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How do the relationships between the concept of being indigenous and the processes of ethnoeducation manifest in southwestern Colombia? This ethnographic study explores the complexities of constructing ethnic identity among the indigenous peoples of Nariño, focusing on the implementation of educational programs driven by a population perspective. By questioning the foundations of ethnoeducation from the late 20th century to the early 21st century, we establish a dialogue among various institutional agents within the broader framework of ethnic-based social organization. We also examine the historical relationships, institutional archaisms, and contemporary challenges faced by ethnic educational processes in Nariño. We conclude with insights into the construction of ethnic identity and its implications for the social order governing the interactions between community members and government representatives. We conceptualize the relationship between the State, school, and ethnic identity as a fundamental part of Colombia’s modern project, which has been in development since the republican era. The institutional framework has fluctuated between protectionist, paternalistic, and cultural assimilation policies. However, the current threats to the physical and cultural survival of ancestral peoples must be addressed through the State’s institutional mechanisms and governance technologies. These mechanisms are designed to tackle the challenges of interculturality within a complex and often contradictory framework of relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: With a modernizing discourse and business partners, former Peruvian president Alan García led the sale of indigenous Amazonian lands to oil companies. The Awajun and Wampis peoples responded, alongside national and international allies, by demanding the application of ILO Convention 169 through various mobilizations known as "el Baguazo" (2007-2009). This study analyzes, from a deliberative perspective, how the visibility of the arguments and cultural representations of indigenous peoples influenced their self-representation in the public sphere. Methodology: Based on the review of journalistic sources, government reports, statements from national and international organizations, and literature on social conflict and indigenous peoples, the chronology and discourses of the conflict were reconstructed. Conclusions: The mobilized indigenous communities self-represented, expressing their demands and cultural identities (cosmogonies, notions of territory, and development), opposing the sale of their lands. In this way, public spaces emerged, breaking into the national imagination, where sectors of the Peruvian citizenship recognized them for the first time. A network of allies reproduced and supported the indigenous arguments, lending them credibility to those who were unfamiliar with them. However, it was a partial advance as it remained limited to the cultural sphere without translating into the political realm, which is evident in the obtained Law of Prior Consultation (2011), which disregarded their sovereignty. Originality: While the literature on socioenvironmental conflicts focuses on actors and strategies, this article emphasizes the arguments of indigenous peoples, their deliberation, dissemination, and power of persuasion in the face of the rest of the Peruvian citizenry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the enactment of the 1991 Colombian Constitution, a legal and institutional framework has been established to address the political demands of multiculturalism. This article examines the incarceration of indigenous individuals in this multicultural context and highlights the various factors influencing the adoption of penal confinement as a response to indigenous criminal behavior. The article traces the process by which indigenous special jurisdiction has embraced incarceration over the past two decades and examines the potential factors that have led to transcending the multicultural boundary with imprisonment as the dominant punitive form. The emergence of a special legal subject--the incarcerated indigenous individual--indicates the outcome of this collision between legal worlds, placing them in the liminal space of identity uncertainty, reintegration impossibility, and the latent potential for the disappearance of their cultural identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to relate the very important question of the autonomy of indigenous peoples to freely make decisions about their life with the notion of indigeneity, reconceptualised as a socially constructed and deeply contested resource. Resources are more than mere static assets or quantities of matter waiting to be measured, explored or protected. Something becomes a resource through joint processes of quantification, valuation, and normalisation. Along these lines, indigeneity is not just the ascertainment of something or someone in relation to 'somewhat else', but a nexus of indigenous peoples' self-realisation and political intervention. To be indigenous is to exist politically in space and in relation to antagonist forces and processes that constantly downgrade their ethnic and social condition. Indigeneity is, thus, a resource that presupposes the value and the fight for their rights and for other (so-called) indigenous resources found in their lands. The main contribution here is the claim that indigeneity is a ground-breaking resource and a reaction formulated in the interstices of the old and new machineries of market-oriented coloniality. Indigeneity is reinterpreted as a special, highly politicised resource that directly and indirectly opposes processes of world grabbing and the appropriation of other territorialised resources from indigenous areas. It is concluded that indigeneity, as a resourceful resource, has become a key factor in the process of external and internal recognition, which galvanises political mobilisation and instigates novel forms of interaction. What makes indigenous peoples more and more unique is also what makes them share a socio-political struggle with allied, subaltern social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: