Cauca's Indigenous Movement in Southwestern Colombia: Land, Violence, and Ethnic Identity provides a vivid account of how the indigenous communities of Cauca in southwestern Colombia engaged with the Colombian central state. Troyan begins with the question of how 3.4 percent of the Colombian population obtained legal rights to close to a quarter of the national territory. Her in-depth study of the correspondence between the central state and indigenous communities of Cauca reveals that the nation state played a key role in the legitimization of land claims based on ethnic identity. Starting with the indigenous movement led by Manuel Quintín Lame in 1914, this book shows how, in contrast to the local authorities of Cauca, the central state adopted a more sympathetic albeit contradictory approach to indigenous communities’ grievances throughout the twentieth century. Land, Violence, and Cauca's Indigenous Movement in Southwestern Colombia presents an examination of state initiatives in the 1930s, 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s toward indigenous communities in Cauca, whichsheds light on the political and social construction of Colombian indigenous identity. Troyan also reveals how violence and the representation of violence shaped the conversations between the central state and indigenous communities of Cauca; the central state’s inability to exert a monopoly on violence, Troyan argues, places indigenous communities and their leaders in jeopardy despite the discursive legitimization of land claims based on ethnic identity.

Cauca, located in southwestern Colombia and home to the largest indigenous population in the country, is renowned as a site of indigenous mobilization. In 1994, following a destructive earthquake, many families in Cauca were forced to leave their communities of origin and relocate to other areas within the province where the state provided them with land and housing. Noting that disasters offer communities the opportunity to remake themselves and their priorities, David D. Gow examines how three different communities established after the earthquake wrestled with conflicting visions of development. He shows how they each countered traditional notions of development by moving beyond a myopic obsession with poverty alleviation to demand that Colombia become more inclusive and treat all of its people as citizens with full rights and responsibilities. Through ethnographic fieldwork conducted annually in Cauca from 1995 through 2002, Gow compares the development plans of the three communities, looking at both the planning processes and the plans themselves. In so doing, he demonstrates that there is no single indigenous approach to development and modernity. He describes differences in how each community defined and employed the concept of culture, how they connected a concern with culture to economic and political reconstruction, and how they sought to assert their own priorities while engaging with the existing development resources at their disposal. Ultimately, Gow argues that the moral vision advanced by the indigenous movement, combined with the growing importance attached to human rights, offers a fruitful way to think about development: less as a process of integration into a rigidly defined modernity than as a critical modernity based on a radical politics of inclusive citizenship.

DIVExplores how participants in the indigenous movement in Cauca, Colombia--including indigenous, non-indigenous, scholars, and shamans--have helped define a new sense of Colombian nationhood./div

The study of law and social movements provides an ideal lens for rethinking fundamental questions about the relationship between law and power. This Research Handbook takes up that challenge, framing a new, more global, dynamic, reflexive, and contextualised phase of social movement studies.

Presenting the historical, socioeconomic, political, and security conditions experienced by three peasant communities, Colombian Peasants in the Neoliberal Age provides readers with the most up-to-date and comprehensive assessment of Colombia's peasants currently available. Nazih F. Richani examines their adaptive strategies and resistance to subsumption processes and the prospects for the sustainability of their modes of production, culture, and livelihood. In addition, he explores each communities' level of agency that has allowed them to respond to the encroachments of rentier economy by devising adaptive strategies and building collaborative networks, forging new partners at the national, regional, and global levels. These findings are timely given the historic change in Colombia's leadership as represented by President Gustavo Petro, a former rebel and a leftist leader, and his vice president Francia Elena Marquez, an Afro-Colombian woman activist. The Petro administration offers an exceptional opportunity for radical policy change toward national development, particularly towards peasants and agrarian issues. The research undertaken in this book holds the potential to enrich political discussions and inform new policies.

A critical analysis of influential theories on identity politics and recognition in the Global South which proposes new policy solutions.