Andean Ancestral Culture
The Andean ancestral culture as universal human heritage needs to be rescued, practiced and preserved. This ancestral culture is being destabilized by the impacts of commercialized mass media and by the official educational system, which diffuses values contrary to indigenous culture, thus contributing to the loss of identity so fundamental to socio-cultural development.
This panorama is exacerbated by the current, rampant process of economic globalization whose standardizations and ethnocentric conceptions of development threaten the cultural diversity of the planet, their natural resources and environment.
It is easy to see that in few years traditions, customs, celebrations, rituals, agrarian techniques, weaving techniques and normal daily life have suffered changes through the new social components, religious sect intromission, experimental government politics, new language, economical crisis, as well as the use of new materials such as synthetic products.
To this day the official educational system has a fundamental impact on traditional life. The tremendous exodus to towns and cities in search of a better education has a huge effect on traditional communities. They leave their community and receive an education that denigrates their heritage, and relays the message that to be successful one must be a “professional”, which implies never returning to their homeland. Knowledge through higher education is rarely put to practice in the traditional communities.
