Between Knowledge and Territories: A Systematic Review of Critical Interculturality and Decoloniality in Colombian Rural Education

Abstract

This article aims to evaluate the inclusion and diversity practices implemented in a Colombian rural school in order to determine whether they correspond to a model of functional interculturality, focused on the recognition of diversity, or whether they move toward critical and decolonial intercultural approaches that foster the transformation of power relations, cognitive justice, the defense of the commons, territorial autonomy, and the recognition of the knowledge systems and cultures of rural communities. Through a systematic literature review guided by the PRISMA methodology, thirty indexed scientific articles published between 2021 and 2026 were analyzed, contrasting the empirical evidence with the Epistemologies of the South. The results demonstrate the persistence of a functional interculturality that renders asymmetries invisible through folklorization and Eurocentric curricula, implemented through a one-size-fits-all model and shaped by the coloniality of knowledge and epistemic violence. It is concluded that there is an urgent need to move toward a curriculum grounded in the ecology of knowledges and participatory parity within rural Institutional Educational Projects.