You Can Sit with Us,but under Our Terms: The Recognition of Indigenous Self-Determination by Nation-States throughout the Abya Yala

Abstract

In this paper I discuss Indigenous self-determination in our continent (the Abya Yala and Turtle Island) and how most nation-states address this issue from a standpoint of “you can sit with us, but under our terms.” This position preaches the inclusion of Indigenous peoples in society, but only under the western liberal standard of assimilation, characteristic of neoliberal and neocolonial capitalism. I argue that Indigenous self-determination, based in Indigenous, decolonial and Marxist thought, includes two elements: the right to effectively exercise autonomy in their communities, and the right to participate in decision-making in the nation-state. I then demonstrate that less than a third of the countries in the continent formally recognize Indigenous self-determination in their Constitutions, and that most nation-states with formal recognition only include one of the two elements of Indigenous self-determination, with almost no existing mechanisms in place allowing Indigenous groups to effectively exercise it.