Abstract Intercultural Disagreement: Implementing the Right to Prior Consultation in Peru

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Intercultural Disagreement: Implementing the Right to Prior Consultation in Peru

by Carmen Ilizarbe

How do state and indigenous representatives process disagreement? What challenges does cultural difference pose to intercultural dialogue? An analysis of the debates that preceded the implementation of the right to prior consultation of indigenous peoples in Peru points to the normative orientation toward consensus that informs the design of processes of intercultural dialogue and concludes that the structure and foundations of disagreement must be taken into account for fair, democratic dialogue to exist.

Introduction, Open Veins Revisited: The New Extractivism in Latin America, Part 2

:::::: Introduction ::::::

Open Veins Revisited: The New Extractivism in Latin America, Part 2

by Linda Farthing and Nicole Fabricant

This second issue on the current boom in extractivism reverberating throughout Latin America expands the discussion of the economic, social, and political impacts of expanded extractivism and the perpetuation of Latin America’s status as a source of raw materials for industries located elsewhere that was developed in the first collection of articles on this topic (LAP 45 [5]) . Reflecting the wide range of topics related to extractivism, certain themes from the first issue find a home here, ranging from national policy making to indigenous and women’s rights and environmental justice.

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Political Report # 1386 Women-Led Radio Station Amplifies Voices of Indigenous Communities in Argentina

By Daniel Gutman Toward Freedom

(IPS) - The seed was planted more than 20 years ago by a group of indigenous women who began to gather to try to recover memories from their people. Today, women are also the main protagonists of La Voz Indígena (The Indigenous Voice), a unique radio station in northern Argentina that broadcasts every day in seven languages. “At first the leaders asked us why we didn’t stay at home, taking care of the children and grandchildren. Today these men come to take refuge under the roof of these women,” Felisa Mendoza, a Guaraní woman, told IPS in one of the radio station’s large, colorful rooms, decorated with murals painted by indigenous artists. The two-story building is just a few meters from the bus terminal in Tartagal, a city of some 80,000 inhabitants in the province of Salta, just 50 kilometers from the Bolivian border. On the western edge of the Gran Chaco lowland plain, at the foothills of the mountain ranges that announce that the Andes are not far away, Tartagal was founded less than 100 years ago in a hot land, both in terms of climate and social situation. The discovery of oil and gas deposits marked the boom and decline of this city and the neighboring city of General Mosconi, whose names are associated in Argentina with the violent social conflict of the 1990s, triggered by massive layoffs at the national oil company YPF, as part of the neoliberal policies of then president Carlos Menem (1989-1999). Seven indigenous peoples live in this area: Guaraní, Wichí, Chané, Toba, Chulupi, Tapiete and Chorote. While for decades indigenous peoples were displaced from their territories by oil, forestry, cattle ranching and urban expansion, in the last 20 years the trigger has been the expansion of the agricultural frontier. The daily struggle for land is reflected by the T-shirt worn by Aída Valdez, a member of the women’s commission that runs the station, which reads: “No to the evictions of indigenous communities.”

Abstract, Titles of Contention: Sociocultural Change and Conflict over Legalization of Indigenous Lands in Southeastern Ecuador

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Titles of Contention: Sociocultural Change and Conflict over Legalization of Indigenous Lands in Southeastern Ecuador
by Raúl Márquez Porras, María Beatriz Eguiguren Riofrío, and Ana Vera Vera



Shuar communities in southeastern Ecuador are receiving collective property titles to their ancestral lands. This is being done as a way to guarantee their material and cultural survival, but the titling triggers sociocultural changes and conflict and its outcomes depend largely on the way it is implemented. The consequences of the titling process in communities in Nangaritza and El Pangui in which Shuar, Saraguro, and mestizos coexist include both tensions and informal arrangements to resolve the historically conflictive issue of access to the land.

