Intercultural Utopias

by Rappaport, Joanne

• ISBN13: 9780822335993
• ISBN10: 0822335999
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-30
• Publisher: Duke Univ Pr

Summary

While only two percent of Colombia's population identifies themselves as indigenous, that figure belies the significance of the country's indigenous movement. More than a quarter of the Colombian national territory belongs to indigenous groups, and eighty percent of the country's mineral resources are located in native-owned lands. In this innovative ethnography, Joanne Rappaport draws on research she has conducted in Colombia over the past decade-and particularly on her collaborations with activists-to explore the country's multifaceted indigenous movement, which, after almost 35 years, continues to press for rights to live as indigenous people in a pluralistic society that recognizes them as citizens. Focusing on the intellectuals involved in the movement, Rappaport traces the development of a distinctly indigenous modernity in Latin America-one that defies common stereotypes of separatism or a romantic return to the past. This emerging form of modernity is characterized by interethnic communication and the reframing of selectively appropriated western research methodologies within indigenous philosophical frameworks.Intercultural Utopias centres on southwestern Colombia's Cauca region, a culturally and linguistically heterogeneous area well known for its history of indigenous mobilization and its pluralist approach to ethnic politics. Rappaport interweaves the stories of individuals with an analysis of the history of the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca (CRIC) and other indigenous organizations. She presents insights into the movement and the intercultural relationships that characterize it from the varying perspectives of regional indigenous activists, non-indigenous urban intellectuals dedicated to the fight for indigenous rights, anthropologists, local teachers, shamans, and native politicians.Joanne Rappaport is Professor of Spanish at Georgetown University. She is the author of The Politics of Memory: Native Historical Interpretation in the Colombian Andes, also published by Duke University Press, and Cumbe Reborn: An Andean Ethnography of History.

Table of Contents

About the Series	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
A Note on the Orthography of Nasa Yuwe	xvii
Abbreviations for Colombian Organizations	xix
Introduction	1	(22)
Frontier Nasa/Nasa de Frontera	23	(32)
The Dilemma of the Indigenous Intellectual
Colaboradores	55	(28)
The Predicament of Pluralism in an Intercultural Movement
Risking Dialogue	83	(32)
Anthropological Collaborations with Nasa Intellectuals
Interculturalism and Lo Propio	115	(37)
CRIC's Teachers as Local Intellectuals
Second Sight	152	(33)
Nasa and Guambiano Theory
The Battle for the Legacy of Father Ulcue	185	(42)
Spirituality in the Struggle between Region and Locality
Imagining a Pluralist Nation	227	(35)
Intellectuals and Indigenous Special Jurisdiction
Epilogue	262	(15)
Glossary	277	(4)
Notes	281	(18)
Works Cited	299	(26)
Index	325