Guest Editorial: Symposium on 200 Years Since Latin American States’ Independence and Indigenous Peoples

Alexandra Tomaselli

Institute for Minority Rights of Eurac Research

2021 marks the bicentennial of the declarations of independence of several Latin American countries. Indeed, in 1821 alone, formal independence was gained by Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru. Other new states followed, such as Brazil and Ecuador in 1822, while other countries had already declared official independence by this time (Argentina in 1816 and Chile in 1818).

In this setting, the IACL-AIDC Research Group “Constitutionalism and Societal Pluralism: Diversity Governance Compared” decided to focus this year’s group symposium on this 200th anniversary and the still unfolding and unsettled relations between these states and their original inhabitants (Indigenous peoples). Hence, this symposium examines these independence processes by looking at contemporary aspects of Indigenous constitutional politics, how issues for Indigenous people have been handled in the creation of new states and over time, and what are the pressing issues in this regard today. Legal aspects of rights, legislation, litigation, and international convergence or divergence in Indigenous discourses in Latin America are the fil rouge of all this symposium’s entries. 

This symposium is hosted during the month that sees the recurrence of the so-called Columbus Day (Día de la Hispanidad, the Day of Hispanicity, which is also the National Day of Spain) that is celebrated on 12 October, the date on which Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas in 1492. While the discovery doctrine and theories (should) have been surpassed, the celebration of this date still represents one profound colonial mark, as several recent removals of Columbus’ statues across the Americas have shown. This remains, to use Eduardo Galeano’s words, one of the “open veins” of Latin America vis-à-vis Indigenous peoples, who continue to live at the fringes of this sub-region’s society and regularly suffer from both direct and indirect discrimination – a reality of profound social inequality that has been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In Latin America, Indigenous issues have come (or, better, returned) to the fore particularly after the so-called ‘Indigenous emergency’ (emergencia indígena) in the early 1990s, although these mobilizations were not a sort of “resurgence” but rather a question of visibility as well as of opportunity. All the numerous past and current Indigenous rebellions and manifestations that were, and continue to be, “everyday forms of resistance” certainly cannot be overlooked. 

The new Brazilian Constitution of 1988, and, more decisively, the Colombian Constitution of 1991 and the reforms to the Bolivian Constitution of 1967 in 1994 marked the beginning of what has been cast as the Latin American multicultural constitutionalism of the 1990s. Accordingly, from the 1990s onward, a number of other Latin American constitutions (Nicaragua in 1987, Paraguay in 1992, Peru in 1993, Ecuador in 1998, the reforms in Guatemala in 1998, and in Mexico in 1994 and 1995) included at least three of the following five elements; recognition of the multicultural nature of Indigenous societies and the existence of Indigenous peoples as distinct sub-state social collectivities, the recognition of Indigenous customary law as part of the ordinary law, rights to protect Indigenous property from collective sale, dismemberment, or confiscation, the grant of status to or official recognition of Indigenous languages and the guarantee of bilingual education. While Latin American multicultural constitutionalism may have had more of a symbolic rather than practical impact on Indigenous peoples and their rights, the Ecuadorian and the Bolivian Constitutions of 2008 and 2009, respectively, should have marked a new turn to ‘plurinationality’, which is also currently under discussion in the Constitutional Convention (Convención Constitucional) in Chile. Nevertheless, plurinationality is still far from becoming a reality.  

Indeed, as the contributors of this symposium will indicate, many issues remain to be tackled through a truly decolonial, equal and mutual approach and dialogue between states and Indigenous peoples. 

In the upcoming days and weeks, seven contributors will highlight the past and upcoming challenges and the current issues in making independence and Latin American constitutionalism a shared reality also for Indigenous peoples in this sub-continent, according to the following schedule: 

• Mexico’s Constitution, Indigenous Rights and the Future (7 October, Hector Calleros) 

• Guatemala: Ongoing Struggles over Indigenous Rights, 200 years After Independence (12 October, Claire Wright)

• The paradox of the Indigenous question in Colombia (14 October, Juan C. Herrera)

• Indigenous Nations in the Bicentennial of Peru (19 October, Roger Merino)

• Pluri-national State building processes in Ecuador through Interculturality and Human Rights as a process of real Independence (21 October, Daqui Lema)

• Argentina and Indigenous Peoples across 200 years of Independence (26 October, Marzia Rosti)

• A new beginning? Indigenous peoples in Chile after its bicentenary (28 October, Alexandra Tomaselli).

A hearty thank you goes both to the contributors to the blog-symposium and the editorial team of IACL-AIDC for assisting and hosting it. 

Dr Alexandra Tomaselli is a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Minority Rights of Eurac Research (Italy) and member of the IACL-AIDC Research Group “Constitutionalism and Societal Pluralism: Diversity Governance Compared”

Suggested Citation: Alexandra Tomaselli, ‘Guest Editorial: Symposium on 200 years since Latin American States’ Independence and Indigenous Peoples’ IACL-AIDC Blog (5 October 2021) https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/independence-and-indigenous-peoples/2021/10/5/guest-editorial-symposium-on-200-years-since-latin-american-states-independence-and-indigenous-peoples.