The Politics of Autonomy of Indigenous Peoples of The Sierra 1 - Astrid Ulloa

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The Politics of Autonomy of Indigenous Peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa

Marta, Colombia: A Process of Relational Indigenous Autonomy
Article in Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies · March 2011

DOI: 10.1080/17442222.2011.543874
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Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies
Vol. 6, No. 1, March 2011, pp. 79–107
The Politics of Autonomy of

Indigenous Peoples of the Sierra
Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia:
A Process of Relational Indigenous
Autonomy
Astrid Ulloa
This paper focuses on the demands for autonomy of the Kogui, Arhuaco, Wiwa and
Kankwamo peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta with regard to control over
their territories, self-determination, indigenous legal jurisdiction, management of the
environment, food sovereignty, and political control through their own authorities.
The main argument is that the autonomy of indigenous peoples is being influenced
by the current context of local, national and international conflicts and other specific
circumstances in the region in such a way as to require viewing autonomy as a complex
process that transcends national and supranational legal frameworks. Indigenous
autonomy is articulated within local, national and international dynamics and within
processes of recognition of, and disregard for, indigenous rights – obliging us to
understand it as a relational indigenous autonomy. It is relational because it is expressed
in different ways depending on the interactions among different social actors and the
specificities of the historical contexts.
Keywords: Colombia; indigenous peoples; relational indigenous autonomy;

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta; Kogui, Arhuaco, Wiwa and Kankwamo peoples
Introduction
In Colombia, indigenous peoples have strengthened their social movements through
the formation of grassroots organizations, national meetings, radical forms of action
(occupations, civic strikes, direct actions and civil disobedience), international
alliances and political mobilization, among other strategies, in both the national and
international arenas. Now formally recognized as political agents, they have gained
sufficient power to modify laws and political discourses regarding rights, economic
planning, development and democratization – areas of debate formerly off-limits
ISSN 1744–2222 (print)/ISSN 1744–2230 (online)/11/010079–29 ß 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/17442222.2011.543874
80 A. Ulloa
to indigenous peoples in Colombia and Latin America due to custom or official
political exclusion.
Indigenous peoples are now active participants in the national and transnational
political arenas in negotiations and discussions related to their territories and natural
resources. They participate in electoral politics, generate new ideas, run for office
and even have an impact on presidential elections in Latin America. At the same
time, they have inspired solidarity among non-indigenous sectors such as students,
workers, and environmentalists. They are building real and symbolic alliances that
are changing both the perception and the reality of their role and their power in the
political arena.
The basis of indigenous movements’ demands for self-determination and
sovereignty over their territories revolves around their cultural identity, since they
define their members as indigenous peoples rather than ethnic or racial minorities
within a dominant national society. Indigenous peoples call themselves ‘original’
people (the legitimate owners of the land) or nations, demanding restitution of their
rights and ancestral sovereignty over their territories. From this position and through
their authorities, they also establish political relationships with the state. Thus, they
reassert their autonomy and self-determination while also recognizing the state’s
institutions.
Since the adoption of the new Colombian constitution in 1991 (CPC-91), the
provisions of the charter and the political actions of indigenous groups have led to
a variety of processes resulting in situations of indigenous autonomy in practice.
In these processes and situations, the main issues have had to do with territorial
control, self-government, local jurisdiction, environmental management, food
sovereignty, and political control by indigenous authorities, among others. The
indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (hereafter the Sierra Nevada)
have formed their own indigenous organizations, specifically the Territorial Council
of Cabildos (Consejo Territorial de Cabildos [CTC]).1 Their struggles are linked to
those of other indigenous movements and popular organizations in Latin America
and, particularly, in Colombia. While Colombia’s national indigenous organizations
have not engaged in unified actions in a permanent or consistent manner within
these national and transnational contexts, they nevertheless share political struggles,
problems and interests.
The CTC’s cultural and environmental orientation has promoted the territorial
and environmental knowledge, values and practices of the peoples of the Sierra
Nevada and influenced the policies of a series of local, regional, national, and
transnational actors (including mayors’ offices, corporations, non-governmental
organizations [NGOs], state institutions and the World Bank). Interactions between
the CTC and state institutions have led to agreements, revealing differences and
enabling the development of new strategies related to territorial, cultural and
environmental issues. Through these processes, the region’s indigenous peoples have
become empowered to establish new kinds of territorial and environmental
relationships with non-indigenous peoples.
In keeping with the social situations described above, indigenous peoples now have
unprecedented optimal circumstances for situating themselves as powerful political
A Process of Relational Indigenous Autonomy 81
actors within their nations and the global eco-political arena. In turn, recognition
of indigenous agency has required a shift in modern conceptions of democracy
in order to accommodate indigenous political rights and cultural differences, as well
as their conceptions of nature. Likewise, this recognition has implied acknowledge-
ment of indigenous peoples’ autonomy. Over the past few decades, some states
have begun to recognize ‘multiculturalism’ – special rights for ethnic groups, respect
for their cultural differences and collective identity – and to hear indigenous peoples’
demands for political and territorial autonomy.
However, there are still local, national, and international processes interfering
with these autonomies. Current articulations between indigenous peoples and the
state are framed within a new logic that simultaneously involves both the
recognition/practice of indigenous autonomy, and the questioning of these auton-
omous processes. Such is the case when natural resources that located in indigenous
territories are re-claimed by the state, reversing the progress in the recognition
of indigenous sovereignty. We could describe these dynamics as a process of
recognition-denial. Likewise, global environmentalism and interaction between
indigenous peoples and environmental movements have placed indigenous territories
and resources within a transnational eco-governmentality (see discussion of this term
below) that recognizes indigenous peoples as autonomous, but only in so far as they
resonate with the demands of green consumers in today’s global economic circles.
Similarly, there are several actors (namely, paramilitaries and guerrillas) who exercise
de facto sovereignty over areas of Colombia. These groups create new scenarios that
threaten indigenous autonomies by ignoring their territorial and political rights.
In these contexts, indigenous peoples must either negotiate with these actors, or
advocate for the state’s policies and alliances aimed at eliminating such extralegal
sovereignties.
These three situations (transnational eco-governmentality, national recognition-
denial of plural citizenships, and local imposition of de facto sovereignties) are
present to different degrees and at varying moments. They require us to think about
indigenous autonomy as a complex process that transcends national and suprana-
tional legal recognitions. In this article, I analyze this process as the basis for what
I call relational indigenous autonomy; namely, an autonomy that results from the
negotiations and interactions among different actors in particular local, national and
global circumstances. The understanding of Colombian indigenous autonomy in the
21st century must not only take into account a multiplicity of agents, interests,
ideas and proposals, but also, and above all, consider the specificities of the relevant
historical contexts.
This article lays out its argument in three parts. First, a brief historical overview
