Always alive: Emancipation, peace, and research from the garden of Heloísa

Abstract:

The essay addresses the healing knowledge of peasant women from Montes de María (Sucre-Bolívar, Colombia), from Black feminisms. Faced with the multiple oppressions they historically experience in the Montemarian ancestral territory, they maintain Afro-Indigenous knowledge of medicinal plants to care for their community. Thus, they resist the patriarchal order, capitalism, colonialism, and war in the context of reparation and post-agreement. The research followed participatory and narrative methodologies based on visits to the territory and meetings with the women. I conclude that determined commitment -not only discursive but also in praxis- is necessary to recognize and integrate academic knowledge and psychosocial research, the experiences and knowledge of women, from the everyday spaces of emancipation, peace, and decolonization, such as Heloísa’s garden.

Keywords:
decoloniality; epistemology; Black feminisms; psychology