Abstract, Constructing Indigenous Autonomy in Plurinational Bolivia: Possibilities and Ambiguities

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Constructing Indigenous Autonomy in Plurinational Bolivia: Possibilities and Ambiguities 
by Aaron Augsburger and Paul Haber 


The municipality of Charagua recently became the first autonomía indígena originaria campesina (autonomous indigenous peasant community) in Bolivia under the 2009 plurinational constitution. A coalition of indigenous leaders backed by a majority of voters embraced the change as a vehicle for bolstering local control over key decisions, thereby advancing local preferences for indigenous forms of governance, values, and control over the development model with special attention to natural resources. The possibility remains, however, that it may operate to incorporate the indigenous community into the governing apparatus, thus making it more legible to the state and open to new forms of regulation, management, and control. Examining the state as a historically contingent and socially determined relationship helps make sense of this situation.

Abstract, Globalization, Governance, and the Emergence of Indigenous Autonomy Movements in Latin America: The Case of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Globalization, Governance, and the Emergence of Indigenous Autonomy Movements in Latin America: The Case of the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua 
by Luciano Baracco


A revisiting of Salvador Martí i Puig’s approach to globalization and the turn toward governance in explaining the roots and impact of the political mobilization of Latin America’s indigenous peoples since the 1990s recasts governance as a disciplinary regime that in the case of Nicaragua co-opted potentially radical oppositional movements into the neoliberal project that accompanied Latin America’s democratic transition. The discussion takes as its empirical case the autonomy process on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, which in its twenty-fifth year represents the most sustained devolution of power to indigenous peoples in Latin America. 

Political Report # 1381 Changing climate forces desperate Guatemalans to migrate

Story and Photographs by Gena Steffens National Geographic

Jocotán, Chiquimula, GuatemalaEduardo Méndez López lifts his gaze to the sky, hoping to see clouds laden with rain. After months of subsisting almost exclusively on plain corn tortillas and salt, his eyes and cheeks appear sunken in, his skin stretched thin over bone. The majority of his neighbors look the same. It’s the height of rainy season in Guatemala, but in the village of Conacaste, Chiquimula, the rains came months too late, then stopped altogether. Méndez López’s crops shriveled and died before producing a single ear of corn. Now, with a dwindling supply of food, and no source of income, he’s wondering how he’ll be able to feed his six young children. “This is the worst drought we’ve ever had,” says Méndez López, toeing the parched earth with the tip of his boot. “We’ve lost absolutely everything. If things don’t improve, we’ll be forced to migrate somewhere else. We can’t go on like this.” Guatemala is consistently listed among the world’s 10 most vulnerable nations to the effects of climate change. Increasingly erratic climate patterns have produced year after year of failed harvests and dwindling work opportunities across the country, forcing more and more people like Méndez López to consider migration in a last-ditch effort to escape skyrocketing levels of food insecurity and poverty.

Latest LAP Issue!

Immigrants, Indigenous People, and Workers Pursuing Justice

Issue 223 | Volume 45 | Number 6 | November 2018

Table of Contents

This issue of Latin American Perspectives includes several key clusters of current topics that are very much in the forefront of political discussion.  These are: immigration, indigenous rights, labor, and politics.  Within each cluster there are articles that look at a case study or an overall aspect of public policy and even political and economic theory.  This issue features contributions to discussions of displaced peoples, resistance to displacement and the struggles of workers in Argentina. 