The year 2021 marked the 50th anniversary of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC), the first organization established in Colombia to fight for territorial and identity rights of Indigenous Peoples. From a historical perspective and proposing an approach related to the concept of resistance, this paper focuses on how this latter has been expressed through this indigenous movement since its inception. Methodology: The information and reflections presented here are based on a corpus of bibliographical and documentary sources, as well as on a follow-up of the political mobilizations of indigenous peoples in situ, in the media, digital social networks, official minutes, and other statements. Conclusions: The analysis reveals the persistence of indigenous resistance and an expansion of the project that accompanies it, from a struggle for land and territory to efforts carried out along with other actors and social organizations to create a "better world." Originality: The originality of the article consists of an analysis of the political dimensions of the resistance of Indigenous Peoples, which are still little known. In addition, it offers a novel approach to stress the intersection of (sub) national and global dynamics in which the demands of Indigenous Peoples and issues related to Colombia's society and the whole world converge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective/Context: This paper analyzes the discourse of three supranational policy instruments produced by the International Labour Organization and the United Nations regarding the political participation of Indigenous Peoples. We argue that these discourses promote a utilitarian view of the environment and pose severe limitations on substantial political participation by Indigenous Peoples. Methodology: To support this thesis, we present the results of a Critical Discourse Analysis that reveals how political participation is shaped through discourses, social actors are represented within hierarchical relationships, and nature is defined in terms of an exploitable resource. Conclusions: Our conclusions show that these documents stimulate a form of political involvement by Indigenous Peoples that excludes the administrative and political consequences of dissent and that represents consent as the only possible outcome. Nonetheless, further research is necessary to understand the resonance of these policy instruments within national legal frameworks and their political, environmental, and cultural effects. Originality: The article challenges the conventional assumptions that the success of supranational policies on Indigenous Peoples' participation depends on the efficiency of their implementation process. Instead, it proposes a discursive comprehension based on the social practices and power relationships that configurate the policies' discourse to the detriment of substantial political participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Procesos Historicos is the property of Universidad de Los Andes (Venezuela) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Latin American Law Review is the property of Universidad de los Andes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Latin American Law Review is the property of Universidad de los Andes and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 2009, the Colombian Constitutional Court issued ruling Auto 004, declaring 34 indigenous groups as being at risk of extermination due to the internal armed conflict and ordered the Colombian government, led by the Interior Ministry, to protect them. Since then, although the critical situation persists, the government has proven its compliance with the Court's order through a documentation process. The purpose of this article is to examine the role of documentation in mediating legal protection in a violent context. Based on yearlong participant observation at the Colombian Interior Ministry, the study approaches the production of the government's documentary response as an artifact. It addresses its formulation and context within the institutional setting, the discussions regarding what to include and what to exclude, and the decisions that shape its content. It highlights how the assembled document enchants, by skillfully combining the aesthetics and technical aspects. It illustrates how numbers that portray compliance are constructed and displayed in the document, while concealing the failure to make the changes that were ordered: a phenomenon termed here as complying incompliantly. The paper's originality lies in deconstructing the powerful governmental sophism of money invested as compliance with an obligation, through ethnographic attention to the document. Likewise, the analysis is part of the challenge dealt with by studies of the gap between law and reality, by suggesting that the problem lies not in a gap between well-intended law and the violent reality that overflows it but rather in the way this "gap" is filled by complex documenting processes. As such, the paper contributes to the anthropological studies on law, documentation and accountability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a reflection on the articulation between Colombian elites and indigenousness based on two processes that have reflected a democratic opening in this country: official recognition since 1991 of the fact that Colombia is a diverse nation, and the insertion of indigenous political forces into the electoral arena. More specifically, the article places emphasis on the elites' perception of indigenous people from colonial times to the present day. At the same time, it focuses on the rise of public figures that can be considered a --new-- indigenous elite, whose action confronts expressions of power and authorities that are considered communal and traditional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing the problem of the traditional relegation of certain sectors of the population, the Peruvian state has established quotas for the participation of women, youths and indigenous people in the lists for popular elections. Although none of these measures applies to all of the electoral processes, it is the so-called "native quota" that seems to present the greatest