Indigenous Perspectives on Conflict within the Amazon Basin

Opening Up: A Conflict Transformation Podcast

Dylan Moglen and Alex Christodolou are two recent MIIS graduates. In 2022, they participated in a research project that fundamentally reexamined the definition of conflict, resolution, and transformation, focusing on communities that occupy a unique yet powerful space in the global imaginary: Indigenous communities living in the Amazon basin. In total this project engaged in dialogues with leaders and thinkers from over 9 different ethnicities in communities surrounding Leticia, Colombia, in the Pastaza region of Ecuador, and with communities and organizations near Nauta and Pucallpa, Peru.

In this conversation with CT Collaborative director Sarah Stroup, Dylan and Alex explore the insights from their fieldwork for understanding and engaging in conflicts, and invite us to reflect on the relationship between humans and their environment as central to our understanding of conflict.

This research project was one of ten inaugural research projects funded by the Conflict Transformation Collaborative in 2022.

They recommend a few additional resources as supplemental material:

Davis, Wade. (2010) The wayfinders : why ancient wisdom matters in the modern world / Wade Davis UWA Publishing Crawley, Canadian Broadcasting Company W.A

Slutkin, G. (2013). Violence is a contagious disease. The Contagion of Violence. Institute of Medicine. www.cureviolence.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/iom.pdf

GINTY, R. M. (2008). Indigenous Peace-Making Versus the Liberal Peace. Cooperation and Conflict, 43(2), 139–163. http://www.jstor.org/stable/45084517

The Territory (2023) Documentary featured on Disney+

Mihnea Tanasescu (2013) The rights of nature in Ecuador the making of an idea, Vrije Universiteit Brussel,