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English

Political Report # 1371 Indigenous Communities Reject Oil Drilling in Block 10

by Moira Birss and Carlos Mazabanda, NACLA

Unknown assailants attacked Salomé Aranda’s home on May 13, hurling rocks at her house and threatening her family. Aranda is a Kichwa leader in the Ecuadorian Amazon and an outspoken critic of Italian oil giant ENI, which has operated in the region for 28 years and plans to expand drilling into new fields in the so-called “Block 10” oil concession. There is nothing circumstantial about the attack against Aranda. She belongs to the Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras De La Selva De Las Bases Frente Al Extractivismo (Women Defenders of the Amazon Rainforest Against Natural Resource Extraction collective), and was one of the representatives who met with Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno on March 22 after ongoing protests against the new concession. In that meeting, Aranda highlighted the social and environmental impacts of the “Block 10” oil drilling concessions, located in the Amazon rainforest 160 miles southeast of the capital city Quito. Among other demands, she and her fellow environmental defenders called on the government to cancel resource concessions in the south-central Amazon to free Indigenous lands of oil, mining, logging, and other extractive industries. Soon after the meeting, the Italian nonprofit organization A Sud confronted ENI at its annual shareholder meeting in Italy in early May over the lack of community consent for its drilling operations in Ecuador. Days later, Aranda’s home was attacked.

Abstract, Indigenous Peoples and the New Extraction: From Territorial Rights to Hydrocarbon Citizenship in the Bolivian Chaco

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Indigenous Peoples and the New Extraction: From Territorial Rights to Hydrocarbon Citizenship in the Bolivian Chaco
by Penelope Anthias 


A growing body of literature examines how the rise of “neo-extractivist” states in Latin America is reconfiguring the relationship between resources, nation, territory, and citizenship. However, the implications for indigenous territorial projects remain underexplored. Ethnographic research in the Bolivian Chaco reveals the ways in which indigenous territorial projects are becoming implicated in and being reimagined amidst the spatializing struggles of a hydrocarbon state. The tension between indigenous peoples’ desire for inclusion in a hydrocarbon-based national development project and their experiences of dispossession by an expanding hydrocarbon frontier has given rise to competing modes of “hydrocarbon citizenship” in the Guaraní territory Itika Guasu, where a vision of corporate-sponsored indigenous autonomy is pitted against new forms of state-funded development patronage. These dynamics challenge resistance narratives and resource-curse theories, revealing how resources act as conduits for deeper postcolonial struggles over territory, sovereignty, and citizenship.

Political Report # 1366 Tribes in deep water: gold, guns and the Amazon's last frontier

by Dom Phillips, The Guardian

Francisco Lima sits in the wooden watchtower, flicking a searchlight on and off as he surveys the dark river for the commercial fishermen who pillage the rivers of the Javari Valley, a remote indigenous reserve on Brazil’s Peruvian border. His watchtower guards rivers leading into this reserve, home to 6,000 people from eight tribes, each with its own languages and customs, and the world’s highest concentration of “non-contacted” indigenous groups. Only authorised visitors and indigenous locals are allowed to enter. But the 12-volt light that Lima, 55, is operating is unlikely to stop intruders. “There’s a shortcut,” he says, pointing into the gloom to show how a waterway bypasses the base, which belongs to the Brazilian government’s indigenous agency, Funai. He explains how fishermen flood their canoes, immerse themselves in water, and float silently under the searchlight’s beam. “There’s a shortcut,” he says, pointing into the gloom to show how a waterway bypasses the base, which belongs to the Brazilian government’s indigenous agency, Funai. He explains how fishermen flood their canoes, immerse themselves in water, and float silently under the searchlight’s beam. This gaggle of wooden huts perched on stilts above the river is one of four Funai bases in the Javari Valley, a wilderness of thick forest, steep ravines and corkscrewing rivers with no roads or cellphone networks - or police. Anacondas and alligators lurk in Javari’s rivers; snakes, jaguars and scorpions roam its forests; monkeys screech in its trees; and it has a lush, tangled beauty mankind has yet to spoil. For more than a decade after the reserve was set up in 1998, its 16 uncontacted indigenous tribes were among the best protected in Brazil. Yet today it is invaded on multiple fronts, leaving its isolated groups - who hunt with bows and arrows or blow-pipes, and avoid contact with modern society - at risk. Contact with outsiders can be deadly for these groups, who lack immunity to diseases like flu. “The vulnerability of these peoples is growing,” Beto Marubo, a Javari indigenous leader, told the United Nations permanent forum on indigenous issues in New York in April. “There is no effective protection.”

