ABSTRACT
Introducing the pluriversal notion of Ciencia de las Mujeres (Women’s Science), this chapter recounts how communities of Bolivian women weavers rescue and share Aymaran textile production practices, technologies, and ways of being threatened by colonial incursion. In contrast to the Western colonial worldview that poses the world as a resource for humans’ use, the Andean culture of uywaña (mutual nurturing) fosters indigenous textile practices featuring the harmonious and sustainable production of raw materials, natural dyes, and fabrics that support local communities and the larger village (ayllu). Underappreciated by the academy, Women’s Science captures how ancestral knowledge informs how to organise society and solve strategic life problems. In so doing, it provides an alternative to global policies that dispossess land and life. For instance, Women’s Science supports the communities’ recovery of regional natural dyes. The chapter reflects on the understanding and practice of communicative justice in Women’s Science and characterises the decolonial practices that have empowered a group of women during this experience that has been ongoing for 20 years.
