Word Mingas

<i>Word Mingas</i> is an English-language translation by Paul M. Worley and Melissa Birkhofer of the award-winning book <i>Mingas de la palabra</i> written by Miguel Rocha Vivas (Casa de las Américas 2016). It is an encompassing study of oralitures - multilayered cultural knowledge shared through the power of orality - and written literatures by authors from Colombia and other regions in the hemisphere who self-identify as Indigenous. In consequential dialogue with the most recent theories of decoloniality and interculturality the book weaves and compares two threads of literary critique Rocha Vivas names as <i>oralitegraphies</i> and <i>mirrored visions</i>. The study focuses on texts produced from the early 1990s to the present and offers productive avenues to discuss understand and foster dialogue with the wide array of symbolic-literary systems of the original peoples. Rocha Vivas offers a valuable contribution to the much-needed dialogue on the basic rights of self-representation self-determination and the coexistence of multiple systems of representation and identity.