Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T07:31:47.776Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Ethnic Citizenship in Colombia: The Experience of the Regional Indigenous Council of the Cauca in Southwestern Colombia from 1970 to 1990

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2022

Brett Troyan*
Affiliation:
Cortland College, State University of New York
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

This article argues that the national political context of Colombia in the 1970s and 1980s led the Colombian indigenous movement to elaborate an ethnic citizenship. The failures of the left and the decline in effectiveness of partisan citizenship played a large role in the representation and political practices of the premier indigenous grassroots organization Consejo Regional Indígena del Cauca (Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca; CRIC). This article focuses on the formative moments of the 1970s and early 1980s when CRIC began to represent its movement as a primarily indigenous, ethnic one, minimizing the importance of nonindigenous actors. The nation-state, at each stage of the movement's development, fostered the “ethnicization” of the indigenous movement of Colombia in hopes of weakening the southwestern insurgency and legitimizing its institutions:

Resumo

Resumo

Este ensayo argumenta que el contexto político nacional de Colombia en los años setenta y ochenta llevó al movimiento indígena del país a consolidar una ciudadanía étnica. Los fracasos de la izquierda y el declive en la efectividad de la ciudadanía partidista jugaron un papel significativo en la representación y prácticas políticas de la organización indígena de base más importante, el Consejo Regional Indígena del Cauca (CRIC). Este artículo se centra en las etapas de formación del CRIC, durante los años setenta y principios de los años ochenta, período en el que comenzó a representarse como un movimiento principalmente indígena, minimizando la importancia de los actores no indígenas. El estado-nación, a lo largo del desarrollo del movimiento indígena, reforzó su carácter étnico, con la esperanza de debilitar a la insurgencia en el suroeste del país y legitimar sus instituciones.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

*

I wish to thank Marcos Avirama, Jesús Avirama, Graciela Bolaños, Victor Daniel Bonilla, Jhon Jairo, and Pablo Tattay for their incredible generosity and honesty. I would also like to thank the anonymous LARR reviewers for their helpful comments. The writing of this article was funded in part by the Latin America Program of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Junior Scholars.