of the demands of indigenous peoples across Colombia, which will help place the
proposals of the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada in context. The second part
discusses local, national and transnational relations and negotiations regarding
indigenous autonomy, focusing specifically on regional processes. Finally, I will
examine the tasks at hand for indigenous peoples seeking autonomy within a
multicultural state in local contexts that continue to be marked by acute conflict
and violence.
82 A. Ulloa
Indigenous Peoples in Colombia
In Colombia, there are 1,392,623 people who self-identify as belonging to 87 different
indigenous peoples. Together, they represent 3.4% of the total Colombian
population, speak 64 different languages and occupy ‘an area of approximately
34 million hectares, 29.8% of national territory’ (DANE, 2007, p. 19). To understand
indigenous autonomy in Colombia, we need to go back to the colonial period, when
indigenous peoples resisted colonization and engaged in various different struggles
over control of their territories. In the 18th century, this resistance began to have
some legal effects. For example, in 1781 indigenous demands led to the restitution
of some communal territories to them by the colonial government. In the late-18th
and early-19th centuries, the new Latin American states, including Colombia,
modified their relations with indigenous peoples and began considering them
‘citizens’ – but within a racist framework. By that time in Colombia, a national ideal
of equality among all citizens motivated the integration and assimilation of
indigenous peoples through the abolition of tribute, the institution of monetary
payment for work, and the privatization of lands in order to convert indigenous
people into property owners.
Within this social context, the national government enacted several laws to protect
indigenous peoples. Law 89 of 1890 promulgated a special ‘modernizing’ treatment
of indigenous peoples within their own territories. The law declared indigenous
territories property of the indigenous peoples and of their local authorities;
indigenous councils gained legal recognition. Although the law’s original intended
purpose was to ‘civilize’ indigenous peoples, transforming them from ‘savages’ to
modern citizens, for more than 100 years since, indigenous peoples have used this
law to recover their ancestral territories, to maintain their cultural practices and to
keep their political authority in councils.
At the beginning of the 20th century, indigenous leaders such as Manuel Quintı́n
Lame, José Gonzalo Sánchez and Eutiquio Timoté participated in the national
political arena, and, despite their different political interests, they constructed a
common foundation for subsequent indigenous movements grounded in a sense
of cultural and political indigenous distinctiveness. Yet not until the beginnings of
the 1970s, with the founding of the first indigenous organization, the Regional
Indigenous Council of Cauca (Consejo Regional Indı́gena del Cauca [CRIC]) in
1971, were indigenous peoples able to participate in national politics through their
own organizations. These organizations came out of a ‘discourse of ethnic difference’
that indigenous peoples had fought to insert into state and national political
processes, in an attempt to gain national recognition of their rights and differences.
In the process, indigenous peoples asserted their rights as ‘the legitimate owners of
America’ and worked actively toward legislation that would support their efforts
to recover traditional territories and defend their cultural heritage. Their actions
promoted the construction of new political relations and the power to negotiate with
the state, the private sector, other indigenous organizations and social movements,
as well as with paramilitary and guerilla organizations.
Numerous local and regional organizations were founded after the appearance
of CRIC, leading to a regional meeting of indigenous organizations in Tolima,
Colombia in 1974. In 1980, Tolima hosted a national meeting of indigenous
organizations at Lomas de Hilarco. One of the outcomes of these meetings was the
idea for the creation of a national indigenous organization. In 1982, the first
national indigenous organization of Colombia, the Organización Nacional Indı́gena
de Colombia (ONIC), emerged on the national political scene. Over time, indigenous
peoples and their organizations consolidated a pan-ethnic movement clearly
committed to their demands for recognition of the cultural and ethnic diversity
within the Colombian state, autonomy to control their territories and natural
resources, and defense of their cultural traditions.
Since then, many organizations have been formed on the local, regional, and
national levels. These groups have employed diverse means to promote their various
interests and goals, ranging from negotiating with the state to armed resistance,
as that of in the case of the Quintı́n Lame Armed Movement in 1974. This broad
variety was the result of the diverse origins, political strategies and interests,
identities, and territorial concerns among the different organizations. Likewise, these
groups have been supported by various religious, social and political organizations:
peasant movements, trade unions, intellectuals, and leftist activists, among others
(Findji, 1992; Avirama & Marquez, 1994; Laurent, 2005).
During the 1980s, powerful indigenous movements emerged in Colombia and
Latin America, gaining recognition in national and international political arenas.
Following Bebbington et al. (1992), we can speak of a ‘Found Decade’ in which
indigenous peoples strengthened their organizations, positioned their cultural
identity, and became social actors and political protagonists nationally and
internationally. The presence and actions of these movements in the 1980s cannot
be separated from other international transformations of the 1970s. Processes
of globalization and democratization originating in the spread of technology and
communications reconfigured local–global interactions and transformed the spatial
and temporal positions of the nation-state and social movements, simultaneously
introducing them to transnational space. In Colombia, the CPC-91 ushered in a
process of indigenous recognition that was tied to a transformation of the state
through decentralization and the implementation of neoliberal policies (including
privatization of state institutions, an abolition of subsidies, and an opening of the
Colombian economy to international markets). There was also an emphasis on
identifying and eliminating the discrimination steaming from existing policies
affecting indigenous peoples (Gros, 2000).
However, since recognition by the 1991 constitution, in the 1990s and early 2000s
there has been increasing conflict and violence in and over indigenous territory.
This has caused indigenous peoples to renew demands for autonomy and to claim
neutrality as a mode of resistance to the different armed actors. In addition,
indigenous territories and rights are threatened by the construction of mega-
infrastructure projects (land and waterways, dams and hydroelectric plants) and the
84 A. Ulloa
extraction of oil and other resources (mining and biodiversity). Some new laws
have posed additional threats, such as the Rural Development Law 1152 of 2007 and
the Forestry Law 1021 of 2006, which were declared unconstitutional by the
Constitutional Court, respectively, in March 2009 and January 2008, for failure to
obtain the free, prior and informed consent of the directly affected indigenous and
Afrocolombian peoples.
Indigenous peoples have begun to take direct action to confront the new national-
level social and political conditions of armed conflict and ‘development’ (mega-
projects and urbanization), which have put them at risk of displacement and
have provoked military confrontations within their territories. These actions seek
to defend their lives, dignity, territories, resources and autonomy by drawing
on spiritual strength, creating indigenous refuge areas, mobilizing for peace, and
demanding the release of indigenous leaders imprisoned by the various armed actors.
Indigenous peoples are seeking to reintroduce their own forms of government and
exert control over their social systems and territories.
Against this background, indigenous activists must formulate strategies to promote
the agendas of their organizations and collectively defend the autonomy of
Colombia’s indigenous peoples. Variations in their political strategies and responses
to adversity originate in regional particularities, the nature of local leadership, the
type of collective action they have chosen, and the outcomes of negotiations with
the state as autonomous peoples. Thus, the analysis of the autonomy of indigenous
peoples in Colombia must start from the multiplicity of their interests, ideas and
proposals. Equally importantly, it also demands historical contextualization in order
to understand the circumstances of each region and each indigenous people.
Indigenous Peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

