Paraguay Expedition Offers a Different View of Human Resilience

SEATTLE - Rezul -- Acceptance is often associated with resilience. But findings from The Human Resilience Project's (THRP) latest expedition suggest that the relationship is more complicated when people believe the circumstances causing their hardship can still be changed.

Led by Constance Scharff, PhD, the October 3–17 expedition examined how members of Paraguay's Avá Guaraní Paranaense Tekoha Sauce community maintain identity and wellbeing following displacement connected to the Itaipú hydroelectric project. Researchers completed nine semi-structured interviews while in the field with community and spiritual leaders, educators, and young people near Laurel, Canindeyú.

The expedition was the fourth in THRP's planned ten-site inquiry into how communities sustain meaning and belonging under adversity. Earlier fieldwork identified acceptance of change as one contributor to resilience. In Paraguay, participants described a different response: maintaining cultural life while continuing to seek a return to ancestral territory.

"The central adversity is not that change must be endured, but an unresolved dispossession that community members believe was unjust and remains potentially correctable," Scharff writes in the expedition report.

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Participants distinguished between territory submerged by the reservoir and land taken in connection with the project that remains above water. That distinction helps explain why they regard displacement as an unresolved situation rather than a completed historical event.

What Sustains a Community

The research identified four interconnected themes, interpreted within the community's particular cultural context. Italicized words are Guaraní.

• Oga apua (uplifting the home): Prayer, ritual, family, language, and memory help sustain an inner and spiritual home during displacement.
• Tekoha and y (land and water): Participants described their forest, ancestral burial places, and the Alto Paraná River as essential to identity and spiritual life, rather than interchangeable with similar places elsewhere.
• Mbo'ekaturã (teaching and cultural continuity): Bilingual Guaraní–Spanish books and an Indigenous-based curriculum help children prepare for wider society while maintaining their heritage.
• Teco (justice and harmony): Participants connected wellbeing to resolving the loss of ancestral territory. Grief and anger could sustain memory and purpose alongside hope.

Education emerged as a particularly significant finding. Community-produced learning materials incorporate language, history, and cultural values, while spiritual leaders participate in school life as often as possible. The approach allows formal education and cultural continuity to reinforce one another.

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Strengths and Unresolved Difficulties

The report also documents challenges within the community. Younger participants said their views received insufficient attention from leadership. Researchers observed women sometimes being interrupted, and accounts of interrupted university study raised questions about educational opportunity. Cultural strength, the report notes, does not mean a community is free of conflict or material hardship.

The findings suggest that researchers and practitioners should consider relationships, cultural continuity, and attachment to place alongside individual coping. The report also recommends a transparent, community-participatory process addressing ancestral land restitution and reparative measures, including meaningful participation by women and young people.

The study is qualitative and reflects nine volunteers, not the entire community or all Avá Guaraní people. Severe weather limited access, and similarities in some responses suggested possible preparation before interviews. The findings do not establish universal principles or clinical treatment outcomes.

Like the previous three expeditions, the expedition in Paraguay carried Explorers Club Flag 12 and a Rolex Expedition watch.

About The Human Resilience Project

Led by Constance Scharff, PhD, THRP studies how communities preserve meaning, belonging, and wellbeing under adversity. Its first four expeditions have included the Gabra of Kenya, Māori communities in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Iñupiat communities in Alaska, and the Avá Guaraní Paranaense Tekoha Sauce community in Paraguay.