Language is Identity: Eugenia Urrere on Indigenous Voices, Tech, and Transformation

What does it mean to give a language its place in the digital world?

For Eugenia Urrere, it means preserving culture, fighting erasure, and empowering Indigenous communities through technology and dignity. In Episode 35 of Connected Conversations, host Elena Petrova speaks with Eugenia about her work as the founder of Indigenius, a language service provider built to center Indigenous languages and native speakers, not just as translators, but as linguistic stewards.

The Mission of Indigenius

Founded in 2020, Indigenius was born from Eugenia’s realization that most localization platforms overlooked Indigenous languages—or treated them as an afterthought.

Today, Indigenius partners with governments, tech companies, and Indigenous communities to:

• Digitize Indigenous and underrepresented languages

• Provide fair employment for Indigenous professionals

• Localize content with cultural authenticity and nuance

• Raise awareness of linguistic diversity beyond the mainstream

For Eugenia, it’s about more than language access. It’s about language justice.

Localization with Respect, Not Extraction

Throughout the episode, Eugenia emphasizes the need to move away from exploitative or extractive practices in language work. Working with Indigenous languages requires deep listening, community collaboration, and a commitment to not diluting meaning for speed or scale.

Instead of retrofitting languages into Western tech tools, Indigenius adapts the tech to fit the cultural and grammatical realities of each language.

From Latin America to the World

Though Indigenius began with Latin American Indigenous languages, Eugenia is now expanding the platform’s work to other native and minority languages around the world.

What connects them all, she says, is their underrepresentation and their resilience. Whether it's Quechua or Nahuatl, Cherokee or Mapudungun, these languages carry centuries of knowledge, resistance, and identity.

Why This Work Matters Now

In a time where AI-generated translations dominate the market, Eugenia reminds us of something critical:

“Language is not just a tool - it’s a universe. It holds the way we think, love, govern, and grieve.”

Indigenius is a response to linguistic homogenization. It’s a call to action for linguists, technologists, and institutions to prioritize inclusion not just by numbers, but by culture.

You can watch/listen to this episode here:

🟡 Website: https://ad-astrainc.com/podcast/language-as-resistance-eugenia-urrere-on-indigenous-voices

🔴 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxB8LS5Hp-Y

🟢 Spotify: https://shorturl.at/Fe20f

⚫ Apple Podcast: https://shorturl.at/eRiqD

🔵 Amazon Music: https://shorturl.at/4A5KG