Political Report # 1364 Brazil: murder of indigenous leader highlights threat to way of life

by Flávia Milhorance, The Guardian

Indigenous people in the Brazilian Amazon are mourning the murder of a community leader who campaigned to protect the forest from logging amid escalating violence in the region. Jorginho Guajajara, a cacique, or leader, of the Guajajara people, was found dead near a river in the city of Arame, Maranhão state, at the weekend. Members of the tribe say his death was the result of a fierce conflict provoked by the incursion of loggers into their land. Up to 80 Guajajaras have been killed in the area since 2000. “Jorginho’s body was found dumped by a stream which is renowned for being a dumping ground for Guajajaras killed by loggers or people connected to them,” said Sarah Shenker, a senior researcher at Survival International, the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights. Guajajara supported a group called the Guardians of Amazon, who have taken direct action to reduce illegal logging in the Araeibóia reserve in Maranhão state: tying up loggers, burning their trucks and tractors, and kicking them off the reserves. The Guardians say they defend the forest for their families and for the uncontacted Awá people that live in the same territory.

Political Report # 1348 “Never Again Can There Be a Mexico Without Indigenous Peoples:” Recovering Native Languages in Mexico

By Daniela Pastrana, Toward Freedom

(IPS) - Ángel Santiago is a Mexican teenager who speaks one of the variations of the Zapotec language that exists in the state of Oaxaca, in the southwest of Mexico. Standing next to the presidential candidate who is the favorite for the July elections, he calls for an educational curriculum that “respects our culture and our languages.” Juan José García Ortiz, a teacher who is also mayor of Guelatao, a small town in this southwestern state, speaks in Zapotec and Spanish about the problems of education in Mexico, and ends with a message: “Never again can there be a Mexico without indigenous peoples.” So does the poet Irma Pineda López, who reads the commitments drafted by the country’s best-organised teachers’ union, from Oaxaca, the state with the largest indigenous population in Mexico and where 418 of the 570 municipalities have a majority indigenous population and are governed by native customs. The presidential candidate, leftist Andrés Manuel López Obrador, nods. Next to him is Susana Harp, a prominent international singer of traditional Zapotec music, who is a candidate for the Senate for the presidential candidate’s party, Morena. Behind them is Esteban Moctezuma, who López Obrador plans to appoint as minister of education if he wins the Jul. 1 elections. This scene took place on May 12 in the town where the only indigenous president of Mexico, Benito Juárez (1858-1872), was born. On this occasion, López Obrador presented his proposal to reform education in the country and, remarkably, all the participants spoke first in their native mother tongue and then in Spanish. One of the candidate’s campaign pledges is to establish bilingual schools in all regions with an indigenous majority. The event in Guelatao is a sign of a new phenomenon that has begun to slowly emerge in the country: the recovery of native languages. More speakers In the last decade, according to the population census conducted every five years by the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi), the number of speakers of indigenous languages in Mexico increased 20 percent, practically at the same rate as the population growth. In fact, for the first time in 80 years, the downward trend in the population of speakers of native languages has stopped.

Political Report # 1341 The Mapuche Indigenous Struggle in Chile Continues Centuries of Resistance