challenges. With the Regional and Municipal Elections of 2014 having been called, this article reviews their main characteristics, analyzing both the results and the new features introduced into the process, the same ones that constitute a milestone in the history of the country regarding the treatment of this population in electoral terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International Human Rights Law has undergone a transformation and renovation in the past twenty years with respect to indigenous groups, awarding them a series of prerogatives such as a status of their own in International Public Law, under the category of peoples. In this way, the implications of having the condition of and being recognized as a people necessarily lead to establishing self-determination as a human right of these groups. However, despite this recognition, many indigenous peoples continue to be marginalized within Latin American states today. For example, some countries of the region continue to grant transnationals large concessions within the territories of their indigenous peoples, without going through the procedure of Prior Consultation as stipulated in international and as well as in national laws, thus ignoring the indigenous peoples' right to self-determination. In the face of this problem, it was considered important to analyze the extent to which said right is being protected within the Colombian state, and a qualitative research project with documentary analysis was undertaken for that purpose. In this context, the the fundamental conclusion reached in the study was the absence of any real regulation to effectively guarantee the self-determination of indigenous peoples in Colombia. In fact, the very existence of true legal pluralism in the terms described in Article 1 of the Political Constitution of 1991 comes into question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the recognition of cultural diversity in Mexico in the mid-1990s, legislative reforms on indigenous issues, including justice, began to take place in different areas. This article presents the case of the Indigenous Court established by the Superior Court of the state of Puebla in the municipality of Cuetzalan, a region mostly inhabited by indigenous Nahua people, hence the interest in showing the impact of government measures on local cultural practices and values. I analyze interlegal relations based on the everyday experience of the court, focusing both on bureaucratization and on the procedures for conflict resolution. I thus open up the debate on the legitimacy of writing over orality, showing the importance of the dynamics of attention as an arena of dispute between indigenous legal systems and the justice administered by the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2009 an indigenous organization called the OPIC (Pluricultural Organization of the Indigenous Peoples of Cauca) appeared in Colombia whose political position differed drastically from that of the country's mainstream indigenous organizations since it openly endorsed the government of Álvaro Uribe. As noted immediately by some journalists and political analysts, it was believed to have been the result of a government strategy to create a division in one sector of the opposition. Such an explanation, however, is reductionist. This article aims to show, by taking advantage both of Gramsci's notion of "passive revolution" and of some features of Discourse Analysis, how the rise of the OPIC was also due to a process of ideological identification of a sector of the indigenous population of Cauca that had deep historical roots in Evangelicalism with the politics of Uribismo. The paper thus seeks to show to what extent it is possible to talk about a right-wing indigenous movement in Colombia based on an understanding of the political dimension of religion and contrary to those who consider the rise of the OPIC to be simply the result of a divisionist and clientelist strategy employed by the Uribe government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I analyze here the importance of religion in Guatemala during the conflict and post-conflict periods through: i) the "new" structures of social mobilization during the sixties and seventies; ii) religion as rhetorical practice and field of power; iii) the territorialization of memory policies; and iv) the processes of recovering historical memory. I argue against theories about secularism that coincide with some interpretations of identity that tend to separate and reproduce binary oppositional categories that prevent recognition of ambiguous, dynamic and complex social identities. I explain why a historical-anthropological perspective on space facilitates a more effective understanding of mobile and transversal societies in their processes of becoming constituted, political positioning, and interpreting the past. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the divergence between, on the one hand, the state's obligation to safeguard the rights of indigenous peoples and, on the other, defend national security. Thus, reference is made to the (inter)nationally recognized indigenous right to self-determination, as well as to norms and practices that regulate military activities in ancestral territories. It is argued that the alternative generally proposed to the absolute primacy of national security is a healthy balance between the aforementioned state obligations. However, what does this mean for indigenous autonomy? Has it always been conceived as "indefinitely limited" by security concerns, or could it be that in the name of national security only a certain type of indigenous autonomy can be recognized: a defenceless autonomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the resettlement policies enacted by the Colombian government in 2005 as a response to the danger of eruption of the Galeras volcano, with a particular focus on the territory of Jenoy. The authors comment on the indigenous population in this region and describe the history of their relationship with the Colombian government dating back to the colonial era. The re-establishment of the Cabildo Indígena (Indigenous Council) as a consequence of the government-sponsored resettlement is also explored.