The framework presented above provides a context for the emergence, development
and consolidation of the indigenous movements of the Sierra Nevada peoples: the
Kogui, Arhuaco, Wiwa, and Kankwamo.2 The cultural and environmental proposals
of these groups have now emerged in the well-established national and transnational
political arenas, where they have kindled dialogue with both governmental
institutions and NGOs. This dynamic interaction between culture, the environment,
organizing, and politics has also led to the formation of new public arenas where
the indigenous peoples of the region have been able to express their political values
and goals.
These organizational advances and political struggles have developed over time
and are related to transnational indigenous political organizations and national
governmental institutions in Latin America, particularly in Colombia. The Arhuaco
people began their process of political organization in 1931 with the formation of the
Indigenous League of the Sierra Nevada, linked to the Magdalena Workers
Federation. In 1974, the Arhuaco Indigenous Organization and Council (Consejo y
Organización Indı́gena Arhuaca) was formed with the objective of reclaiming
territory and obtaining recognition and respect for Arhuaco culture. This organi-
zation was soon subsumed and replaced by another, the Tairona Indigenous
Confederation (Confederación Indı́gena Tairona [CIT]) (Uribe, 1993). From 1974

to 1987, the CIT was the only indigenous organization in the Sierra Nevada.
It now works together with several national movements, such as the Alianza
Social Indı́gena (Indigenous Social Alliance), and it occasionally participates in
activities organized by ONIC. Over the past 15 years, other indigenous organizations
appeared, including the Gonawindúa Tayrona Organization (Organización
Gonawindúa Tayrona [OGT]), the Wiwa Yugumaiun Bunkwanarrwa Tayrona
Organization (Organización Wiwa Yugumaiun Bunkwanarrwa Tayrona), the
Kankwamo Indigenous Organization (Organización Indı́gena Kankuama), and the
Avimolkueise Organization, which disbanded in 1995.
In 1999 the four indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada formed the CTC,
an organizational entity intended to give grassroots organizations a forum, as well as
to centralize and coordinate their negotiations with the state, through a collective
quest for political, territorial and environmental autonomy. The CTC is supported
by the mama (spiritual and political leaders and authorities) and responds to
grassroots cultural demands. Indigenous cultural and environmental policy is
based primarily on strategies aimed at strengthening autonomy, territorial integrity,
self-government and lifeways. Their view of their ancestral territory – which defines
the Sierra Nevada as the center of the world – is at the core of their policy.
This notion is inscribed in the Law of Origin and is based on a complex network
of meanings associated with the Black Line, which delimits ancestral territory
within the space enclosed by 59 sacred sites. These sites were first recognized in 1973,
and later in Resolution No. 837 of the Ministry of Environment in 1995
(Ulloa, 2005).
The indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada are experiencing a long-term
fragmentation of their ancestral territory, exacerbated by recent land expropriations.
They believe that their lands must include these ancestral territories. However, in the
existing context of land dispossession (spurred by colonization and the introduction
of illegal crops) and negotiations with the state, indigenous peoples view their
territories as divided into three parts: resguardos (legal collective indigenous
territories); resguardo expansion areas; and the Black Line territory. The first is the
land legally acknowledged as resguardo. The second refers to lands the groups hope to
acquire through a legal recognition process to extend the boundaries of existing
resguardos and/or create new ones. The last is the traditional ancestral territory.
To the peoples of Sierra Nevada, however, all this territory is one: their ancestral
land, which they must care for responsibly, the territory upon which the lives of the
elder and youngest brothers depend.3
As mentioned above, the main strategy of the indigenous peoples is to strengthen
their territorial control and self-determination. This underscores how their concrete
environmental practices arise ‘naturally’ from the synthesis of cultural strategies and
the environment: ‘The territorial consolidation of indigenous peoples is a natural
conservation and protection strategy, and the grounds for their cultural strength-
ening are based on the Black Line’ (CTC, 2002, p. 2). Their territoriality reveals an
ancestral relationship that inspires them to insist on the integrated management of all
lands in order to conserve them both culturally and environmentally. Thus, this
86 A. Ulloa
‘natural’ strategy of territorial protection forms the basis for the cultural validation
of the Black Line, within which cultural identity becomes manifest through
‘education and the health of nature, which promote permanent standards for the
balancing and ordering of human beings and nature’ (CTC, 2002, p. 2).
An additional, a key piece of the strategy described above is the right claimed
by indigenous peoples to ‘actively and decisively participate in each and every
proposed activity and project that might affect the integrity of our traditional
territory delimited by the Black Line and the sacred sites that define it’ (CTC,
2002, p. 4). Thus, the rights acknowledged by ILO-169, Law 21 of 1991 and
the CPC-91 are in keeping with traditional indigenous understanding of
territorial management. Indigenous peoples maintain that their traditions mandate
they retain their right (their responsibility) to make decisions regarding their
territory.
From this perspective, territory is seen and felt as an experience of the sacred
in daily life, as an adherence to sacred laws, as interaction with other beings who may
or may not be human, and as the management of the relations that involved therein.
Each piece of land is linked with others; territory cannot be dismembered or sold.
This notion symbolically links all physical spaces and grounds them concretely
in daily life.
The CTC’s political strategies may be characterized as what Leff (2005) calls ‘the
politics of place, space and time’, through which indigenous communities have
promoted the opening of democratic participatory spaces. Indigenous policies in the
Sierra Nevada find common ground in a shared notion of territory – which links and
articulates the identities of the four peoples – and in their common responsibility for
the environmental and cultural conservation of the Sierra. Claiming their traditional
right as environmental authorities has enabled them to exercise control over their
territory and ‘resources’; the exercise of this right has generated ideas and alternatives
for sustainable development.
The CTC’s proposals thus promote environmental and territorial knowledge
whose cultural values and practical expressions permeate their proposals and affect
the activities of several non-indigenous actors as well (mayors’ offices, corporations,
NGOs, state institutions). Since 2006, three indigenous peoples (the Kogui, Arhuaco
and Wiwa) have signed agreements aimed at reinforcing environmental protection
and cultural diversity in the Sierra Nevada with the Ministry of Environment,
Housing and Territorial Development (Ministerio de Ambiente, Vivienda y
Desarrollo Territorial [MAVDT]), the Special Administrative Unit of National
Natural Parks (Unidad Administrativa Especial del Sistema de Parques Nacionales
Naturales [UAESPNN]), and the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime
(UNODC), as well as reaching accords on indigenous self-government, autonomy,
and the reclamation of lands planted with illicit crops or at risk of such use (Project
I/21, UNODC, 2008).
Although the CTC formulates general guidelines, each indigenous group and
community proposes its own distinct practices and activities. For example, Kogui
proposals for autonomy and the right to govern revolve around territorial
organization and control, environmental management and food sovereignty,
in keeping with six aspects of their cultural practice: territory as part of an ancestral
worldview and the relation between nature and society (senúnulang); the Law
of Origin (Ley Sé) in their territory (ezwama); sacred sites (nujwákala); the
production and ‘harvesting’ of seeds, plants, animals and humans (kualamas);
family lineages (tuke); and the ritual calendar. In summary, for the Kogui, autonomy
is closely related to governance and to a form of territorial organization consistent
with their conceptions and cultural categories, which follow ancestral law and are
articulated in the responsibilities and activities of each member of society with regard
to sacred sites (Ulloa, 2010; Project I/21, UNODC, 2008).
Indigenous peoples believe their self-determination is expressed in their own
notions of development. According to the Kogui, kualama involves healing and
expansion associated with the production, care and conservation of the first crops
and seeds. In other words, the Kogui and their authorities practice development
within the context of their own worldview, through a model based in the ancestral
territorial organization of the Sierra Nevada, and which begins and ends with the
conservation in perpetuity of every ecosystem and of the interrelations among them
(OGT, 2007, p. 6). In this sense, their notions of development and food sovereignty
are vital parts of their notion of autonomy.
Likewise, for the Arhuaco people, autonomy is related to a vision of authority that
mandates fulfilling their cultural mission as keepers of universal equilibrium,
beginning in their territory. They believe that their autonomy would be better
exercised in the absence of obstacles arising from lack of recognition or the improper
intervention of external agents (Mestre, 2007).
The demands of autonomy and self-determination from the indigenous peoples
of the Sierra Nevada are similar to those of other indigenous groups in Colombia,
at the same time that they demand the recognition of each group’s particular cultural
identity. They insist on the recognition of their ancestral territories, understood as
the interrelation of several dimensions (spatial, physical, symbolic and the day-to-day
material). The meaning of territory for them goes beyond legal recognitions and
entitlements to collective land; it is a definition that implicitly includes territorial
control and self-government within it, as well as culturally based uses and
management of natural resources.
For indigenous peoples, autonomy also involves the recognition by external agents
of their governments, understood as their ancestral and spiritual organizational
structures and authorities, as well as those created to interact with the state
(grassroots organizations and new leaders); the free exercise of their own law
(their own standards, institutions and procedures of justice, government and law
enforcement); and their right to develop education and health policies and programs
consistent with their own worldviews and cultural practices so that they can conserve
and protect their knowledge for future generations (Ulloa, 2004; Rodrı́guez, 2008).
Likewise, autonomy is related to indigenous visions of future development,
88 A. Ulloa
cultural continuity, plans for economically productive projects, and interaction with
other peoples or with national society. Rodrı́guez highlights how the right to
autonomy:
also refers to natural resources. Indigenous rights over territory and natural resources
involve their use and management; the state is responsible for safeguarding these rights
and must guarantee indigenous participation in the use, management and conservation
of resources as their ancestors have done.
(2008, p. 60)
Finally, indigenous people demand recognition of their fundamental rights – in

particular, free, prior and informed consent.
Relations and Negotiations Regarding Autonomy

Article 3. Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right
they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their own economic, social
and cultural development.
Article 4. Indigenous peoples, in exercising their right to self-determination, have
the right to autonomy or self-government in matters relating to their internal
and local affairs, as well as in the ways and means of financing their autonomous
functions.
(United Nations, 2008, p. 4)
The current demands of indigenous peoples are constructed around concepts
of territory, autonomy, self-determination and sovereignty that are based on the
recognition of their particular identities and cultural practices. Their model is similar
to that of a nation-state; it could be said they seek a micro-nation-state.
National and international recognition of cultural diversity and transnational
indigenous rights has contributed to a reconsideration of sovereignty, the dynamics
of national territory, and indigenous rights in the local context. These dynamics have
been analyzed within global, transnational, postnational and/or cosmopolitan
frameworks. So too, the traditional analysis of autonomous indigenous processes
in Latin America has been reconsidered. González (2008) points out that there are
several ways to understand autonomy from various perspectives, ranging from
understanding it as a ‘flexible mechanism at the disposal of the state and of the
communities demanding ethnic-cultural, linguistic and religious rights, which allows
preservation of state legal order and at the same time can favor the exercise
of indigenous peoples’ self-determination’ (2008, p. 21), to seeing it as a radical
dynamic that implies a redefinition of nation and state.
These dynamics of recognition and the inclusion of new political actors require
careful analysis and a detailed approach to how political communities, collective
identities, and democratic and participatory processes emerge. Such analysis arises
from alternative notions of multiculturalism, legal plurality, national territoriality
and transnational governance, among others. I believe we must also carefully
scrutinize the interests underlying the recognition of indigenous autonomy, since
control over indigenous resources and territories also creates new ecological
identities, which themselves operate almost autonomously, outside broader cultural

