Elvira Espejo: a woman of resistances and re-existences in the Andes

Abstract

This text presents the encounters with Elvira Espejo Ayca: Aymara, thinker, visual artist, singer, narrator, storyteller, poet, essayist, textile creator, researcher and director of the National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore of La Paz (Bolivia). The article addresses Elvira Espejo Ayca’s decolonial proposal about women and science, based on the knowledge and techniques of Andean textile work made by women. It highlights the importance that the artist gives to the collective work and to the millenarian struggles of her ancestors, in defense of their territory, as an alternative to the global policies.