices in the countryside.

It is a necessary condition to build arguments against misconceptions or reductions about rural knowledge. Stereotypes, oversimplification, folklorization, marginalization and lack of representation of the countryside are examples of the “remnant discourses of colonialism” (Colvin, 2024, p. 3). All of these problems are a call for hard and permanent work on this issue. Meanwhile, the cultural crisis of the rural and its communities would remain invisible to the world.

Indeed, decoloniality is not the current paradigm, and it has to live between conventional discourses. The exploration of “other epistemological frames” needs to fight against frustration and resistance because it is not considered a priority in many fields (Colvin, 2024, p. 64). So, it requires resilience, the ability to adapt and success in adversarial situations. It is a need in peripheral places where violence imposes resignation, also observed in the pedagogical contexts.

However, this behavior is an expression of a specific problem for the school, symbolic violence (Gutiérrez-Gómez, 2005, p. 258). Some examples of this kind of brutality are hate speech against rural communities as uprooting, or against others as resentment. Also, negative descriptions or derogatory language about the rural area. Or cultural erasure demonstrated in the loss of traditions like indigenous languages, traditional practices and ancestral institutions.

Learning how to develop resilience should be an ability against these expressions. Peasant communities could build cultural inventories of significant experiences to promote gratefulness, amplify vocabulary and rediscover hidden aspects of their society. Simultaneously, they can identify risks of vulnerability, assess their actions and conceptions and design an action plan for social improvement. These elements must be learned as part of the curriculum and the coexistence of the school.

The pedagogical institutions could become a prism of social fights. That means the community walks to the ideal state: Some school members will be involved in the country’s process of justice and restoration, others differ with clear arguments, all understand these participations and perspectives and none are involved in any kind of violence. At the same time, self-assessment is encouraged and celebrated. Resilience is an introspective ability because it is focused on analyzing limits and possibilities to adapt resources or methodologies.

In conclusion, these intertwined skills are essential for fostering a decolonial rural consciousness. They could empower rural individuals and also strengthen a new society as a whole. They belong to a different approach, promoting a deeper understanding and appreciation for the interconnectedness of all communities and the environment.

These lines are written in a rural school in Bogota, Colombia. The Educational Institution is on a small mountain in the northwest of Bogota. This hill was once sacred for the Muysca people, and now is considered part of a Nature Reserve declared by the Environmental Ministry of the country. It is common to find plenty and colorful lizards, flowers and insects next to the classrooms. The landscapes are green and look frozen in time for centuries. But, it is common to hear about the Nature Reserve Van der Hammen on the news; its lands are the motive of debate because they do not belong totally to the State, are invaded by homeless people, or are reduced to building new roads. Then, the school is in the middle of insecurity and uncertainty about its future.

Also, this center of learning is one of the twenty-eight in rural conditions around the city. It shares with some of its partners similar parameters about low and floating populations, agronomic activities and problems with access to public services like the internet, aqueducts, or water. It contrasts with benefits like school supplies provided by generous companies or simple services for volunteers. This rural school is seen by them as an opportunity to reduce taxes or pretend charity for just one day, without structural changes.

This pedagogical institution must also follow the pedagogical guidelines proposed for rural schools by the District Educational Secretariat, SED, for its initials in Spanish. These instructions are based on urban curricula oriented on coverage, competitiveness and quality. Since the countryside should follow orientations from metropolitan centers to mimic them. Then, it looks like they are designed to put them at risk of disappearing, instead of promoting them. In other words, remaining with the current status of rural life depends on external standards more than introspective understandings. It is not a coincidence that the most recent progress report about public policy on rural education is named “A City Challenge” (Secretaría de Educación de Bogotá, 2023, Notebook 1, p. 11).

The previous example is an opportunity to consider the consequences of how rural education is approached, structured and delivered. The decolonial principles and skills proposed in this essay are an answer to the rural crisis. They could be a sketch of a different kind of imagery for country education. Some paragraphs before it make a comparison between rural pedagogical institutions with decolonial temples. However, considering the temple is also a colonial concept, maybe a better option is describing rural schools of the future such as an Amazon Maloca, and distant from Urban Schools.

