Indigenous Territorial Autonomy and Self-Government in the Diverse Americas

Abstract

The academic work that I am honored to present is steeped in history, paradigms, realities, experiences, denunciations, questions and struggles, from the point of view of an outstanding group of professional specialists or activists committed to the defense, promotion and enforcement of the human rights of Indigenous peoples.The compendium of writings collected in Indigenous Territorial Autonomy and Self-Government in the Diverse Americas is one more milestone achieved in this process of recovery of rights.There are 22 authors, mostly women, and Indigenous women, who share the different experiences they have lived within the states of the region, in this rugged journey along the path towards the recovery of fundamental rights.The book is organized in three sections, based on chapters written by the different authors. The first part, entitled "Post-multicultural Constrictum," begins with a critical look at multiculturalism and Indigenous recognition policies. It addresses the advances, restrictions and setbacks that Indigenous autonomies have experienced in relation to the states. The second section, called "Possibilities: Recovering What Has Been Lost and Rebuilding," identifies and describes certain spaces of openness in the exercise of Indigenous autonomy and self-government. In this area, the importance of the agency of the Indigenous peoples themselves in defending their rights to political autonomy is highlighted.Finally, the third part, entitled "Autonomies as Emancipation: Own Paths," presents various instances in which Indigenous peoples, regardless of official recognition by the states, have advanced in the exercise of their autonomous rights, as an emancipatory process expressed in self-determination.Undoubtedly, this work constitutes an ample space for reflection that allows the reader to enter into the thinking and knowledge of the Abya Yala. A commendable effort that permeates not only the academy but the entire society and all democratic institutions and public policies aimed at making "the dignity of and for Indigenous peoples a custom."Our unique and diverse America has been the stage for a history of countless injustices, exclusions, dispossessions, inequalities, aggressions and even exterminations against Indigenous peoples, paradoxically the original Foreword x ones. From the conquest to our times of supposed democracy, the value of Indigenous culture, their cosmovision and ancestral knowledge has been undervalued; they have been dispossessed of their lands, territories and natural resources, for which today they maintain their struggle to recover their autonomy, self-government and self-determination. And they continue to suffer exclusion and marginalization in conditions of inequality and discrimination.International organizations in this quest for respect, promotion and protection of the human rights of Indigenous peoples have made significant progress, but we are still far from the legal and practical consolidation of their right to self-determination.An important normative movement has bee...