2006 Annual Meeting, Association
of American Geographers
March 7-11, Chicago Illinois
4361: Rights, Reform and Resources: Land and the Politics of Indigenous Identity in Latin America II
Friday, 3/10/06, from 12:00 PM - 1:40 PM
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):
Bjorn Sletto - Cornell University
Joseph H. Bryan - UC Berkeley
Chair(s):
Bjorn Sletto - Cornell University
Papers:
12:00 PM Discussant: Dianne E. Rocheleau - Clark University
12:15 PM Author(s): Daniel Aaron Graham, ABD - University of California, Berkeley
Abstract Title: Recognizing contradiction: Lenca Indian land rights and the neoliberal counterreform in Honduras
12:35 PM Author(s): Brad Jokisch - Ohio University
Abstract Title: Securing ethno-territorial claims with fertility and migration?: the challenges faced by the Shuar of Ecuador
12:55 PM Author(s): Bjorn Sletto - Cornell University
Abstract Title: The Becoming-Forest, the Becoming-Desert: Fire Management and the Making of Conservation Landscapes in the Gran Sabana, Venezuela
Discussant(s):
Dianne E. Rocheleau - Clark University