This Indigenous construction contains many symbolic meanings to consider. Amazon Maloca is a diorama, small representation of the cosmos to express mythical connections, a sacred place for rituals and covenants, a calendar to understand the rhythms of Nature, a spiritual network with ancestors and herbal and food plants, a big house to engage with all the members of the community and, overall an academy where elders teach to the community (Von-Hildebrand, 1984, pp. 184–208).

It may look like this, Indigenous edification is far away from the rural. However, it was chosen because it is a global and ancestral symbol recognized around the world, and it has been used by Muiscas as a restorative example to reimagine their constructions. In Colombia, social silence imposed over centuries turns on the premise that the Muisca people belong to the past. At the end of the XX century, the state was recognized as a pluricultural country and opened the law and social opportunity to Indigenous people for recognition as nationally valuable institutions. In consequence, Muiscas descendants take from oral traditions, historical sources and other indigenous heritage, like the Amazon people, to rebuild their traditions, once lost by coloniality.

A similar process is suggested as an implication of these reflections. Each rural school must learn from its context and other similar processes to visualize its symbolic figures. Imagery is fundamental in narratives and also in social processes because it helps to interweave. Imagine the future means projecting powerful sensorial and social images working as symbols, and material elements to represent and promote a sense of belonging.

In the first place, it is necessary for all the members of the school community to explore the countryside deeply. Pedagogical outings, cultural visits and alliances are requirements for applying decoloniality in rural schools. These continuous connections amplify the glossary of rural experiences and can be described by interconnected sensorial images of tomorrow.

Then, different learning processes of dialog can be designed to understand how, why, when, where and by whom these experiences are assimilated. Imagery is an artistic process and also a philosophical one, more precisely, a phenomenological event. Images are tools to understand the concept of rural population, territory and learning stereotypes. Also, they could be the way to decolonialize those established and build new ones; instead, they will be prototypes of a better school.

These alternative icons could be contrasted with ancestral perspectives and the colonial implications against them, identify lost elements and suggest restorative actions. They are not nostalgic or traditionalist decisions; it is impossible to ignore the violent tragedy of being unfairly condemned. Instead, it is an adaptive choice to preserve cultural heritage, avoid the same colonial normalized mistakes and imagine ways to be human without discrimination.

Simultaneously, new images would be compared with figurative languages from other ruralities. A huge gap remains caused by imperialism. The Global South must be unified in a restorative power obtained from all voices. This union could start in rural places. Decoloniality will succeed in the countryside if its inhabitants are dialogical and reciprocal. This kind of dialog would break frontiers and create collective icons.

Moreover, significant imagery will transform rural schools if it is a representation of a deep communion with the natural spirits. Animism was considered barbaric and prehistoric. It was condemned by colonial structures. However, this belief from peasant communities like Indigenous and Afro people offers an interesting point of view. It is vital to hear Nature and consider its rights and claims. Decoloniality could be a reality in a territory equivalent to a person who was also condemned.

In consequence, teachers are called to be social agents and poets. Their symbolic language could be capable of creating powerful images in their students and cultivating their social emotions. Decolonial imagery will be the fruit of a master’s creative process. They are invited to discover their passion and the best way to demonstrate it. Also, they could perceive the challenges and gifts of rural lands and feel touched by them. In this way, teachers will be enthusiastic, following the etymological meaning of the word. In Greek, ἐνθουσιασμός, enthousiasmos, means inspired by the gods. They became mediators between ancestral spirits talking through current subjects (Oxford University Press, 2024).

In summary, decolonizing rural education is a vital commitment to marginalized communities beyond the curriculum and toward social justice. The rural people have suffered uncountable humiliations and do not need more despective views or victimization. They need to work by themselves in their restoration with autonomy and confidence. Decoloniality would portray the will of the ancestors and help find a personal way, imagining a fair and human countryside. Then, it would landscape an educational system that honors multiculturalism beyond the fields, after the inner healing process and as a result of it. Decoloniality requires iconoclastic gestures challenging colonial institutions, mystic connections with the rural territory and peasant communities and contemplative actions for the most beautiful rural icon in each person and living being around.