UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Intercultural Sovereignty: The Theory and Practice of Indigenous Social Movements Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1zq3r3rf Author Alvarez, Sandra Cristina Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ INTERCULTURAL SOVEREIGNTY: THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF INDIGENOUS SOCIAL MOVEMENTS A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in POLITICS with emphases in FEMINIST STUDIES and LATIN AMERICAN AND LATINO STUDIES by Sandra Cristina Alvarez December 2012 The Dissertation of Sandra Cristina Alvarez is approved: _________________________________ Professor Rosa-Linda Fregoso, Co-Chair _________________________________ Professor Hector Perla Jr., Co-Chair _________________________________ Professor Kent Eaton _________________________________ Professor Angela Y. Davis _______________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Sandra C. Alvarez 2012 Table of Contents Abstract......................................................................................................................... v Dedication and Acknowledgements ........................................................................... vii Introduction................................................................................................................... 1 What do indigenous peoples confront when addressing questions of sovereignty?12 Modernity and coloniality....................................................................................... 24 Interculturality as decolonial option ................................................................... 34 Building intercultural sovereignty .......................................................................... 37 Paradox of indigenous sovereignty......................................................................... 49 Interculturality as methodological/epistemic pproach............................................ 51 Overview................................................................................................................. 56 Chapter 1: De/colonizing Research ............................................................................ 60 “Colonization in action in eastern Colombia” ........................................................ 66 Resistance: From silence to interculturality............................................................ 80 Research and U’wa resistance: From objects to subjects of research..................... 87 Circumstances of their relationship .................................................................... 93 Research crossing borders ................................................................................ 102 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 107 Chapter 2: Theorizing Rights with Indigenous Peoples of the Americas Through the Practice of Education ................................................................................................ 110 Layers of human rights ......................................................................................... 115 Liberal humanist framings of human rights...................................................... 116 Latin American tradition................................................................................... 119 Indigenous approaches to human rights............................................................ 121 Intercultural resonances between north and south............................................ 125 Education as a building block of sovereignty: From the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to daily practices ........................................ 131 National context for ethnoeducation................................................................. 136 Before the U’wa ethnoeducation project .......................................................... 139 “Wings to Fly”: Embodied decolonization through education......................... 142 Kajkrasa Ruyina: Proyecto Etnoeducativo del Pueblo U’wa ........................... 148 iii Conclusion: Building sovereignty through education .......................................... 152 Chapter 3: Acompañamiento .................................................................................... 155 Campaigns and transnational advocacy networks ................................................ 160 Accompaniment as intercultural strategy ............................................................. 166 The identity formation of the U’wa Defense Project and Mujer U’wa ................ 171 The formation of the U’wa Defense Project..................................................... 172 The formation of Mujer U’wa .......................................................................... 179 Practices of acompañamiento ............................................................................... 184 Conclusion: Acompañamiento from the past to the future ................................... 188 Conclusions............................................................................................................... 191 Appendix: List of Acronyms .................................................................................... 201 Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 202 iv Abstract Intercultural Sovereignty: The Theory and Practice of Indigenous Movements Sandra Cristina Alvarez In 2006 the U’wa people of northeastern Colombia rejected the government’s consultation process relative to the planned exploration and exploitation of petroleum located under U’wa ancestral lands because, in their view, the government had no right to the subsoil in the first place. The U’wa claimed sovereignty over the land and subsoil to reject the Colombian state’s desire to exploit petroleum for profit. This raises an interesting paradox: how can an indigenous pueblo call for sovereignty from within the jurisdiction of a state? Beyond that, what are the stakes of indigenous sovereignty to global arrangements of power and resource distribution? This dissertation examines U’wa efforts to resist cultural and physical extinction within a context of globalization and on-going civil conflict. What can we learn from this resistance—its persistence, its forms and methods, and its successes and failures? To both pose and answer this and related questions, I draw conceptual and analytical tools from the modernity/coloniality (M/C) research program to develop an intercultural approach that is grounded in the transnational networks that partner with the U’wa struggle. My multi-sited field research includes archival research and participation in organizing processes, interviews, and discussion groups. I argue that intercultural sovereignty, a concept that builds on indigenous conceptualizations of sovereignty, helps make visible how marginalized and colonized peoples move beyond the traditional notion of sovereignty to build self- v determination. My research finds that the U’wa build intercultural sovereignty through their relationships of collaboration with outsiders, through the mobilization and redefinition of an international discourse of rights and in cross-border social movement partnerships. This research contributes to academic and activist debates by adopting a decolonial approach that makes visible marginalized knowledges and practices in terms of sovereignty and human rights. Rather than engage a critique of sovereignty internal to Eurocentric modernity, I argue that it would be productive for Political Science to engage with indigenous concepts of sovereignty to address the history and consequences of colonialism and recognize different relations to land. Finally, the long-standing transnational partnerships engaged by the U’wa offer a different, complementary metric for measuring success in transnational advocacy networks. vi Dedication and Acknowledgements I dedicate this dissertation to the memories of the luchadoras y luchadores that have come before us. To my grandparents whose dreams of education have sustained me throughout a life of learning inside and outside of academia. To my parents who kept those dreams alive and taught me to work hard for what I believe in. To the U’wa whose daily struggles have much to teach and contribute towards conceptualizing a politics of life that recognizes our interconnections with each other and the earth. To Ingrid Washinawatok, Lahe’ena’e Gay, and Terence Freitas whose vision and lifework charted paths for many of us to follow. To Piedad Morales, whose laughter and poetry still rings in my ears. And to our future generations that need us to protect the earth for them, especially Noemi, Sofía, Daniel, Marcelo, Lucas, Andrés, Elizabeth, Rocío, Lucía, Juliana and in Colombia little Ingrid Washinawatok Tegria Cristancho. Multiple people, institutions, and on-going conversations made this research possible. I first thank my committee co-chairs Rosa Linda Fregoso and Hector Perla for believing in my project and pushing me to make my writing legible to multiple audiences. Their respective work on human rights and social movements has greatly enriched my own. Kent Eaton helped me make clearer arguments and supported the