processes. In other words, these identities are related to ideals of indigenous practice
and to national and transnational environmental discourses; most of the time, they
are not related to indigenous people themselves.
In addition, it is necessary to clarify the limits and scope of the meanings of
autonomy. González (2008) has observed that in Colombia, Panama and Nicaragua,
autonomous indigenous regimes share the following characteristics:
(i) transfer of decision-making and administrative capacity to democratically
elected local authorities (indigenous and multi-ethnic); (ii) the creation of political
structures for self-government that operate within legally acknowledged jurisdiction;
and finally, (iii) the delimitation of a territory (the ethnic territory) where collective
rights are exercised over land and natural resources (Dı́az-Polanco 1997).
(González, 2008, p. 11)
In Colombia, indigenous peoples demand territorial autonomy, their own govern-
ment and self-determination as rights basic to their very recognition as peoples.
The recognition process reverberates in three political arenas: local, national and
transnational. Parallel to these arenas, specific processes concerning natural resources
and territorial control unfold. This parallel dynamic in turn inspires the analysis of
transnational eco-governmentality, the recognition/denial of plural citizenships, and
the local imposition of de facto sovereignty. Such phenomena reveal how indigenous
autonomy is a complex process that goes beyond national and supranational legal
recognitions and interacts with other local, regional, national and transnational
forces. Autonomy in the Sierra Nevada must therefore be understood within a
context of particular negotiations and circumstances involving diverse local, national
and transnational actors. It is a process of reconfiguration involving multiple actors
arising out of particular political processes, taking place within specific circumstances
and with differing political implications.
In a transnational context, the new indigenous autonomies, which include rights
over territories and natural resources, become objects of negotiation and, in turn,
reconfigure indigenous political dynamics. A similar process is at play at the level
of the state, where policies of recognition acknowledge the cultural and political
dynamics of indigenous peoples. Demands for self-determination are adjusted to fit
the mechanisms of new transnational eco-governmentality, or the new neoliberal
multiculturalism that has generated a partial and relative recognition of these
autonomies.
On the other hand, it has been very difficult for governmental institutions that
have made agreements on indigenous autonomy and participation to put them into
practice within their political structures and forms of program implementation.
Governmental institutions relate to indigenous authorities using foreign modes
and concepts that end up incorporating indigenous peoples into external ‘logics’.
For example, development projects are proposed in western terms, or in a way that
understands indigenousness as something that can be isolated from the other topics
to be discussed (like territory), rather than integrally linked to them. Likewise, there
are other actors who significantly affect how decisions are made regarding what
90 A. Ulloa
happens in indigenous territories. Among these, I highlight the guerrillas and self-
defense organizations (paramilitaries), who, through their violence, have instigated
confinement, displacement, selective assassination and the massacre of indigenous
peoples, with palpable effects on territorial control.
However, situations in which indigenous communities achieve autonomy serve
as examples of resistance and confrontation. The role of indigenous guards and
traditional law has been strengthened through the acquisition of territorial control,
allowing communities to come up with local strategies to face such forms of external
intervention as natural resource extraction or appropriation by corporations.
The very fact that indigenous peoples formulate development proposals of their own
according to their vision of the future and in keeping with their needs and cultural
practices, is evidence of their confrontation with outside actors. The implementation
of their own legal systems, authorities, institutions, standards, and procedures is an
example of self-determination and governance. Their autonomous environmental
management, including natural resource control and food sovereignty, and their
proposals for collective and dynamic cooperation among several communities and/or
across national frontiers, are all further evidence of the significance of their
autonomy within a national framework (Ulloa, 2010).
Nevertheless, in the current Colombian context, indigenous people are losing
control of their territories as a result of pressure from paramilitaries, guerrillas,
and even the state. Likewise, for the sake of recognition, they have had to adjust
to national development plans and to the ‘logics’ of development planning, with
its chosen experts, quality-of-life conditions, and guidelines for the improvement of
productive practices. Furthermore, the right to their own legal systems has generated
dynamics of conflict between legal and collective rights, and between their internal
legal systems and the new national judicial processes concerning laws that affect
them. Finally, indigenous territories and natural surroundings are located in the
target zones for national and transnational projects that exploit and extract resources
for international markets. These situations are a permanent challenge for indigenous
people. They usher in new relationships, alliances and conflicts.
These new political situations are evidence of partial recognition of indigenous
autonomies as well as limited and partial self-government of indigenous territories.
They require that indigenous groups pursue a permanent strategy of building
alliances, rethinking external processes, reconfiguring internal processes, and
establishing relations and spaces to negotiate with other social actors. These new
dynamics result in what I call relational indigenous autonomy. This mode of
autonomy incorporates a diverse range of partial and situated processes; it must be
understood within specific circumstances and as having particular political impli-
cations. The processes it involves require careful analysis, since they form the basis
for the exercise of a full and complete autonomy by indigenous peoples.
To develop this concept, I use a definition by Russell and Tokatlián (2002), which
argues that under new global circumstances, autonomy must be reconsidered and
seen as relational. It is ‘the capacity and disposition of a country to voluntarily make
decisions with others and to jointly face situations and processes happening both
within and outside its borders’ (Russell & Tokatlián, 2002, p. 176).
Using this concept in the context of indigenous peoples, I propose the idea of a
relational indigenous autonomy, to be understood as the capacity of indigenous
communities to exercise self-determination and self-government in their territories
through the relations, negotiations and participation they must establish with the
state and other local, national and transnational actors in the course of obtaining
recognition and implementing their political and territorial control. These processes
include those instances in which indigenous groups adopt or re-adopt state or
transnational policies in order to strengthen their autonomy. A relational indigenous
autonomy must be thought of as a collection of partial and locally situated processes,
existing under specific circumstances and having particular political and historical
implications. Below, I will analyze the situation of the indigenous peoples of
the Sierra Nevada within this framework, as it relates to the three scenarios
(transnational, national and local) discussed above.
Transnational Eco-governmentality
In analyzing and explaining the relation between indigenous peoples’ autonomy
and the environment, I use Foucault’s concept of governmentality (Foucault, 1991),
and its relation to the emergence of a new discursive form that articulates
environmental discourses, multiculturalism, indigenous peoples’ rights and global
environmental governance. The global environmental discourse in question is the
historical result of various texts, practices, behaviors, policies and objects that share
rules and premises in addressing the environment, and therefore, in Foucault’s
words, belong to the same discursive form. Thus, the environment becomes a new
space of knowledge that calls for special technical governance that promotes the
beginning of a new specific governmentality (Foucault, 1991). Elsewhere, I have
defined this governmentality as:
all environmental policies, discourses, representations, knowledges and practices (local,
national and transnational) that interact with the purpose of directing social actors
(green bodies) to think and behave in particular manners towards specific environ-
mental ends (sustainable development, access to genetic resources, conservation
strategies and environmental security, among others). In this eco-governmentality,
environmental organizations (governmental and non-governmental), social actors
(including indigenous peoples and their cultural and environmental politics),
environmental activists and epistemic communities, among others, are agents in a
process of regulating and directing social actions according to logics and discourses that
contribute to the development of an emergent conception of global environmental
governance. However, all these processes involve negotiations and conflicts as well as
agreements.
(Ulloa, 2005, p. 6)
The current dominant tendency of eco-governmentality is to reinforce the idea of the

‘ethnic group’ as a small nation conceived of within the model of the nation-state and
in keeping with its notions of territory and sovereignty. This has allowed for a
definition of indigenous peoples as micro-nations who can deal with transnational
corporations and transnational policies free from nation-state control, yet at the risk
92 A. Ulloa
of assimilating into the neoliberal model. However, the construction of indigenous
peoples’ ecological identities may also be an opportunity to promote new ideas
and alternatives to neoliberal assumptions regarding territory, identity, autonomy
and nature.
Within the context of this emergent eco-governmentality, Colombia, indigenous
peoples in general, and those of the Sierra Nevada in particular, have assumed a
prominent position because their territories and ‘natural resources’ encompass some
of the biodiversity hot spots that are current focal points of the global environmental
discourse. The situation of the people of the Sierra Nevada reveals one important
contradiction: they cannot consolidate their autonomy and demands for self-
government over territory and resources because they are tied to national and
transnational environmental policies and processes that place them firmly within
international eco-markets.
Indigenous peoples’ demands for recognition as environmental authorities have
been evident in the protected areas superimposed on indigenous territories –
environmental zones that require special management through the participation
of various state institutions. Claims for food sovereignty and natural resource control
are central to indigenous demands, implying autonomous management in the
‘superimposed’ protected areas or wherever state environmental actions coincide
with an indigenous presence. These demands have become even more pressing due
to territorial pressures and the imposition of development models that fragment
indigenous ecological and alimentary practices. In response to this dynamic,
indigenous peoples are proposing steps to protect their way of life, dignity, territories
and resources. They have promoted the creation of special environmental zones and
have undertaken the reintroduction of ancestral seeds and productive practices.
These peaceful strategies of resistance and cultural recovery position their knowledge,
increase their legitimacy as indigenous environmental authorities, and afford them
increased social and territorial control.
The indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada are demanding participation in all
processes related to economic and social development, as well as to the environ-
mental management of their region. They argue that territory must be understood
historically, in reference to the several past interventions by social and cultural groups
other than the four indigenous communities, and in recognition of the autonomy
they have possessed historically as indigenous peoples. This scenario lays forth a tacit
agreement on the legitimacy of indigenous groups as protectors of nature,
acknowledged in Resolution No. 0621 (9 July 2002) and in the 2003 agreement
between indigenous authorities and the national government4 stipulating that
indigenous cultural and environmental policies must be respected in by external
actors, such as environmental projects.
The declarations of the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada express their
environmental and cultural principles as these are enacted in politics. They articulate
these principles through the notion of an integrity that promotes environmental
conservation as ‘reciprocal harmony and order among natural elements and human
beings’ (CTC, 2002). The indigenous position in the process of negotiation with the
state has taken shape as a political proposal with three main pillars: territory,
traditional authority, and a traditional way of life, including political self-

