Guayusadas and thick mapping: co-design with the Achuar in the Ecuadorian Amazon

This paper introduces a situated methodological approach in co-design through a distinctive form of thick mapping developed with the Achuar community of Sharamentsa in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Here, thick mapping emerges from ritual epistemologies, forest walks, dreams, and storytelling to structure decision-making and spatial design. Two tools anchor this process. First, Guayusada – a pre-dawn communal ritual of guayusa tea drinking, dreaming, and collective reflection – functioned as a deliberative method for consensus-building. Second, these guayusadas reframed conventional design charrettes, generating Achuar-based participatory spaces where ritual, storytelling, and model-making converged. In this methodology, ritual was not separated from design; ritual ways of knowing directly guided the co-design process. Distinct from state-led or NGO-mediated frameworks, this counter-project arose from the community’s invitation to collaborate with a trusted architect, producing both a master plan for an educational campus and a proposal for an office building. The emphasis lies on method: how decisions were shaped through ritual dialogue, embodied participation, and ecological practice, and how mapping was thickened by Achuar cosmology and knowledge systems. By demonstrating how pluriversal approaches—as articulated by Escobar (2018) and Walsh (2018)—can emerge directly from Indigenous epistemologies, this paper advances co-design methodology and offers situated, non-universalist pathways for participatory practice.