Indigenous People: Defense of their imaginaries and cultural identities in the dispute over the territory

Abstract

The department of Cauca is recognized for being a territory with a high presence of ethnic communities, both indigenous and Afro-Colombian. It is also a territory that has different internal and intercommunity conflicts that are motivated by access to land and by the territorial government that involves both local farmers, Afro-Colombians and indigenous. This document will evaluate the legal explanation of these conflicts, which fall mainly on the assignment that INCODER as an administrative authority has given to the territories of the Department, and in response to this complaint, has strongly embarked to vindicate the traditions and customs that upon these territories a construction of imaginaries and identities of these communities has been built. This argument that worked mainly for the indigenous communities, who counts on important pieces of jurisprudence which has recognized the cultural link between these communities and the territory, by appealing, among other things, to international rules in defense of the traditions, customs and identity of indigenous communities that founds their sense of autonomy.