Indigenous knowledge and defiance in the Northwest Amazon

Abstract This paper examines the multifaceted roles of translating among the Baniwa — Koripako people of the Northwestern Amazon, a macroregional plurilingual territory shaped by varying degrees of linguistic exogamy. It shows how the Baniwa — Koripako position themselves within a global socio-environmental agenda articulated through intercultural modes of knowledge production. Moving beyond the idea of equivalence between different languages, it develops a dynamic approach to translation as encounter, resonance, place, and ways of knowing. This sheds light on innovative characteristics of the Baniwa — Koripako school system and endorses building relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous cosmovisions, including the legacies of the New Tribes Mission and Salesian Residential schools. The analysis centers on projects that transform PET bottles into traditional handcrafts, understood as a form of translation that expands Baniwa — Koripako knowledge, indigenizes schooling practices, and supports the territorialization of the Cabari community by forging an innovative connection between plastic and plant fibers. These practices complicate hegemonic notions of waste, garbage, and residue, foregrounding a distinct politics of sustainability, material culture, and patrimonialization, while also illuminating divergent translation politics for non-indigenous texts entering Baniwa — Koripako communities and for Baniwa — Koripako texts directed at non-Indigenous audiences.