determination. These three bases, and their strengthening and consolidation through
specific actions negotiated with the nation, are the basis for an environmental plan
for the Sierra Nevada. It is within this framework that indigenous peoples promote
the conservation, territorial integrity, and cultural protection that will fulfill their
‘life plans’.
Since the 1970s, peasant colonization and the cultivation of marijuana and coca
have resulted in the usurpation of indigenous lands, the destruction of natural
resources, and the arrival of armed actors bent on imposing a regime of violence in
many areas of the Sierra Nevada. National and international programs to fight illegal
crops threaten indigenous autonomy and territory. Indigenous peoples face the loss
of traditional access to sacred places in the lower ranges of the Sierra Nevada,
which are now controlled by non-indigenous groups that do not allow them to hold
their rituals. This breaks the communication between the lowlands and highlands,
which is fundamental to ritual activities and to the spiritual dialogue among
the territory’s sacred sites. All these issues adversely affect the autonomy and
self-determination of indigenous peoples.
The indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada have been unable to consolidate
their political autonomy and control over territories and resources because of the
overlapping national and global policies that have introduced the international
flow of eco-commodities into the region. For example, their territories are now sites
of ethno-tourism and eco-tourism. The nation-state is also demanding sovereignty
over genetic natural resources, despite the fact that it has constitutionally recognized
indigenous peoples’ autonomy.
The opening of the Sierra Nevada to ecological and economic processes such as
eco-tourism and ethno-tourism is relatively new. Nonetheless, these may be seen as
just another wave of colonization among the many that have linked the region to
national and global markets over several centuries. What is truly new in this latest
push to develop the Sierra Nevada is the nature of consumer and market motivations
behind it: green markets seek organic/eco-products, and ethnic-tourism and eco-
tourism (development) attracts people who want to escape the effects of development
in their own countries.
Eco-tourism and ethno-tourism also open eco-markets. In the case of the Sierra
Nevada, organic products associated with the Kogui spiritual world have
flooded local and foreign consumer markets. Among these products, organic coffee
is important – particularly a gourmet brand called ‘Sanctuary OrganicTM’ that is
processed and traded in England. It is advertised with a picture of a Kogui man and
text that reads: ‘The legendary coffee of the Kogui indigenous peoples’. The label
describes the Sierra Nevada and explains that the coffee gets its name from the
unique conditions in which it grows: in the middle of the tropical rainforest in a
natural conservation region where the Kogui use centuries-old agricultural processes.
Finally, it describes aspects of Kogui ancestral history and their respect for the
environment, explaining how a portion of the profit (10 per cent) will go to the
producer with an extra percentage (5 per cent) for local communities to help them
re-purchase their sacred territories.
94 A. Ulloa
Although direct negotiations take place between organic product distributors and
indigenous organizations, these rarely deal with the internal dynamics of territorial
control or with the groups’ needs for food security. In the case of Anei coffee
production, which is run by an Arhuaco indigenous family:
nearly 500 families from the Arhuaco, Kogui and Wiwa indigenous communities
received the ‘Conquista USA’ prize for their organic coffee crops. The groups have
coffee fields over 2,031 hectares, with international quality and certification. The prize
was delivered to Anei, Asociación de Productores Agroecológicos Indı´genas y Campesinos
de la Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Indigenous and Peasant Ecological Agricultural
Producers Association of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta), an organization which
leads the social project for these communities in the region. Organic coffee producers
and distributors selected Anei as the winner of this distinction. The prize awards 45,000
dollars for development of a business plan, the creation of a Miami office (for a year),
a market study and the development of a training program in foreign trade. American
lawyer David Hart, expert in immigration and promoter of the award, stated as he
delivered the recognition that ‘They have a very significant product within organic
terms and as it is made by an indigenous association, we made this decision almost
immediately’.
(http://www.el-informador.com/detgen.php?id=46013, accessed April 28, 2009)
Coffee has been present in the Sierra Nevada since the end of the 19th century.
However, its introduction into organic markets is a response to new transnational
demands and the interest of coffee marketers in finding new origins, flavors, qualities
and specialties associated with grassroots projects for new niche coffee consumers
and specialized markets. Thus, Sierra Nevada coffee production by both peasant
groups and indigenous communities now flows to international consumers,
transforming local practices to supply their demand. In a meeting with the
Colombian Federation of Coffee Growers, Kogui leader Arregocés Conchacala
remarked that ‘the indigenous organization has to make decisions about what it is
going to do with coffee, since indigenous people have a distinct perspective, in which
the mountain conservation is more important than coffee production’. Likewise,
he considers it important to note the implications and changes that coffee production
has for indigenous culture, and to analyze what indigenous peoples want, as their
quality of life is about the mountain and freedom, about not being subject to
production changes that affect their culture. In parallel, there are indigenous
producers who consider their coffee to be the fruit of organizational strategies and
productive autonomy, without realizing that interaction with global markets depends
on commercial interests that fluctuate with the supply and demand of organic and
transnational environmental styles and flavors.
The internationalization of coffee production presents an opportunity for
indigenous communities to enter global markets, responding to a series of indig-
enous interests. However, parallel marketing processes in the hands of non-
indigenous companies and international cooperation programs favor negotiations
that ignore local agreements and the social and cultural implications of trade on local
strategies for food sovereignty. This dynamic, in turn, triggers a disregard for
indigenous autonomy and control over local food production, since these fleeting
commercial cycles guarantee no long-term continuity but rather short-term bursts

of activity in the Sierra.
Similarly, Santa Marta’s eco-tourism sites are located in Tayrona Park and Ciudad
Perdida (Lost City):5 places described as harboring traces of the wisdom of
indigenous cultures. The architectural legacy of Ciudad Perdida is highlighted, and
the Kogui are presented, as the living heirs of the most authentic indigenous
civilization still surviving in the Americas. The Koguis’ harmony with nature is
emphasized, and their territory is described as a magical environment full of
exuberant vegetation and sacred sites of a mysterious 1000-year-old culture
(Ulloa, 2005).
These situations challenge indigenous organizational autonomy while immersing
them in circuits of transnational consumption of ‘ideal’ indigenous peoples by
situating local, indigenous images within the global dynamics of green consumption.
However, control over these economic circles is not controlled by indigenous peoples
or their authorities, but rather by intermediaries and process managers. This
situation evidences how global–local interactions transform practices and reconfigure
the autonomous processes of local agricultural production and food sovereignty,
since the demands of the international coffee and tourism industries establish
priorities, qualities and standards that must be fulfilled.
In the western version of an environmental regime, also known as eco-
governmentality, neoliberal policies are reaffirmed and reiterated because indigenous
groups must be free and autonomous in order to negotiate their territories,
resources and knowledge, which are currently seen by green markets as useful. The
construction of indigenous ecological identities stimulates new ideas relating to
territories, autonomy, genetic resources, and environmental rights and processes that
reassert and recognize indigenous autonomy.
The National Recognition-denial Process of Plural Citizenships

