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Housing and learning familiar spaces
Family houses are spread over the territory, in the middle of farming lands or next to unpaved roads. In 1996, Ximena Pachón described most of Nasa houses as consisting of a single rectangular space, built with adobe walls and a thatched roof. In this single room, the sleeping and living areas are placed around the three-stone hearth, called tulpa (Pachón C., 1996). According to Lasso Sambony and Calambás Sánchez (2005), since the mid-90’s new ma-terials and structures have been introduced in an effort to improve the Nasa people’s quality of life. Now, it is common to find houses with private and inde-pendent rooms, built with brick walls and tiles or corrugated iron roofs. Personal observations in the resguardos of Tumbichucue and Caldono in 2010 confirm that, in some cases, some two-storey houses were built as well.
Despite this transformation, the tulpa (Nasa three-stone hearth) keeps a meaningful and prevailing place in both old and modern houses. Lasso Sam-bony and Calambás Sánchez (2005, p. 23) affirm that the kitchen is the ideal place to give advice, share with other people, and learn. Even if the tulpa is being replaced by brick-made constructions, gas stoves or more modern equip-ment, the kitchen preserves its essential place at the center of the family and of community life. The three-stones tulpa is still used in communal work parties, as the hearth shown in Figure 2.2. Lasso Sambony and Calambás Sánchez (2005, p. 77) also affirm that the tulpa’s three stones represent three members of a family: mother, father and child. Symbolizing the kitchen and the place for dining, the tulpa is the ideal space for inter-generational knowledge transmission. It is also a symbol of identity with the territory. The custom of burying the newborns’ placenta next to the tulpa (Rappaport, 2005, p. 149) is an index of the relevance given to this space6.
Another important familiar space is the tul, the Nasa house garden, spe-cialized in medicinal plants. According to Rappaport (2005), the tul is also a representation of the cosmos, an agricultural technological model and its pres-ence next to or surrounding the house is essential in order to preserve the har-mony with nature. As we describe later, the tul is ubiquitous the Nasa schools’ curriculum. Contextual Consideration 2.1. The kitchen, and more precisely, the three-stone hearth called tulpa, is the basic familiar space for teaching and learning.
Social organizations and education authorities
In the Nasa society, the tulpa also has an important place on social organi-zation. Rappaport (2005, p. 149) quotes Mincho Ramos, Nasa leader and teacher, who states that the tulpa is the center of the social interaction levels, which can be drawn through a spiral analogy: The social interaction levels start at the tulpa, where the family meets and interacts, enclosed by the tul, which protects the house. They are surrounded by agricultural fields, and in turn, by the resguardo, the municipality, the department, and so on (Rappaport, 2005, p. 149). Contextual Consideration 2.2. Moreover its domestic function, the tulpa is also the center of the social interaction levels, which can be represented by a expanding spiral.
El cabildo and authority institutions
In the Nasa culture, we can identify different authority institutions, among oth-ers: the cabildo, the capitán and the mayores. As we have said before, the resguardos are the main Nasa territorial units. Each resguardo is governed and administered by an elected council called cabildo7, a hierarchical structure, currently composed of the gobernador (main authority in the community) and other lower-rank roles, such as: comisario, alcalde and fiscal. As a symbol of authority, each cabildante carries a vara de mando (also called bastón de mando), a black-wooden lead staff. These staffs are given to the cabildo by the mayor of the municipality where the resguardo is circum-scribed, and refreshed by the’˜ walas (Nasa healers) during a ritual in high-mountain lakes (Pachón C., 1996) (See Figure 2.4). All community members have several duties at the resguardo, such as the participation in collective works or assuming roles within the cabildo. Just the fact of never having served as cabildante is sufficient to be nominated in the next elections. Pachón C. (1996) also identifies the capitán as a parallel authority. It is an inherited role, similar to the cacique in other cultures, and a trace of ancient political systems.
It is common to find a group of mayores8, composed of the resguardo’s el-dest people (men and women) that have served as goberandor. According to Pachón C. (1996), this is an informal group that, given their knowledge regard-ing the resgaurdo and the Nasa culture in general, exerts their authority when the gobernador or the cabildo do not accomplish their functions according to what it is established. Contextual Consideration 2.3. The cabildo is the main resguardo authority. It is a council in which the highest-level role is the gobernador. Among its functions, the cabildo is responsible for organizing the collective work and ad-ministering resguardo resources.
CRIC and other pan-cultural organizations
Pachón C. (1996) describes pan-cultural organization embracing resguardos and their cabildos, such as Consejo regional indígena del Cauca (Regional Indigenous Council of el Cauca) (CRIC) and the “Solidarios”. These organiza-tions aim to construct representative institutions of the cabildos in the region. CRIC was founded in 1971 with the main goal of recovering ancients lands, but has increased its areas of responsability, for example: strengthening economic communal organizations, ecological preservation in resguardos and the elabo-ration of production programs in recovered lands. According to the document Plan de vida de Tumbichucue, the CRIC’s goals are: (1) recover ancient lands, (2) non-payment of tenant farming, (3) expand resguardos, (4) strength the cabildo and Nasa forms of authority, (5) ensure that indigenous-related laws are upheld, (6) defend Nasa history, mother language and customs, (7) train bilingual teachers, (8) set up economic organization aiming at communities strengthening, (9) protect natural resources and (10) strength the family as the community’s axis.