This paper studies three mobilization episodes in which indigenous, feminists and state crimes victims litigated before the Constitutional Court. After showing which effects can be founded using a perspective focused on the study of judicial decisions, we propose a broader approach to their study that conceives the constitutional legal mobilizations as truly collective actions. The paper states that, from that standpoint, it is possible to identify how the interaction between the State and these three movements has change, as well as their internal transformations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on indigenous newcomers to the political field in the 1990's. Drawing on the repertoire of human rights and the principle of self-determination, they have tried to penetrate such field in order to subvert the hierarchy of political competition. These representatives, initially dominated, managed to be part of the constitutional drafting. Although their social position in that stage was far from ideal, they were able to generate interactions with traditional and nontraditional elites, using a scenario of "political opportunity structure", which made it possible for agents such as Lorenzo Muelas to initiate partnerships and negotiate projects for a new unprecedented political agreement. In that way, indigenous people managed to turn around the ancient ethnic capital stigma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Indigenous leaders are key players for the survival of the indigenous peoples of Colombia, who are at risk of physical and cultural extermination due to the armed conflict and its related factors. This paper critically analyzes the adoption and implementation of differential ethnic approach in the protection of indigenous leaders. The protection program for human rights defenders – including indigenous leaders- in charge of the National Protection Unit of the Ministry of Interior is analyzed in depth. Dilemmas of protecting indigenous leaders as such, in all its specificity and not as any citizens, are also studied. The paper ends with some conclusions and recommendations aiming an effective inclusion of a differential ethnic approach in protecting indigenous leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers a concept of linguistic reparative justice for indigenous peoples, that is, reparative measures addressing the consequences of conquest and colonization on indigenous languages. Particular attention is given to Colombia, where the cultures of indigenous communities have been further afflicted by the armed conflict, in regards to whether the recent native languages law can play a remedial role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to identify what takes place in a particular space of dialogue: the Mesa Permanente de Concertación in Colombia. First, the history of the Mesa is briefly discussed. Second, the dialogue's dynamic between State and indigenous representatives is addressed by analyzing two sessions of the Mesa in 2012. Third, the alleged success of the Decreto Ley de Víctimas 4633 of 2011 is questioned. Fourth, three challenges are identified: delegation, representaron, and the institutionalization of dialogue. In conclusion, it is argued that the dialogue taking place in the Mesa contains its own end so that its objective is always already fulfilled. Indigenous peoples have been heard, regardless of whether any implementation is given to their opinions and suggestions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A well-established assumption among human rights defenders is that all victims of massive human rights violations want to see the perpetrators brought to court. This article, based upon multi-sited ethnographic field research among Maya Q'eqchi' victims and perpetrators in post-conflict Guatemala, analyzes the local and cultural understanding that indigenous survivors' have of the armed conflict as Well as their concepts of justice and reconciliation. It is argued that at the vernacular of indigenous communities' visions exists --embedded in their indigenous normative order and cosmovision-- that challenge and problematize the dominant paradigm of transitional justice. In fact, from Q'eqchi' point of view, impunity --as defined by international law-- is not the end of accountability nor truth, reparation or reconciliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his novels The Green House (1966), The Storyteller (1989) and Death in the Andes (1996), Mario Vargas Llosa reinforces the dominant visions in which the Peruvian Andes and jungle are portrayed as the realms of barbarism and savagery respectively--as opposed to the Coast, which is considered the civilized center of the nation. I discuss how he resuscitates topics like cannibalism and the extirpation of idolatries in colonial times, clearly employing the linear evolutionism of the nineteenth century. He uses these familiar tropes and images to characterize, as did his predecessors, indigenous people as savages, cannibals and pagans who constitute an obstacle for the development of Peru in a neoliberal and global world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While memory has been a privileged topic of analysis to understand (post) conflict situations, other ways to regulate the temporality of the victims have received less attention. The metaphors on reparation as a "debt to the victims" are deeply rooted in the language of transitional justice. In this article, based on ethnographic work with indigenous Wayuu communities, the language of debt is analyzed as part of the legitimatizing function of truth and reparation processes undertaken by the State. The central argument is that notions of reparation and debt, when dealing with subjects previously marginalized by violence, involve ways of inscribing state sovereignty through the regulation of temporality. Reparations are then transformed into a permanent delay where the future cannot be seen apart from the submission to the State as sovereign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the presence of slavery in the Valle de El Tocuyo (Valley of the Tocuyo) in Venezuela beginning in the mid-16th century. It examines the history of the settlement of the region, including the settlers' economic dependence on cotton. The authors explore the introduction of slaves to the region, including the use of the indigenous population to pick and weave cotton as well as the process of the abolition of slavery in 1854. They also provide a statistical analysis of the slave population in the region, citing historical documents such as censuses and other demographic records.

Based on some contemporary narrations by southwestern indigenous peoples, this article proposes a conceptual reflection on the making of "lo indígena" in Colombia in relation to the genocidal processes rooted in modernity. It is argued that the political and ethical significance of the identities, historical consciousness, and political subjectivities of "lo indígena" emerges from within historical experiences of violence whose institutionalization and effects in today modern/colonial world can be seen in terms of a "genocidal continuum". The article also shows that the practices sustaining "lo indígena" are part of embodied cultural memories and forms of moral memory where narratives of suffering, claims to justice, and actions of resistance are closely linked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A journey through the anthropology of war in indigenous cultures of the Amazon region, this article studies the anthropophagi attributed to them, making clear the magnitude and reasons of this practice in the zone. It analyzes travel reports and anthropological studies to explain the different meanings of this practice given by the natives, as well as the complex relation they established between the killer and the devoured enemy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]