By Jeff Abbot, Toward Freedom

The indigenous communities of southern Chile have seen the dispossession of their lands for private interests for centuries. Their resistance has been met by a systematic criminalization by the Chilean state. Recently, this long struggle entered a new phase in one struggling Mapuche community. On March 28, Alejandra Araneda and Violeta Araneda went before a judge in the municipality of Concepción for charges related to their 2016 occupation of roughly ten acres of land owned by one of Chile’s most powerful logging companies. “For years we have suffered from persecution,” said Elvira Sánchez, the spokeswoman for the activists’ land occupation. Sánchez herself also faces charges for the theft of lumber related to the occupation of land. The three are part of the recuperation of land in the Curanilahue area of Bío Bio region, which was once home to the Huilliche peoples - which is a branch of the Mapuche peoples of southern Chile - before business interests displaced them. The activists occupied land owned by the Chilean logging firm Forestal Arauco S.A, which is a subsidiary of the powerful Angelini Group. Over 60 families formed the community on the occupied land. Member named their new community Construyendo Futuro (Constructing the Future). Since the recuperation began, the community has greatly expanded, with families constructing numerous houses. Since the occupation began, the community has faced consistent intimidation from the Chilean police and armed forces. “We are asking nothing else from the government [of right-wing President Sebastián Piñera], we are only asking for the land,” said Sánchez. “There is no place to consturuct housing or terrain to live a dignified life. Because of this we launched the recuperation of the land.” As the activists went before the judge, other members of the resistance filed an appeal to the charges. On April 23 of this year, the Chilean police arrived at the occupation to announce another investigation into the number of families living in the growing community. The residents fear that this could lead to their eviction. For centuries, the indigenous peoples of Chile have struggled for their land. According to Sánchez, the challenges facing indigenous communities were exasperated by the 2010 earthquake. “We saw things get worse after the earthquake,” said Sánchez. “There is a demand of more than 1,500 families for housing. We have yet to see a solution, so we are taking up our right to housing. We only want the government to be aware of the great necesity that there is for our people and with our recuperation.”

Abstract, Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Communication with Identity in Argentina, 2009–2017

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Communication with Identity in Argentina, 2009–2017
 by María Magdalena Doyle and Emilse Siares

Argentine Law 26.522 on Audiovisual Communication Services recognized, among other things, the right to communication for indigenous peoples. The cases of three indigenous radio stations in northern Argentina reveal the limits and possibilities of this normative transformation and the challenges to indigenous media posed by the changes in communications policy since the 2015 change of government.

Abstract, Indigenous Intellectuals in Contemporary Ecuador: Encounters with “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America”

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Indigenous Intellectuals in Contemporary Ecuador: Encounters with “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America”
by  Blanca Soledad Fernández


The indigenous intellectuals who were part of the foundation of the Ecuadorean indigenous movement of the 1980s contributed to the theoretical and political grounding of the concept of the plurinational state that is now recognized in the country’s new constitution. This concept constitutes a critique of the idea of nationhood that developed in Latin America throughout the twentieth century. A comparative reading of these intellectuals’ work on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Rodolfo Stavenhagen’s “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America” reveals two themes: colonial continuity and historical continuity. Both can be seen as a “settling of scores” with colonialism understood both as a historical period and as an analytical term for understanding the social reality of Latin America.

Abstract, Bolivia and Its Transformations in the Light of “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America”

:::::: Abstract ::::::

Bolivia and Its Transformations in the Light of “Seven Erroneous Theses about Latin America”
by Gabriela Canedo Vásquez


Bolivia has become a plurinational state, and as such it seeks to dismantle the deeply ingrained internal colonialism that runs through the state and the society. Thus it recognizes self-determination by indigenous people, autonomous territories, plural economy and justice, communal democracy, and suma qamaña (living well) and identifies the indigenous as the main actors in the transformation process, sidelining both the working and the middle classes. Some of the contradictions at its core include views of development that range from extractivism to environmentalism and living well. The government claims to be oriented toward communitarian socialism, but developmentalism will entail the destruction of indigenous modes of survival that are considered culturally rich but backward from a Western perspective. The central indigenous actor of current government discourse has been pushed aside. The Bolivian process presents a way of building a more equal state and a society that offers greater opportunities provided that these structural contradictions are resolved.

Political Report # 1326 Latin America poised to agree world's first legal pact for nature defenders

By Arthur Neslen   The Guardian

Latin American countries are poised to agree the world's first legally binding convention to protect environmental defenders at a conference in Costa Rica. Land activists and indigenous people were killed in record numbers on the continent last year, with more than two nature protectors murdered every week. Now, after two years of negotiations, UN and diplomatic sources say it is very likely that an environmental democracy treaty offering them legal protection will be agreed at the summit which ends on 4 March. Constance Nalegach, Chile's lead negotiator at the UN's Economic commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (Eclac) meeting, said that a legal pact was now "the most probable result and [also] a political gain".