The 1991 constitution legally recognized Colombia’s cultural and ethnic diversity.
Under the constitution, indigenous and ethnic groups have gained recognition as
citizens with special cultural rights. These cultural rights allow indigenous peoples
self-determination and their own government and autonomy within their territories,
which implies the independent administration of justice and territorial control,
as well as autonomous resource management (Articles 7, 8, 10, 19, 63, 68, 70, 72, 96,
246, 329 and 330). Indigenous peoples also enjoy special electoral jurisdiction that
allows them to select two representatives to the Senate. Decentralization also
prompted a territorial reorganization to reflect the regional, economic, cultural and
historical diversity of the country. Finally, the new constitution created a new
political unit: the Indigenous Territorial Entity (Entidad Territorial Indı́gena)
(See Articles 286, 287, 329 and 330) (Dover & Rappaport, 1996; Ulloa, 2005).
However, some post-constitutional and national environmental dynamics are
negatively impacting indigenous autonomy through electoral inclusion/cooptation,
conflict between national development and local development, the implementation
96 A. Ulloa
of programs that allow access to resources and territories, and legal provisions that
ignore and/or circumvent the right to free, prior and informed consent (Ulloa, 2010;
Rodrı́guez, 2008). Regarding environmental process, Rodrı́guez highlights how:
those rights and the right to autonomy of indigenous peoples are restricted by, among
others, state decisions, corporate interests or issues related to armed actors. Several of
the state’s decisions, both administrative and legislative, open large gaps and pose
contradictions with regard to autonomy and indigenous peoples’ rights generally.
(2008, p. 4)
State decisions are not taking indigenous peoples into account when they ignore or
circumvent free, prior and informed consent when granting concessions and licenses
for environmental development and infrastructure projects (Rodrı́guez, 2008).
Current and anticipated mega-projects in or near the Sierra Nevada affecting
indigenous peoples include the South American Infrastructure Integration Initiative
Project (Iniciativa para la Integración de la Infraestructura Regional Suramericana),
including the Santa Marta–Paraguachón–Maracaibo–Caracas highway, the port of
Dibulla, the Rancherı́a Dam, the Rancherı́a Irrigation District, the Besotes Reservoir,
and the Besotes Multi-purpose Project. According to the constitution and
Convention No. 169 of the International Legal Organization (ILO-169), indigenous
peoples must be consulted on these projects. However, in an affront to indigenous
autonomy, their right to free, prior and informed consent has been ignored or
evaded.
The government approved the Puerto Brisa multi-purpose port project in
Dibulla despite indigenous opposition and the anticipated social, cultural and
environmental impacts of its construction. This project restricts the access of
indigenous peoples to sacred sites in their own territory. The initial port installations
are located in:
Jukulwa, sacred site of the Black Line, where the construction of a dock by the youngest
brothers destroyed this important sacred hill and threatens the conservation of life,
waters and indigenous cultures in the Sierra Nevada. [ . . . ] When our sacred sites are
destroyed, our cultures are threatened and our rights as indigenous peoples are violated.
The realization of this project would be another terrible mistake of the youngest brothers
that would irreversibly disturb water equilibrium and threaten the integrity of cultures
and existence of indigenous communities throughout the Sierra Nevada. We have
advised and warned about the serious consequences that this megaproject would cause,
and we hold the government of the youngest brothers responsible for its consequences to
health and life.
(Jukulwa, 2009, p. 1)
On the other hand, current indigenous negotiations with the state generate inter-
actions among different indigenous peoples and/or fragmentations within individual
indigenous cultures, which in turn lead to the emergence of new leaderships and to
organizational restructuring. These new organizational actors interact with local
governments, attempting to capture economic resources from the state, which in
turn reconfigures internal strategies of autonomy. Such is the case of the Sustainable
Development Plan for the Sierra Nevada, which is being discussed at the regional and
national levels, and which is generating loyalties and frictions over how it will affect
the dynamics of indigenous territorial control. Although negotiations for this project
have been suspended, and in any case it must still obtain free, prior and informed
consent, some agreements already established with leaders regarding certain
programs are being implemented in practice, due to organizational fragmentation
and in the name of rapid implementation.
Indigenous peoples have proposed the construction of 10 pueblos talanquera
(barrier or safety towns),6 six of which (Kankawarwa and Kantinarwa in 2009,
Umuriwa and Seykun in 2008, and Gunmaku and Dumingueka in 2007) surround
the lower part of the Sierra Nevada. The construction of pueblos talanquera has been
supported by national and regional governments, and while they do respond to
indigenous peoples’ demands, they also raise internal questions. Arhuaca leader,
Leonor Zalabata, comments:
We agree that a fundamental piece of indigenous peoples’ permanence, our identity and
support of the environment is provided by the traditional territory. That indigenous
territories are fundamental is beyond dispute. But what is happening is a loss of
indigenous autonomy and its replacement with national policy decisions.
(SIEC, Actualidad Étnica, 2009)
This perspective forms part of local discussions concerning the influence that
government or military presence may have on those towns, affecting indigenous
territorial control. Leonor Zalabata also believes that the process ‘does not lead to a
strengthening of self-determination and autonomy of their peoples, because it has
been the state government, along with military leadership, that has defined how and
when to establish the new towns’ (SIEC, Actualidad Étnica, 2009).
These pueblos talanquera are part of the Environmental and Traditional Belt of the
Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Project (Cordón Ambiental y Tradicional de la Sierra
Nevada de Santa Marta) that brings together a number of governmental and non-
governmental institutions and indigenous organizations7 to coordinate action for
peace, development and security in the Sierra. This project is supported by the CTC,
since it is compatible with indigenous interests in consolidating territory. However,
as Munera points out:
parallel to this interest, a de facto military-civic control is exerted by the Army and the
Center of Coordination and Integral Action of Social Action (Centro de Coordinación y
Acción Integral de Acción Social). This intervention, as has been evidenced, proposes the
integration of these Sierra foothill areas into the political logic and regional economy of
tourism in particular, which may be imposed under conditions that do not contribute
to strengthening indigenous autonomy.
(Munera, 2009, p. 4)
Seemingly created by the government for recognition of indigenous peoples,
these projects ignore the acknowledgement by the government since 1973 of the
Black Line and indigenous territoriality in the Sierra. The CTC wrote a letter
to President Álvaro Uribe on 3 July 2009, signed by the leaders of the four
98 A. Ulloa
indigenous groups and by the delegate of the traditional authorities, wherein they
revealed that:
despite agreements signed between the CTC and the National Government stating that
private and public intervention in the Sierra Nevada must be coordinated with
indigenous traditional territorial policies as defined by indigenous peoples settled in the
Sierra Nevada, and under the permanent institutional oversight of the public authorities
(Corpoguajira and the MAVDT), they still granted environmental permission for the El
Cercado Irrigation District, the Rancherı́a Dam and the Port of Brisa in Dibulla.
Likewise, local and national authorities are considering launching other projects, such
as the ‘Los Besotes Dam’ and ‘the cablecar to Ciudad Perdida’.
(CTC, 2009, p. 1)
In the same letter, they demand immediate action by the Colombian government
to ratify the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Finally,
the letter demands respect for free, prior and informed consent on each project
in their territory or, alternately, the suspension of activities, projects or programs
begun without their approval.
At the same time, state policies have begun to dismantle indigenous peoples’
rights. State agencies serving indigenous peoples have been trimmed. Instead, the
government’s priorities are focused on regaining political control, fighting the
guerrillas and paramilitary groups, and eradicating the illegal crops. Indigenous
peoples are questioning the construction of mega-projects and military bases near
or on indigenous territory.
Therefore, legal recognition can be seen as a relational process that tends to
incorporate local efforts at self-determination into the nation. In this sense,
recognition of the indigenous peoples’ autonomy has constituted a governmental
strategy aimed at establishing relations with some leaders. However, this recognition
disappears as soon as indigenous leaders and representatives begin to participate
in governmental projects, frequently acting in opposition to internal indigenous
projects fostering autonomy.
Local Imposition of De Facto Sovereignty

In addition to the situations described above, the autonomy of indigenous peoples
is being challenged by the activities of several local, regional, national, and
transnational actors in the local context, related to the armed conflict, illegal crops,
territorial control and political pressure. New external projects related to resource
management, the introduction of illegal crops and the production of marijuana and
cocaine have been introduced in the Sierra Nevada, leading to violence and
displacement.
In the Sierra Nevada there are a series of agents who affect, in various ways,
indigenous peoples’ autonomous decision-making in their territories. In particular,
the presence of guerrillas, private justice and paramilitary forces, who have used
violence and massacres to generate the displacement of indigenous peoples, has
impacted upon their territorial control. Some politicians and public figures’
perceptions of indigenous peoples generate conflict by portraying them as anti-

