Minga, Participatory Action, and Social Justice: Framing a Decolonization Process for Principled Experiential Learning Among Indigenous Shuar Communities in Amazonian Ecuador:

Background: A case study of an undergraduate scholars program in New York and our long-term partnership with four Indigenous Shuar communities living in Morona-Santiago, Ecuador. Purpose: To introduce principled strategies for building an ethical experiential learning framework based on a decolonization process, Indigenous community work models and integrated perspectives from the multiple stakeholders involved. Method/Approach: A synthesis of academic literature, reflexivity as a team contending with our own decolonization processes, participant observation, and the in-depth interviews with key community members, drawn from semistructured interviews conducted from 2017 to 2018. Findings/Conclusion: The outcome of this synthesis were four distinct principles for a more holistic, ethical, and effective framework: shared investment, shared sense of accountability, pacts of reciprocity, and social bonds. The principles offered emphasize the critical dynamics of ensuring mutual benefit between university prog...