Several linguistic, anthropological, ethnographic and other indigenous related studies have been carried out and published in the most prominent scientific journals and books. In those publications, scholars threat indigenous ontologies as objects of study, but fails in treating them as equals and pictures indigenous people as simple subjects of study. Even more, the racialization of speakers frames their linguistic practices as deficient regardless of how closely they follow supposed rules of appropriateness leaving speakers of minority languages, languageless (Rosa 2016, Rosa & Flores 2015). Indigenous people in response to such treatments from the ruling society have opted for not using their own ontological manifestations and stopped sharing them to the next generation and assimilate to the western society to avoid discrimination.

In Ecuador, indigenous languages have suffered significant loss of speakers throughout the years (Haboud 2020). Haboud's study shows graphically the alarming differences among three generations in language use: monolingual indigenous language speaker grandparents, bilingual parents and Spanish monolingual children. In this context, all past revitalization efforts have failed, and the absence of strong state educational policies in indigenous languages have severely conditioned the survival of indigenous languages in Ecuador. However, there is a renaissance of indigenous activists who have taken into their hands the efforts of studying and promoting their languages within their local communities. Although these efforts are great for promoting language use in territory, it is not enough for calling the attention of the state, the academic world and the financial resources it needs to practice a true revitalization process.
In this presentation, I want to lay out ideas and the work we do and promote at the Kichwa Institute of Science, Technology, and Humanities-KISTH (Fundacion KISTH in Spanish). First, in order to effectively revitalize a language, we as indigenous people need to be able to move beyond the place-based knowledge (Johnson et. al., 2015) and be ready to participate in global stage entrepreneurship. Second, we need to challenge the Euro-centric standard vision of the society. Third, we need to work collectively in effectively promoting indigenous ontological systems to the wider society. Fourth, access to education for indigenous children should not be limited to the monoglotic system in place. Fifth, modern scientific knowledge must be transmitted in indigenous languages. However, scholars and academic institutions alike do not consider or limits indigenous languages and knowledge as part of their curriculum. In this talk, I aim to raise the awareness of scholars in Ecuador about indigenous languages situations and call for a collective action in order to effectively protect them.