References

Avirama, Jesús 1998 Personal interview by the author with former president of CRIC, February, Popayán.Google Scholar
Avirama, Marcos 1998 Personal interview by the author, February, Popayán.Google Scholar
Barth, Frederick 1969 Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Bolaños, Graciela 1999 Personal interview by the author with activist and member of the Colombian Agrarian Reform Institute in the 1970s, November, Bogotá.Google Scholar
Bonilla, Victor Daniel 1998 Personal interview by the author, July, Cali.Google Scholar
Brysk, Alison 2000 From Tribal Village to Global Village: Indian Rights and International Relations in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Castillo-Cárdenas, Gonzalo 1973 Las luchas del indio que bajó de la montaña al valle de la civilización. Bogotá: Editorial La Rosca.Google Scholar
Castillo-Cárdenas, Gonzalo 1987 Liberation Theology from Below: The Life and Thought of Manuel Quintín Lame. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.Google Scholar
Castrillón Arboleda, Diego 1973 El indio Quintín Lame. Bogotá: Tercer Mundo.Google Scholar
Caviedes, Mauricio 2000 Antropología y movimiento indígena. Thesis, Universidad Nacional de Colombia.Google Scholar
Consejo Regional de Indígenas del Cauca (CRIC) n.d. “Como nos organizamos,” no. 2. Pamphlet.Google Scholar
Consejo Regional de Indígenas del Cauca (CRIC) n.d. [1979] La represión contra los indígenas del Cauca. CRIC.Google Scholar
Consejo Regional de Indígenas del Cauca (CRIC) 1981 CRIC, Diez años de lucha, historia y documentos. Bogotá: CINEP.Google Scholar
Cortes, Pedro 1988Indian Social Movements: A Case Study in Cauca, Colombia from a Marxist Perspective.” Ph.D. diss., Ohio State University.Google Scholar
Cortes, Pedro 2004 Personal interview by the author, October, Bogotá.Google Scholar
Findji, Maria Teresa 1978 Elementos para el estudio de los resguardos indígenas del Cauca: Censo Indígena del Cauca, 1972. Bogotá: DANE.Google Scholar
Findji, Maria Teresa 1992From Resistance to Social Movement: The Indigenous Authorities Movement in Colombia.” In The Making of Social Movements in Latin America: Identity, Strategy, and Democracy, edited by Escobar, Arturo and Alvarez, Sonia, 112133. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Gonzalez, David n.d. Los paeces, o genocidio y luchas indígenas en Colombia. Bogotá: Editorial La Rueda Suelta.Google Scholar
Gros, Christian 1991 Colombia indígena, identidad cultural y cambio social. Bogotá: Editorial Cerec.Google Scholar
Hristov, Jasmin 2005Indigenous Struggles for Land and Culture in Cauca, Colombia.” Journal of Peasant Studies 32 (1): 88117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Jean 1995Culture, Genuine and Spurious: The Politics of Indianness in the Vaupes, Colombia.” American Ethnologist 22 (1): 327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jairo, Jhon 1998 Personal interview by the author, February, Popayán.Google Scholar
Jimeno, Myriam 2005 Juan Gregorio Palechor: Historia de mi vida. Popayán: Universidad del Cauca.Google Scholar
Lasso, Marixa 2003 “Revisiting Independence Day: Afro-Colombian Politics and Patriot Narratives, Cartagena, 1809–1815.” In After Spanish Rule: Postcolonial Predicaments of the Americas, edited by Guerrero, Andrés and Thurner, Mark, 223247. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Laurent, Virginia 2005 Comunidades indígenas, espacios políticos, y movilización electoral en Colombia, 1990–1998: Motivaciones, campos de acción e impactos. Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia.Google Scholar
Muelas Hurtado, Lorenzo 2001 Personal interview by the author, July, Bogotá.Google Scholar
Muelas Hurtado, Lorenzo 2005 Fuerza de la gente: Juntado recuerdos sobre la terrajería en Guambia, Colombia. Bogotá: Instituto Colombiano de Antropología e Historia.Google Scholar
Ortiz Reissig, Sutti 1973 Uncertainties in Peasant Farming: A Colombian Case. New York: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Pallares, Amalia 2002 From Peasant Struggles to Indian Resistance: The Ecuadorian Andes in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar
Peñaranda, Ricardo 1999De rebeldes a ciudadanos: El caso del Movimiento Armado Quintín Lame.” In De las armas a la política, edited by Peñaranda, Ricardo and Guerrerro, Javier, 75131. Bogotá: T. M. Editores.Google Scholar
Pineda Camacho, Roberto 1995Pueblos indígenas de Colombia: Una aproximación a su historia, economía y sociedad.” In Tierra profanada: Grandes proyectos en territorios indígenas de Colombia, edited by Organización Nacional Indígena de Colombia, Centro de Cooperación al Indígena, and GhK. Santa Fé de Bogotá: Disloque Editores.Google Scholar
Rappaport, Joanne 1990 The Politics of Memory: Native Historical Interpretation in the Colombian Andes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rappaport, Joanne 2004Between Sovereignty and Culture: Who Is an Indigenous Intellectual in Colombia?International Review of Social History 49:11111132.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rappaport, Joanne 2005 Intercultural Utopias: Public Intellectuals, Cultural Experimentation, and Ethnic Pluralism in Colombia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Rivera Cusicanqui, Silvia 1982 Política y ideología en el movimiento campesino colombiano, el caso de la ANUC. Bogotá: CINEP.Google Scholar
Roldán, Mary Jean 2002 Blood and Fire: La Violencia en Antioquia, Colombia 1946–1953. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sabato, Hilda 2001On Political Citizenship in Nineteenth Century Latin America.” American Historical Review 106 (4): 12901315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, James E. 2004 Contentious Republicans: Popular Politics, Race and Class in Nineteenth Century Colombia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Sevilla Casas, Elias 1986 La pobreza de los excluidos: Economía y sobrevivencia en un resguardo indígena del Cauca, Colombia. Cali, Colombia: Ethnos.Google Scholar
Sieder, Rachel 2002 Multiculturalism in Latin America: Indigenous Rights, Diversity, and Democracy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tate, Winifred 2007 Counting the Dead: The Culture and Politics of Human Rights Activism in Colombia. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Tattay, Pablo 1999 Personal interview by the author, November, Bogotá.Google Scholar
Troyan, Brett 2002Ethnic Identity and State Formation in the Cauca, Colombia from 1930 to 1991.” Ph.D. diss., Cornell University.Google Scholar
Troyan, Brett 2007Gregorio Hernández de Alba (1904–1973): The Legitimization of Indigenous Ethnic Politics in Colombia.” European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies 82:89106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Unidad Indígena 1975Congresos del CRIC.” Unidad Indígena 1 (6).Google Scholar
Van Cott, Donna 1999 The Friendly Liquidation of the Past: The Politics of Diversity in Latin America. Pittsburgh, PA: Pittsburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Van de Sandt, Joris 2007Behind the Mask of Recognition: Defending Autonomy and Communal Resource Management in Indigenous Resguardos, Colombia.” Ph.D. diss., University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Wade, Peter 1993 Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Warren, Kay, and Jackson, Jean 2002 Indigenous Movements, Self-Representation, and the State in Latin America. Austin: University of Texas.Google Scholar