economic development in the region; they challenge indigenous demands for
running their own lives and territories.
Such situations give evidence to the de facto sovereignty of paramilitary and
guerrilla forces. According to Hansen and Stepputat, such sovereignty has ‘the ability
to kill, punish, and discipline with impunity wherever it is found and practiced,
rather than sovereignty grounded in formal ideologies of rule and legality’ (2006,
p. 296). These processes also fragment local autonomies.
In the Sierra Nevada, indigenous territories have become bones of contention in
the wars among drug traffickers, leftist guerrillas and the government. Against this
backdrop, indigenous demands for autonomy and self-determination become
louder. Indigenous peoples demand respect for their neutrality in the armed conflict,
but above all they demand respect for their territorial sovereignty.
Guerrillas and paramilitaries have affected the lives of all indigenous peoples
in Colombia. In the mid-1980s, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
(Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) entered the Sierra Nevada.
They settled in a river basin, and in the 1990s consolidated their control over the
western slopes. Subsequently, groups from the National Liberation Army (Ejercito de
Liberación Nacional) arrived. These two armed forces unleashed a series of attacks
on infrastructure and entered into confrontations with the national military.
Further complicating the situation are the self-defense or paramilitary forces, which
originated from among the armed marijuana growers who appeared in the 1960s.
These groups have gained power through financial support from drug traffickers,
cattle ranchers, banana growers and politicians.
The reconstitution of paramilitaries after their formal demobilization by the
Colombian government is again threatening indigenous peoples, as evidenced by
the report submitted by the Early Alert System of the Nation Ombudsman’s Office
(Sistema de Alertas Tempranas de la Defensorı́a del Pueblo, 2009). The document
reports how indigenous leaders and mamas are targets of these groups because
of their efforts to protect their resguardos. The paramilitary are rearming to regain
control over former areas of peasant colonization that would give them access to the
Sierra Nevada. These zones are simultaneously being claimed by indigenous groups
in their process of territorial recovery. According to this report, paramilitaries target
indigenous leaders they suspect as guerilla informants or obstacles to military
organization and control.
These agents have generated social, political and economic instability in
indigenous territories, using them as temporary bases or corridors for transportation
of illegal crops and arms. Their presence places indigenous groups in a vulnerable
position, even though they are neutral in the conflict. Worse still, these actors
have started to exert pressure on indigenous leaders, some of whom have received
death threats or been killed in response to their political activities. These crimes then
generate displacement. By controlling access to territories and food, the paramilitary
groups deny indigenous peoples autonomy and fundamental rights.
At the same time, indigenous peoples have denounced the national army ‘due to
false positives,8 sexual abuses, robberies and profanation of sacred sites, among other
100 A. Ulloa
violations’ (Munera, 2009, p. 3). This once more provides evidence of the pressures
on indigenous communities and the state’s recognition-denial of their territorial
autonomy.
Final Thoughts
The political trajectory of the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada, as well as
other indigenous peoples, reveals how autonomy is exercised in relation to territorial
control, production for international markets, environmental management, and food
sovereignty, affirming that there are situations in which indigenous peoples can
accomplish and consolidate a certain level of autonomy (Ulloa, 2010). In Comaroff
and Comaroff’s (1997) view, this could be understood as a result of the agency of
indigenous movements. Using their definition, indigenous agency has meaningful
consequences and articulates new discourses of representation within the nation-
state. Through this agency, they ‘use’ their collective identity as a performance
strategy in order to establish relations with the state (Gros, 2000). This political
strategy allows them to manipulate their cultural and historical situation. Thus,
‘collective identity’ becomes an ongoing historical construction that allows indig-
enous movements to fight for their political and practical interests in national and
international arenas. Consequently, these peoples possess, in Gros’ terms, an ‘open
ethnicity’, which implies the possibility of new, flexible conceptions of indigenous
identity, allowing them to confront the contradictions that flow from their entry into
modernity and the nation-state.
Indigenous peoples’ rights to self-determination promote political practices based
on communal participation and collective identity as opposed to the western model
of individual citizenship and relation to the state. In addition, indigenous demands
for recognition of cultural practices that stray from western notions of public
and private also promote new conceptions of the political sphere. Their ways of
participating in and conceiving of public and private spheres have thus opened new
discursive and practical opportunities for other social movements. Moreover,
indigenous movements have exposed political arenas not only to the possibility of
rethinking cultural differences among humans, but also of rethinking the relation-
ships between humans and non-humans. In this way, indigenous identities transcend
the political idea that citizenship is individual, to incorporate broader social, cultural
and nature-oriented considerations.
The recognition of cultural practices and territories implicit in indigenous peoples’
rights to autonomy and self-determination also challenges notions of national and
transnational borders. For the state, this could mean fragmentation of its territory;
while for indigenous movements, it represents recognition of their sovereignty.
In some instances, indigenous territory transcends state borders because the
indigenous notion of territory invites relations across indigenous cultures and with
international organizations (NGOs and environmental movements, among others),
moving the indigenous–state relationship into transnational networks.
Indigenous peoples’ dialogue with the state demonstrates their interest in
integrating with, rather than separating from, Colombia. This expression of their
territorial plans within those of the nation-state indicates, on the one hand, a desire
for autonomous political authority and environmental control, and, on the other,
a willingness to cooperate with the state on issues related to the definition and
management of territories and resources. Within the national judicial framework,
indigenous peoples assert various legal rights as the foundation of their autonomy
and identity. For example, they demand free, previous and informed consent through
the Colombian institution of Previous Consultation (Consulta Previa). In addition,
they demand respect for their neutrality in the context of the Colombian armed
conflict, wherein paramilitary and guerrilla forces often threaten their control over
territories. In response, they reassert their cries for autonomy and self-determination,
refusing to let their lands be used as battlefields. Indigenous peoples have waged
protests against this ‘invasion’ and have banned these groups from their territories.
The CTC’s political negotiations are grounded in the right to autonomy and
self-determination over territories and resources. The CTC positions itself as a
legitimate authority without calling for a separation from the nation. Instead,
it promotes coordination and the construction of a multicultural and multiethnic
nation that will be responsive to a variety of governmental institutions and legislative
processes in order to allow full indigenous autonomy.
As discussed above, indigenous peoples’ activities within the natural world, and
their relations and practices within their territories, are based on and organized
by the Law of Origin. For this reason, they use the Law of Origin as the basis
for environmental management of the Sierra Nevada. They prefer this predominantly
cultural approach to their environment over a political or technical one. For the
government and various institutions, however, environmental problems require a
political response to technical problems that have resulted from diverse social,
economic, scientific, political and administrative processes. Therefore, although
environmental management plans may address the ‘issue’ of indigenous culture,
their main emphasis is on the technical aspects of proposals for economic
development (reforestation, nurseries, agricultural techniques, ecology and the
management of water basins) and on their associated administrative components
(institutional coordination, strengthening of associations, supporting grassroots
peasant organizations).
The indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada have been able to be relatively
autonomous in decision-making over their territory and in negotiations with the
state, and have achieved agreements that stem from their cultural and environmental
practices. Through the CTC, they have opened up spaces within international
governmental and non-governmental ambits where they participate with both voice
and vote. At the same time, they have gained support for their policies based on the
notion of a territorial autonomy that encompasses the four indigenous peoples’
identity and their responsibility to conserve the Sierra Nevada environmentally and
culturally.
Indigenous peoples are now exercising authority to control their resources and
territories. The CTC undertakes to develop the Law of Origin’s notion of territory
and its own proposals on environmental and territorial knowledge. Interactions
between the CTC and state institutions have led to agreements and differences, and
102 A. Ulloa
have fostered new strategies on territorial, cultural and environmental issues, which
in turn have repositioned them as agents equipped to lay out alternative options for
territorial and environmental relations.
However, indigenous peoples are also losing territorial control because of the
pressures of the paramilitary, guerrillas and even the state. Likewise, they have
had to adjust their economic practices to engage in the cultivation of coffee and other
products for the market. Lastly, their territories and natural surroundings are in
the sights of national and foreign corporations that seek to exploit the resources for
transnational markets and ecotourism.
In a recent letter to President Álvaro Uribe, the CTC articulated its demands
as follows:
The indigenous peoples of the Sierra do not oppose projects in the Sierra or the
legitimate presence of the armed forces, insomuch as they strictly adhere to national and
international standards that protect our rights. However, in the face of recurring,
systematic and massive violations of our rights, as the authorities in our territories, we
are forced to demand to the following actions from the other institutions that form part
of the socio-legal state, in accordance with their respective functions:
1. Comprehensive ratification of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples, 2007, such as the national government agreed to in a letter
delivered to the United Nations Secretary and at the Meeting in Durban in April of the
present year.
2. Fulfillment of the agreements signed by the four indigenous peoples with
governmental authorities and other state institutions.
[ . . . ] 5. In pursuance of the quoted sentence, require the Ministries of Environment,
Housing and Territorial Development; Interior; Agriculture and Mines, to suspend the
Port of Dibulla and the Rancherı́a Dam projects, due to non-compliance with the
requirements to guarantee the fundamental right to participation, as supported by two
tutelas9 currently being considered by the Constitutional Court, which demonstrate that
governmental authorities did not act in good faith during the two processes of
consultation. Thus:
a. They ignored agreements signed between the CTC and national government.
b. They overstepped indigenous self-government and legitimate authorities, ignoring
the fact that the CTC has been recognized as the legal entity and regulator of programs,