Book Review, Investigating an Epidemic among Indigenous Children in Venezuela

:::::: Book Review ::::::

Investigating an Epidemic among Indigenous Children in Venezuela
by Ian Read

Una enfermedad monstruo: Indígenas derribando el cerco de la discriminación en salud

Briggs Charles L.,Gómez Norbelys,Gómez Tirso & Mantini-Briggs Clara Una enfermedad monstruo: Indígenas derribando el cerco de la discriminación en salud. Buenos Aires: Lugar Editorial, 2015.

Tell Me Why My Children Died: Rabies, Indigenous Knowledge, and Communicative Justice

Briggs Charles L. & Mantini-Briggs Clara Tell Me Why My Children Died: Rabies, Indigenous Knowledge, and Communicative Justice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.

In 2007, indigenous children in the rain forest of eastern Venezuela began dying from a mysterious disease. The local physician, healers, and epidemiologists could not determine the cause. When a second and third wave of deaths occurred in 2008, Conrado Moraleda, the president of the local health committee, gathered a team to carry out an investigation that state officials seemed unwilling to do. The team included Clara Mantini-Briggs, a Venezuelan public health physician, and her husband, Charles L. Briggs, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. They and three others visited 30 communities spread out across a large portion of the Amacuro Delta, where the Warao people distinguish their settlements from the tierra firma of the criollos (nonindigenous). Moving from town to town by motorboat, the group stumbled upon an important clue: some communities reported unusual behavior of and bites by Desmodus rotundus, the common vampire bat that can carry rabies. More evidence of this disease was presented by agonizing and telltale symptoms and a frightening mortality rate. The team halted its investigation early to notify state and national authorities. Despite extraordinary efforts, it was ultimately unsuccessful in convincing the Venezuelan government even that an epidemic had occurred, let alone one caused by rabid bats.

Book Review, Investigating an Epidemic among Indigenous Children in Venezuela

:::::: Book Review ::::::

Investigating an Epidemic among Indigenous Children in Venezuela
by Ian Read

Una enfermedad monstruo: Indígenas derribando el cerco de la discriminación en salud

Briggs Charles L.,Gómez Norbelys,Gómez Tirso & Mantini-Briggs Clara Una enfermedad monstruo: Indígenas derribando el cerco de la discriminación en salud. Buenos Aires: Lugar Editorial, 2015.

Tell Me Why My Children Died: Rabies, Indigenous Knowledge, and Communicative Justice

Briggs Charles L. & Mantini-Briggs Clara Tell Me Why My Children Died: Rabies, Indigenous Knowledge, and Communicative Justice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2016.

In 2007, indigenous children in the rain forest of eastern Venezuela began dying from a mysterious disease. The local physician, healers, and epidemiologists could not determine the cause. When a second and third wave of deaths occurred in 2008, Conrado Moraleda, the president of the local health committee, gathered a team to carry out an investigation that state officials seemed unwilling to do. The team included Clara Mantini-Briggs, a Venezuelan public health physician, and her husband, Charles L. Briggs, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. They and three others visited 30 communities spread out across a large portion of the Amacuro Delta, where the Warao people distinguish their settlements from the tierra firma of the criollos (nonindigenous). Moving from town to town by motorboat, the group stumbled upon an important clue: some communities reported unusual behavior of and bites by Desmodus rotundus, the common vampire bat that can carry rabies. More evidence of this disease was presented by agonizing and telltale symptoms and a frightening mortality rate. The team halted its investigation early to notify state and national authorities. Despite extraordinary efforts, it was ultimately unsuccessful in convincing the Venezuelan government even that an epidemic had occurred, let alone one caused by rabid bats.