Daniel Contreras
The content of this news item has been machine translated and may contain some inaccuracies with respect to the original content published in Spanish.
Indigenous Cultures in Evolution: Governing Rights and Responsibilities through Sustainable Law and Ethics' (Inclusion) has been considered the best of 90 proposals submitted to the Team Finland Knowledge (TFK) program of the Finnish National Agency for Education. The project is a joint initiative between PUCP, the University of Lapland and the University of Helsinki to analyze the protection of the cultural heritage of indigenous communities.
With funding from the Finnish government, two International Summer Schools will be held as part of the project, one at PUCP in 2023 and another at the University of Lapland in 2024. Both events seek to promote cultural and academic exchange between different sectors of Peruvian and Finnish civil society, including students, professors, government officials and representatives of indigenous communities.
Project activities will commence on August 1, 2022 and end on December 31, 2024.
"One of our objectives is to conduct a study on the legal and ethical aspects related to the digitization of the cultural heritage of indigenous peoples, whose intellectual property rights have sometimes been violated," says Dr. Yovana Reyes, professor of law and coordinator of the project.
In this regard, and as part of the International Summer School, a series of training sessions will be held mainly for undergraduate and graduate law students, scholars of indigenous peoples, representatives of indigenous communities and government officials involved in the protection of cultural heritage.
To this end, professors from the two Finnish universities will come to Peru next year to teach. Similarly, a team of PUCP professors will travel to Finland in 2024. The project will also include seminars and workshops, which will be open to all interested parties.
Professor of Law and project coordinator.
"The project can share Peru's experience in the protection of cultural heritage with respect to the approaches and regulations that have been used, how it is planning to deal with technological progress and what this means for indigenous communities," says Reyes. "In turn, we will be able to learn from Finland's experience with the Sami people," he adds.
The professor comments that this comparative work can be used to plan future strategies to provide a better response with respect to the protection of cultural heritage. Reyes adds that the fact that the project has been recognized as the best proposal is extremely motivating for the entire team that worked on it.
"We felt that we should not only train students, but we also had a commitment to train the rights holders, who in this case are the indigenous peoples. I think that is where the strength of the Inclusion project lies to a large extent," he concludes.