A fruitless attempt towards plurinationality and decolonization? Perplexities in the creation of indigenous territorial autonomies in Bolivia

The new Andean constitutionalism centred around the concepts of plurinationality and decolonization tackles centuries of indigenous subordination and strives for the revaluation of indigenous culture. Territorial autonomy is currently considered a pivotal aspect of materializing these concepts and constitutes one of the most pressing demands of indigenous peoples in Latin America. The revolutionary Bolivian Constitution of 2009 is among the first to offer ways of establishing indigenous territorial autonomies as a form of sub-state territorial authority. Given the legal framework and the fact that three indigenous territorial autonomies (AIOCs) were officially created, Bolivia can be seen as the country with the most advanced conceptualization of indigenous territorial autonomies in Latin America. A closer look at the legal, cultural and administrative realities in Bolivia, however, reveals a different picture. By analyzing national and international law, indigenous cosmovisión and policies for implementation, this article points out six multi-layered perplexities regarding indigenous territorial autonomy, namely (1) the AOICs' inherent subordination to the State, (2) the irreconcilability of the AIOC-system with indigenous ancestral practices, (3) the hierarchization within demodiversity, (4) the sacrifice of indigenous interests for neo-extractivism, (5) the obstruction of the implementation process by the State and (6) the possible trade-off between de jure and de facto autonomy. We argue that the Bolivian States' self-imposed objective of overcoming colonialism and establishing plurinationality through AIOCs is not fulfilled. While some of the perplexities identified in Bolivia are clearly related to the MAS' political-party interests, others have a conceptual and more abstract nature rooted in the contradiction of overcoming colonialism through the State. These findings might also be of importance for decolonization processes in other countries, such as Ecuador

Autonomy · Colonialism · Conceptualization · Constitution · Constitutionalism · Decolonization · Democracy · Indigenous · Indigenous rights · Latin Americans · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Sovereignty · State (computer science · Subordination (linguistics · Indigenous Cultures and History · Indigenous Peoples' Rights and Law · Law · Migration, Education, Indigenous Social Dynamics

• Decolonial Comparative Law

  Open Access•Lena Salaymeh, Ralf Michaels•Rabels Zeitschrift für…•2022

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