Indigenizing International Law: Inverse Legal Anthropology in the Age of Jurisdictional Double Binds

This thesis explores the encounter between Western and Indigenous jurisdictions, paying particular attention to the way in which post-colonial rule always entails resistance, hybridity, and accommodation. By studying the emancipatory potential of indigenous thought as a basis for the transformation of international law, the thesis examines both the strategies used by international law to colonize indigenous jurisdictions, and the practices of resistance used by indigenous peoples to keep their own laws alive. In so doing, it explores the double bind that exists between silencing and listening to indigenous jurisprudences, drawing attention to the interaction between indigenous and non-indigenous worlds.

Taking into consideration indigenous cosmologies and social movements in the Andean region with a special emphasis on Aymara history during colonial times, Nasa history in the course of the twentieth century in Colombia, and the contemporary Colombian indigenous movement, I expose the ambiguous role of international law in recognizing indigenous rights and the need to think differently about indigenous legal thinking and practice.

Towards this goal, the thesis proposes the idea of indigenizing international law by considering indigenous law as law. It is by directing indigenous jurisprudences to the framework of international law and by recognizing the constitutive relationship between Western and indigenous accounts that the possibility of transforming international law becomes possible. This process through which 'we' can learn from indigenous jurisprudences in order to change 'our' laws is what I call in this thesis inverse legal anthropology. In indigenizing international law using an inverse legal anthropology, the thesis remarks the power of indigenous thinking to counteract international law's colonial legacies and indigenous peoples' ongoing genocide.

Three empirical cases, written in the ethnographic genre, illustrate the main concepts that underpin my analysis. The first case study, exemplifies the complexities of the double bind between colonial domination and indigenous resistance, having as a backdrop for discussion the work of Anarchist sociologist Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui. The second case study presents an archival exploration of what it means to perform an inverse legal anthropology based on the life and work of Manuel Quintín Lame-a Nasa indigenous leader who was an active user and creator of law. The third case study displays the indigenization of international law by narrating the history of the contemporary Colombian indigenous movement through the voices of Taita Víctor Jacanamijoy and Luis Evelis Andrade, former vice-president and president respectively of the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, ONIC.