In Search of Justice in the Bolivian Highlands: Understanding Indigenous Environmental Governance from below the threshold of “Community”

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Abstract

This paper examines recent efforts in Bolivia to implement legal pluralism as a mechanism to gain substantive rights to indigenous territory, self-governance, and control over natural resources. I start by analyzing how indigenous leaders’ encounter with legal barriers to collective land titling in the department of Chuquisaca generated critical discussion over political identity, political economy, and appropriate forms of action. I then compare two key strategies that emerged from their struggle –direct dialogue with a foreign transnational company over the management of natural resources within their territory, and a lawsuit submitted to the Plurinational Constitutional Tribunal against the National Institute of Agrarian Reform (Instituto Nacional de Reforma Agraria, or INRA) – to consider the multiple scales at play in confronting the limits of recognition and provide alternative pathways for indigenous peoples to gain substantive rights. One such pathway that emerged from their efforts is the Indigenous Justice Tribunal in the constitutional capital of Sucre, which was formally established in 2015 as legal institution that parallels state and agro-environmental jurisdiction. I conclude by reflecting on the pedagogical and epistemological implications of such a space in generating different critical theories on the relationship between identity, natural resources, legal recognition, and expert knowledge.

Author

• Amy M Kennemore, University of California/San Diego