Decolonisation in the Canary Islands

Decolonisation in the Canary Islands

People in the Canary Islands are not formally recognised as Indigenous peoples within Spain's legal and political frameworks.

This is despite many of the archipelago's inhabitants having ancestral connection to the first peoples of the islands.

Their ancestors, generally known as Guanches, were largely erased through death and assimilation at the hands of Spanish conquistadores. Historical records show that many were enslaved and displaced, including to the Americas.

While much Indigenous language and culture were suppressed through colonisation, living expressions endure in everyday practices across the archipelago, says AUT Senior Lecturer Elba Ramirez.

Elba was born in the Canary Islands and grew up knowing little of the history of the Canary Islands and her own Indigeneity.

However, after moving to Aotearoa as an adult and engaging with te ao Māori, she was driven to connect to this void of her own identity.

As her only means to connect was with Western thinking, Elba discussed how to go about it with AUT Senior Lecturer Taituwha King (Waikato, Ngāti Mahuta ki te hauāuru).

Taituwha gifted Elba Hutia Te Rito to sing until she found a waiata of, and for, her own ancestors.

Hutia Te Rito resonates with the Indigenous heritage of the Canary Islands because it speaks to the importance of caring for the 'heart of the harakeke (flax)', a metaphor for nurturing future generations. Canarian children are denied knowledge of how they are connected to the histories of their ancestors, impeding the re-generation of Canarian identity, Elba says.

THE ISLAND OF FUERTEVENTURA IN THE CANARY ISLANDS. CREDIT: MARTIN VALIGURSKY/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

"We need children to know who they are in relation to the Indigenous histories and stories of the Canary Islands; otherwise, where will the bellbird sing if the heart of the harakeke plant is removed?"

For example, children in the Canary Islands visiting a museum see human remains that bear witness to colonial violence - but they are displayed as historical artifacts and not as ancestors to whom the children are connected.

On returning to her homeland such an exhibition filled Elba with sorrow. "I felt the tearing of the thin skin of my soul, draining my blood from impotence and pain ... Let them rest, I repeated again and again," she wrote of her experience. "What learning does staring at human remains offer? ... Why are these remains not allowed to be returned to their original resting place or at least to a sacred resting place?"

When talking with Canary Islanders, Elba was discouraged to find that most told her that assimilation meant there is 'no one left' - this was despite them possessing an Indigenous Canarian name, living in an Indigenous Canarian-named town, or partaking in an Indigenous Canarian cultural practice such as eating gofio, a flour made from roasted/toasted grains.

"Indigenous Canarians are generally understood to be 'those people' who dwelled in the islands first, before us, rather than the ancestors we descended from."

Elba did though find a family friend, Enrique Vivancos Sola, an elder committed to preserving what Indigeneity is left in the Canary Islands.

They walked together and Enrique shared historical and ancestral knowledge and Guanche rituals. They visited rock carvings that showed Elba that the void was not empty.

"Indigenous Canarians dwell in the rocks, the land, and in all their descendants," Elba says.

"Te ao Māori provided a lens that allowed me to see through the colonialities I had inherited. The in/re-surrection within had started, and I started to actively engage with my haunted identity, the spectres in/of the land, the colonialities that haunt and endanger the Indigenous wairua and the multiple ways I imagined resurrecting the ghosts of future pasts to reclaim our Indigenous ancestry."

The path to decolonisation in the Canary Islands is complex and fraught with tensions, Elba says.

"Digital nomads and European migrants are driving up housing costs and displacing locals. And politicians are promoting mass tourism despite its devastating ecological and economic consequences."

STATUES OF GUANCHE KINGS ON THE ISLAND OF TENERIFE. CREDIT: LEVENTINA/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Another barrier is that Spain's national curriculum is applied across the islands, often marginalising Indigenous histories and cultural knowledge.

"An influx of mainland Spanish teachers, who often lack linguistic sensitivity or cultural awareness, is reinforcing colonial norms in schools."

Elba's research presents some ways that people are reclaiming what it means to belong to the Canary Islands.

She is currently working on linguistic and cultural reconstruction and revitalisation with Dr Rumén Sosa Martín, an Indigenous descendant and speaker of Amazigh, the language of people who came to the Canary Islands millennia ago.

Another Canarian that Elba has connected with is Rubén Jiménez Sánchez who teaches whistling language, a language of Indigenous heritage, in the organisation Yo Silbo.

Elba presented at WIPCE 2025, the World Indigenous Peoples' Conference on Education, hosted by AUT in November 2025. Her presentation was titled Decolonising the Canary Islands: Revitalising and Reclaiming Indigenous Heritage through Education.

As far as she is aware, it is the first time Indigenous Canarians have held space at an international Indigenous conference.

Useful links

• About Elba Ramirez
• Elba Ramirez's academic paper (paywall)
• Study languages and culture at AUT