We are not going into further details regarding these goals. Nevertheless, in the context of our work, it is important to highlight that there is an explicit orientation to preserve the Nasa customs, including their political and authority institutions, as well as their mother language. The education organization authority. CRIC also manages education in communal schools, through the Programa de educación bilingüe interculural (Intercultural Bilingual Education Program) (PEBI). This Program aims to of-fer bilingual education, in Nasa Yuwe and Castilian, covering elementary and secondary schools. The curriculum elaborated by the PEBI follows the commu-nity’s traditions and practices, and it focuses on agricultural activities (Rappa-port, 2005). PEBI was designed as a way to preserve culture and strengthen Nasa politics through education (Consejo Regional Indígena del Cauca – CRIC and Rappaport, 2004). Among these policies, we can find in each Nasa school a cabildo composed of students, which fulfills the same roles as the cabildo mayor, but in the schools’ scope.
Table of contents :
1 Introduction
2 Context of the study: the Nasa society
2.1 Geographical situation and territory
2.1.1 Housing and learning familiar spaces
2.2 Social organizations and education authorities
2.2.1 El cabildo and authority institutions
2.2.2 CRIC and other pan-cultural organizations
2.3 Work organization
2.4 Nasa Yuwe, the Nasa language
2.5 Aesthetic expressions and common symbols
2.6 Application and research context
2.7 Summary
I State of the art/Theoretical support
3 Cultural Models
3.1 What is culture?
3.2 Defining a cultural model
3.3 Human problem solving and Value system models
3.3.1 Florence Kluckhohn and Fred Strodtbeck
3.3.2 Geert Hofstede
3.3.3 Fons Trompenaars
3.4 Intercultural communication and behavior
3.4.1 Edward Hall
3.4.2 David Victor
3.5 Summary
4 Semiotics and HCI
4.1 HCI as a communicative exchange
4.2 Signification and meaning
4.3 Summary
5 Modeling an Interactive System
5.1 Task-oriented models
5.1.1 Goals, Operators, Methods and Selection rules (GOMS) .
5.1.2 Concur Task Trees (CTT)
5.1.3 Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN)
5.2 Architecture-oriented models
5.2.1 Seeheim
5.2.2 Model-View-Controller (MVC)
5.2.3 Présentation-Abstraction-Contrôle (PAC)
5.2.4 Arch
5.3 Model-oriented architecture
5.3.1 Hallvard Trætteberg’s RML-based models
5.3.2 The Cameleon reference framework and the User Interface eXtensible Markup Language (UsiXML)
5.3.3 PERCOMOM: A business-based approach
5.4 Summary
6 Design knowledge description methods
6.1 Design Patterns
6.1.1 User Interface and User Interaction Design Patterns
6.1.2 Summary
6.2 Design Rationale
6.3 Summary
II Contributions
7 A model of culture to design computing tools
7.1 A sociocultural modeling approach
7.1.1 Written and Oral Language
7.1.2 Spatial structures
7.1.3 Environment and Technology
7.1.4 Social Organization
7.1.5 Nonlinguistic signs
7.1.6 Section summary
7.2 The sociocultural model applied to the Nasa case
7.2.1 The Nasa language and human-computer interaction
7.2.2 The Nasa spatial structures and their possible impact on human-computer interaction
7.2.3 The environment and technology situation in the Nasa context
7.2.4 The Nasa Social organization and its implication in HCI .
7.2.5 Nasa nonlinguistic representations and their possible place in the interaction
7.3 Conclusions
7.3.1 Summary of design hypotheses regarding the Nasa sociocultural context
8 Fieldwork and validation prototypes
8.1 The two Nasa schools involved in this thesis
8.1.1 Educational Institute of Tumbichucue
8.1.2 Centro de formación integral comunitario – CEFIC Hogares – Caldono
8.2 Validation prototypes
8.3 A pedagogical game design
8.3.1 Qualitative evaluation of exogenous educational computer games
8.3.2 Exogenous tools evaluation protocol
8.3.3 Major observations
8.3.4 Observation of local games
8.3.5 Local Games Classification with Game Patterns
8.3.6 Requirements and Pedagogical needs
8.3.7 Initial design and evaluation
8.4 A cooperative pedagogical computer platform
8.4.1 Concerned hypotheses and subsequent requirements .
8.4.2 Existing Educational Platforms
8.4.3 Initial design and blackboard-based prototype evaluation .
8.5 Conclusions
8.5.1 Peçxukwe çxuga: the whipping spinning top game
8.5.2 A Nasa adaptation of the Sugar platform
8.5.3 Results of the hypotheses evaluation
9 A design description method
9.1 Structure of Design Patterns enhanced with Design Rationale Information
9.2 Çut pwese’je (The maize game)
9.2.1 Text input
9.2.2 Meaningful graphical arrangement of a group of elements
9.3 Peçxukwe çxuga (The whipping spinning top)
9.3.1 Multi-user devices (Or making use of scarce computer resources):
9.4 Nasa adaptation of the Sugar cooperative learning platform
9.4.1 User graphical representation
9.4.2 Social interaction spaces
9.4.3 Activities sharing
9.5 Conclusions
10 Conclusions and further work
10.1 Research questions and contributions
10.1.1 A sociocultural modeling approach aimed at developing pedagogical computer tools
10.1.2 An approach to describe interactive tool design knowledge
10.2 Discussion
10.2.1 Limits of the validation
10.3 Perspectives
