Multiculturalism, Legal Pluralism and Local Government in Colombia: Indigenous Autonomy and Institutional Embeddedness in Karmata Rúa, Antioquia

Abstract

In the 1990s, Colombia decentralised politics and passed multicultural reforms as part of wider strategies to strengthen the state. Multiculturalism produced a complex institutional environment marked by jurisdictional overlap and legal plurality. The literature on Colombia's multiculturalism confirms that violence, indigenous rights abuses and the lack of enabling legislation on indigenous territorial entities limited ethno-political autonomy and instead enhanced the capacity of the state to transform indigenous identity and bureaucratise local decision-making practices. However, some indigenous authorities used the new institutions to take control of communal matters, changing local governments along the way. The better-known case of indigenous self-government is that of the Nasa people in Cauca, characterised by the capture of local institutions to advance ethnic rights. In my study of the Embera Chamí of Karmata Rúa (Antioquia) I argue that they represent an alternative approach centred on institutional embeddedness, or the repetition of ethnic autonomy rules by multiple layers of government.

The Uses and Abuses of Legal Pluralism: A View from the Sideline

“…Rather than guaranteeing preservation, this type of pluralism guarantees change. 29 While pretending to fossilize groups and their legality, imagining a multicultural past also leads to other types of pluralisms being ignored. The literature on Afro-Latin Americans often points to these shortcomings.…”

Legacy participation and the buried history of racialised spaces: Hypermodern revitalisation in Rio de Janeiro’s port area

“…Given a history of forced displacement and erasures of key heritage sites, legacy participation goes beyond participatory planning, conferences, councils and hearings – institutionalised venues in most Brazilian cities – to include the notion of ethnic jurisdiction over historical sites. Jurisdictional power means control over the fate of the territory, a term associated with indigenous land rights (Velasco, 2018; Webster, 2016) that should also apply to territorialised African heritage. In the context of the legacy of slavery, ‘jurisdictional devolution’ (Smith, 2002) means ensuring that Afro-Brazilian organisations exercise authority over territory and availability of funds.…”

From the Transatlantic Slave Trade to Contemporary Ethnoracial Law in Multicultural Ecuador

“…I follow Tanya Hernández (2013:13-14) when she explains that the concept of "customary law and practices" she works with is not aligned with what anthropologists have sometimes called "traditional law" when referring to the indigenous legal systems in Latin America that happened to clash with the settler colonial and postcolonial state's legal regimes, but that the contemporary multicultural state eventually accommodates, within certain limits (Andrade 2017;Sieder and Barrera 2017;Stephen 2008;Thomas 2016;Velasco 2017). Instead, the concept of "customary law" useful here points to the set of values, beliefs, and practices the colonial and postcolonial states use to systematically ground their decisions and interventions to implement, reproduce, and administer a particular socioeconomic and racial order for the long-standing benefit of identified White and White-mestizo elites in multiracial and multiethnic societies.…”