Camila Gianella, Flavio Wiik and Lara Côrtes are pleased to invite you to submit a paper proposal to the open panel entitled Water rights and indigenous identities in Latin America that they are organising for the 18th IUAES World Congress in Brazil in July 2018. The deadline for submission of abstracts is 25 March 2018. In order to submit an abstract click here.
Resume:
Indigenous societies attach particular reverence to their traditional territories and the physical environment in which they live. Their use of resources on their territories is accordingly often guided by their own distinct understanding of their place within this space, and ethnological literature indicates further that their sociocultural and physical (re)production operates from such a perspective.
A key aspect of indigenous identities is their relationship with water. This plays a role in the arguments that indigenous societies put forth as they oppose or seek to influence development projects that threaten to dramatically affect their lives. The dominant development discourse is often seen to clash with the indigenous peoples’ rights that are specifically protected both at the international level (e.g. UN Declaration on the Right of Indigenous Peoples and ILO’s Convention 169) and at the domestic level in several countries. All over the globe, there is an increase in development projects that harm water sources, and vulnerable populations are the most severely affected by the competition over water uses. Prior consultations to activities to be carried out on indigenous territories, as well as compensation measures, are typically guided by Western premises and values and are prone to ignore the cosmography of indigenous societies. This panel invites the submission of papers that explore the different discourses around water rights of indigenous peoples in Latin America.
About the Abstract Submission