l Decolonising action-research: the Potato Park biocultural protocol for benefit-sharing 93
approaches of participatory, emancipatory/decolonising and indigenous
methodologies (Box 1). The methodologies
for the project were designed and implemented collaboratively with indigenous
community partners. An explicit focus on
decolonising approaches to access and
benefit-sharing was incorporated, where
traditional cultural beliefs, practices and
ways of learning in Quechua communities
were valued and asserted in the research as
a way of resisting dominant discourses. The
methodology sought to place control of
actions and decisions that affect their lives
in the hands of indigenous peoples themselves: from how problems and actions are
conceptualised to how actions are taken
and by whom.
The collaborative methodology design
began with the process of free, prior
informed consent (FPIC). This was especially important as the scope and
framework for the investigation had
already been pre-defined by the overarching project. ANDES staff and local
researchers carried out consultations in
village assemblies and focus group meetings with indigenous community members
to re-interpret this framework from the
perspective and needs of the community
members. The objectives of the project
became to:
• identify Quechua customary laws that
govern access to and benefit-sharing of
traditional resources and knowledge
according to the holistic concept of collective biocultural heritage; and
• apply these norms in equitable ABS
models with the aim of asserting the rights
of indigenous peoples over their collective
biocultural heritage at local, national and
international levels.
The development of an appropriate
methodology for the action-research was
based on the following requirements:
• the methodology is oriented towards
meeting the needs of the communities and
contributing to their development;
• it uses flexible methods to collect and vali-
date scientific information and traditional
knowledge, and link these two knowledge
systems; and
• indigenous researchers act as a bridge
between western and indigenous knowledge systems.
Capacity building for local indigenous
researchers was an important part of the
process, since the research tools had to be
in the hands of trained indigenous peoples
– for their own ends and in harmony with
their own cosmovision and traditional
cultural approaches to knowledge – learning, dialogue and decision-making.
Research phases
For planning and implementation
purposes, the research was broken into
three phases.
Phase 1: Identifying community norms and
customary laws on benefit-sharing
The main objective of the initial phase was
to identify and document customary laws
and the underlying principles that relate to
access to biocultural resources and the
equitable distribution of benefits within the
Potato Park. ANDES also trained 14
indigenous researchers (seven women,
seven men), who represented the six
communities of the Potato Park. They were
chosen by their community assemblies,
based on community criteria such as
knowledge of customary laws and practices
related to biocultural resources, and leadership experience. They learnt how to carry
out research through semi-structured
interviews, focus groups, study groups,
participant observation, data analysis and
the recording and filming of activities. They
played a leading role in the design of the
research and in its facilitation through
study groups.
We used the following approaches in
this phase:
• Literature review of customary Quechua
laws and norms to identify potential principles and practices relevant to the
investigation.