Confining Ethnic Territorial Autonomy in Colombia

Abstract

To rein in violence and address issues of social justice and environmental sustainability, the 1991 Constitution reconfigured Colombia’s territorial regimes, decentralized politics, and formalized ethnic-political autonomy. However, uneven implementation of the reforms and armed conflict are limiting local decision making. To evaluate the effects of these processes in one region, the article studies the Naya River basin located in Colombia’s Pacific littoral. There, Eperara-Siapidaara and Nasa Indians, traditional Afro-Colombians and Black and mestizo peasants are losing territorial control as a result of violence, a growing coca economy, and government failure to offer security and formalize collective land titles. Locally devised interethnic governance agreements were accorded as a strategy to address these problems but were constrained by (a) the violent alteration of land use practices, (b) overlapping legislations on ethnic rights that encourage differing intermediation strategies, and (c) uncoordinated nongovernmental organization involvement in local affairs.