Abstract

This article analyses Chilean universities’ research functions, their links to their surrounding context and their relationships with communities. In doing this, it aims to reflect on the existence or absence of epistemic justice in the relationships that are established by the university. These reflections are based on the experiences of a social movement, Enlazador de Mundos (Weaver of Worlds). This movement links people in academia with community collectives and whose focus is on breaking with the instrumental, means-to-an-end relationship in which knowledge is extracted from communities using traditional research methodolo gies based on scientific objectivism. This encounter between academia and com munities gives rise to a form of research called dialogic-kishu kimkelay ta che that seeks to overcome those power relations. It consists of a way of producing knowl edge that places Western epistemes (including the form of knowledge which is dominant in Chile) on a level with other epistemes, for instance those typical of the Indigenous Mapuce people. To do this, research communities are formed that include people from both academia and the community, aiming to create epistemic justice between these two. Within the academic world, however, there is still a long way to go to gain acceptance for this approach. In this chapter the spelling of Mapuce is taken from the Grafemaio Raguilo to respect the linguistic variant of the Indigenous territory in which is it set.