2006 Annual Meeting, Association
of American Geographers
March 7-11, Chicago Illinois
4261: Rights, Reform and Resources I: Land and the Politics of Indigenous Identity in Latin America
Friday, 3/10/06, from 10:00 AM - 11:40 AM
Session Description:
Culture is increasingly becoming a privileged field of political contestation in Latin America, as exemplified by the range of indigenous movements throughout the region. In particular, these movements often turn on claims to land and resources, interweaving essentialist notions of the relationship between nature and culture with diverse forms of political consciousness and practice. The forms that these movements take vary as much as the results of their efforts, presenting numerous opportunities for critical comparison and reflection. What are the different cultural and political techniques used by indigenous movements? How do they speak to the particular social, political and economic conditions that make recognition of their rights possible? As recognition of indigenous rights is increasingly incorporated into law, policy, and the everyday practice of state agencies through a variety of reforms, what are the possibilities for implementation? What are the material and social consequences of this change?
We invite papers from scholars who are concerned with questions of land rights and indigenous politics in Latin America, in particular works that bring critical theoretical perspectives to bear on the intersection of culture, political mobilization, and material and constructed Nature. Among the topics that papers might address are: the roles of indigenous and scientific knowledge systems in struggles over land and resources; tactics and strategies for advocating recognition of indigenous land claims; institutional and indigenous cultural constructions and their influence in situations of resource and territorial conflict; and the limits and possibilities of the politics of identity.
Sponsorship(s):
Cultural and Political Ecology Specialty Group
Cultural Geography Specialty Group
Indigenous Peoples Specialty Group
Organizer(s):
Joseph H. Bryan - UC Berkeley
Bjorn Sletto - Cornell University
Chair(s):
Joseph H. Bryan - UC Berkeley
Papers:
10:00 AM Author(s): *Joseph H. Bryan, Ph.D. Candidate - UC Berkeley
Abstract Title: Refracted frontiers: community, property and the politics of identity in eastern Nicaragua
10:20 AM Discussant: Thomas A. Perreault - Syracuse University
10:40 AM Author(s): *Kathryn Tomlinson - University of Sussex
Abstract Title: Indigenous Rights and Control of Land and Natural Resources: The Venezuelan Power Line Conflict and its Aftermath
11:00 AM Author(s): *Joel D Wainwright - The Ohio State University
Abstract Title: Postcolonial reflections on the Maya land rights movement in Belize
11:20 AM Introduction: Joseph H. Bryan - UC Berkeley
