TY - JOUR

T1 - Unsettled Rights

T2 - Afro-descendant recognition and ex-situ titling in Colombia

AU - Hougaard, Inge Merete

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2022 The Author

PY - 2022

Y1 - 2022

N2 - Ethnic recognition and collective titling have since the second half of the 20th century been promoted as ways of compensating for historical injustices and countering the destructive effects of capitalist development. While holding promise of autonomy, territorial rights, and resource control, they have also been seen as political technologies governing, spatially tying identities to place, and incorporating new areas into capital market relations. This paper draws on and contributes to these debates by exploring how the Colombian legislation for Afro-descendants ethnic recognition and collective titling is understood, employed and ‘reworked’ from below as well as from above. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and document analysis, the paper follows the case of an Afro-descendant sand-extracting community in the Cauca Valley Region, Colombia. Threatened by a competing mining claim, the villagers seek to gain ethnic recognition among other things to secure rights and control mining resources. In the process, the villagers are offered a land plot away from where they live and work to title as their collective territory; a mechanism that I term ‘ex-situ titling’. As the villagers have no prior relation to the land, nor intend to resettle there, I argue that the ex-situ land titling only serves as a procedural step in the process of ethnic recognition, which, nevertheless, contributes to the uncertainty and incertitude around the villagers' ethnic rights and resource control.

AB - Ethnic recognition and collective titling have since the second half of the 20th century been promoted as ways of compensating for historical injustices and countering the destructive effects of capitalist development. While holding promise of autonomy, territorial rights, and resource control, they have also been seen as political technologies governing, spatially tying identities to place, and incorporating new areas into capital market relations. This paper draws on and contributes to these debates by exploring how the Colombian legislation for Afro-descendants ethnic recognition and collective titling is understood, employed and ‘reworked’ from below as well as from above. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and document analysis, the paper follows the case of an Afro-descendant sand-extracting community in the Cauca Valley Region, Colombia. Threatened by a competing mining claim, the villagers seek to gain ethnic recognition among other things to secure rights and control mining resources. In the process, the villagers are offered a land plot away from where they live and work to title as their collective territory; a mechanism that I term ‘ex-situ titling’. As the villagers have no prior relation to the land, nor intend to resettle there, I argue that the ex-situ land titling only serves as a procedural step in the process of ethnic recognition, which, nevertheless, contributes to the uncertainty and incertitude around the villagers' ethnic rights and resource control.

KW - Afro-descendants

KW - Collective territories

KW - Collective titling

KW - Colombia

KW - Ethnic recognition

KW - Ethnic territories

KW - Ex-situ titling

KW - Land rights

KW - Politics of recognition

KW - Faculty of Social Sciences

KW - Ethnic recognition

KW - Collective territories

KW - Ex-situ titling

KW - Afro-descendants

KW - Colombia

KW - Politics of recognition

KW - Collective titling

KW - Ethnic territories

KW - Land rights

U2 - 10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102606

DO - 10.1016/j.polgeo.2022.102606

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85124386584

VL - 96

JO - Political Geography

JF - Political Geography

SN - 0962-6298

M1 - 102606

ER -