projects, actions and activities planned for the traditional territory, and that it is the
official indigenous voice for dialogue with the state concerning global problems and
issues that affect the traditional indigenous territory of the Sierra.
c. They failed to take emergency and preventive measures to protect indigenous
authorities and leaders from the armed conflict and ignored serious violations to
human rights and humanitarian international rights, amply documented by the
Constitutional Court in Writ 004-2009 and by decisions of the system of Inter-
American Court of Human Rights in favor of the Kankwamo (IHRC, 2004) and Wiwa
(IHRC, 2005) peoples.
(CTC, 2009, pp. 2–3)
A basic problem in Colombia is the lack of debate concerning the meaning
of indigenous autonomy within the political system; jurisdictional, territorial and
environmental planning, and the interaction of these with current state reforms;
and the armed conflict and processes of violence occurring in their territories.
Autonomy must be analyzed and not taken for granted, since it is not a given, but
rather a phenomenon with limitations, frictions, antagonisms and confrontations
that make it problematic, as evidenced in the processes described above.
Thanks to the special electoral political jurisdiction of the 1991 constitution,
indigenous political organizations began to participate in the electoral arena. They
have ‘conquered’ political turf in Congress, mayoral offices, and departmental
governments. Indigenous participation in the political scene has not only given them
a voice in political debates that affect projects and laws in their territories, but also in
debates affecting the whole nation. In this manner, the interaction between national
goals and indigenous movements has benefited them. However, their presence
in political power circles has also created some conflicts with non-indigenous actors
and with the traditional political parties.
The traditional parties often try to limit indigenous participation in political
activities because of their lack of experience in these arenas, or because their interests
are threatened by national laws promoting indigenous autonomy. In some instances,
the political process has also led to alliances between indigenous representatives
and traditional political parties and/or bureaucratic machineries that can delay or
transform indigenous political rights through cooptation. Jackson points out that
in this process the ‘Indian organizations become, in many ways, agents of the state,
with similar bureaucracies, language, constructions of what needs to be done and
how to do it’ (1996, p. 140).
The diversity among indigenous organizations and their positions can be obstacles
to reaching unified proposals that address indigenous demands within traditional
electoral politics. Furthermore, within these organizations, there are critiques of
leaders who, acting as indigenous representatives in the national congress, regional
governments and state agencies, have made political alliances with traditional
political parties that may have had negative effects on indigenous interests. In
addition, it is argued that some of these leaders have lost touch with their
communities and lack grassroots support.
Indigenous peoples seemingly enjoy autonomy and rights over their resources,
which means that their access to and ownership of genetic resources must be recorded
within the new legal and institutional regulations on biodiversity, a process that
requires indigenous participation. However, they cannot exert direct access to and
control over these resources, because the state also asserts national sovereignty over
them. Furthermore, a general transnational regulatory model has been developed that
includes ILO-169, the CDB Agreement (8j and 10c), and Andean Decision 391 of 1996.
These conflicting systems of governance affect all aspects of indigenous political
life in Colombia: territoriality, governance, autonomy, self-determination and law.
In fact, post-constitutional processes and national environmental dynamics are
currently affecting indigenous autonomy in the following areas: national develop-
ment versus local development, access to resources and territories, and legal
mechanisms that ignore/evade the requirement of free, prior and informed consent.
In the same way, indigenous autonomy is being confronted by the activities of several
local, regional, national and transnational actors in the local context, through the
armed conflict, illegal crops, territorial control and political pressure.
104 A. Ulloa
Therefore, in contexts like the Colombian one, indigenous peoples cannot
completely exercise their autonomy, a situation caused on the one hand by partial
recognition processes and on the other hand by partial and limited governability over
their territories – a relative autonomy. These processes require a permanent strategy
from indigenous peoples for constructing alliances, rethinking external processes and
reconfiguring internal processes in order to establish relations and hold negotiations
with other social actors, thereby constructing a relational indigenous autonomy.
This indigenous autonomy must be thought of as a diversity of partial and situated
processes, seen under specific circumstances and with particular political implica-
tions. Such processes require consideration since they are the basis for the exercise
of complete autonomy by indigenous peoples.
The autonomy of the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada is expressed in very
complex sets of circumstances and involves constant negotiations with various local,
regional, national and transnational actors. Within this context, indigenous
peoples have historically demanded a political relationship of equals between their
government and the national government. This is why the four indigenous peoples
(Kogui, Arhuacos, Kankwamos and Wiwas) joined the CTC, to confront the different
processes being imposed on their territory and to establish a relationship with the
Colombian state through agreements and the construction of common processes to
exercise their autonomy. However, there are moments where indigenous peoples
lose territorial control and are immersed in partial recognition processes and partial
and limited governability over their territories. Therefore, a notion of a relational
indigenous autonomy is required to understand which situations will allow indigenous
groups to voluntarily make decisions autonomously in conjunction with other actors,
in order to deal with processes that are compromising their territory, resources or
government.
In this sense, the political negotiations of indigenous peoples must be seen in
a historical light in order to understand how they think, and in consequence,
how they relate to outside actors. For example, history affects their negotiations
with the Colombian state, which they recognize as a legitimate interlocutor.
In addition, their relations and alliances with international organizations (such as
the United Nations) under international agreements must be considered. These
ties further their quest for recognition of their autonomy and give them allies in
challenging the local, regional, national and international players who disregard their
autonomy.
The situation of the indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada has revealed how they
put self-determination and self-government into practice in their territories. This
exercise arises from the relationships, negotiations and participation they have had
to establish with the state and with several other local, national, and transnational
actors in the search for recognition and implementation of their political and
territorial autonomy. At the same time, they have taken on some state and
transnational processes and policies in their search for the consolidation of their
autonomy. Therefore, what they are practicing is a relational indigenous autonomy:
a partial and situated process constructed under specific circumstances and with
particular political implications.
Acknowledgements
This work was translated from Spanish by Katharine Henrikson. The author is also
grateful to Julio Barragán, Arregocés Conchacala, Carlos Zambrano and Mauricio
Chavarro, as well as the external referees, for their comments and suggestions.
Notes
[1] The CTC – I will use the abbreviated name in Spanish in all cases – is an indigenous
organization formed among the four indigenous groups of the Sierra Nevada to coordinate
the dialogue between the indigenous peoples and the Colombian state and society.
[2] These names are the most commonly used in anthropological discourse. However, these
groups call themselves as follows: Kagabba (Kogui), Wintukua (Arhuaco), Sanka (Wiwa) and
Kakatukwa (Kankwamo).
[3] Indigenous peoples consider themselves to be the ‘elder brothers’ who inhabit the heart of
the world and therefore bear responsibility for the world’s equilibrium. Accordingly,
indigenous who do not inhabit the Sierra Nevada, and all non-indigenous peoples, are
considered ‘youngest brothers’.
[4] This agreement was signed on 10 December 2003 between indigenous authorities (through
the CTC) and the government: the Ministry of Environment, Housing and Territorial
Development (MAVDT), the National Planning Department (Departamento de Planeación
Nacional), the Ministry of the Interior and Justice (Ministerio de Interior y Justicia), and the
Special Administrative Unit of National Natural Parks (UAESPNN).
[5] The Lost City (Ciudad Perdida) is an archaeological site in the Sierra Nevada discovered in
1976. It is considered one of the most important prehispanic monuments on the continent
because of its entangled network of tiled roads, terraces and small circular plazas supported
by walls on the steeper mountains. The city was also strategically located. Therefore, its
inhabitants could live within a variety of climates, which ranged from the tropical to the
temperate to the alpine. Consequently, they had access to a great variety of agricultural
resources and hunting grounds.
[6] The construction of these towns is a strategy for indigenous territorial consolidation by
forming communities on the lowest frontiers of their territory. This strategy responds to
demands of the mamas.
[7] The governmental and local organizations that run the project are the High Commissioner
for Peace (Alto Comisionado para la Paz), Administrative Department of the Presidency of
the Republic (Departamento Administrativo Presidencia de la República), Fund for Special
Programs for Peace (Fondo de Programas Especiales para la Paz), Presidential Agency for
Social Action and International Cooperation (La Agencia Presidencial para la Acción Social y
la Cooperación Internacional), Pro Sierra Foundation, and several indigenous organizations.
[8] ‘False positives’ refers to the intentional murder of civilians by the Colombian army in order
to present them as guerrilla members killed in combat and show greater success in the
counter-insurgency war.
[9] A tutela is an expedited legal action available under the 1991 Constitution when fundamental
rights are being violated.
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The Politics of Autonomy of Indigenous Peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa

Article in Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies · March 2011

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The Politics of Autonomy of

Keywords: Colombia; indigenous peoples; relational indigenous autonomy;

ISSN 1744–2222 (print)/ISSN 1744–2230 (online)/11/010079–29 ß 2011 Taylor & Francis

Indigenous Peoples of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta

Confederation (Confederación Indı́gena Tairona [CIT]) (Uribe, 1993). From 1974

Finally, indigenous people demand recognition of their fundamental rights – in

Relations and Negotiations Regarding Autonomy

identities, which themselves operate almost autonomously, outside broader cultural

The current dominant tendency of eco-governmentality is to reinforce the idea of the

traditional authority, and a traditional way of life, including political self-

commercial cycles guarantee no long-term continuity but rather short-term bursts

The National Recognition-denial Process of Plural Citizenships

Local Imposition of De Facto Sovereignty

perceptions of indigenous peoples generate conflict by portraying them as anti-

Astrid Ulloa is at the Department of Geography, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Edificio

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