Rethinking Indigenous Autonomism in Latin America

Abstract

This thesis contributes to a broader scholarly understanding of how indigenous movements in Latin America articulate autonomy. One of the central objectives of this research is to address a simple, yet often either assumed or unheeded, question: what does the indigenous subject want? What are the distinct meanings behind the political projects put forward by indigenous movements in the region? How do they envision their liberation from the current systems of oppression? And, most importantly, how do they define concepts such as “self-determination” and “autonomy”? These questions are central to understanding the nuanced transformative processes that indigenous peoples in Latin America have set into motion. In this sense, this thesis will demonstrate that far from homogenous, each movement, according to its own lived experiences of colonization and settlement, national building processes, local history, as well as cultural and political imaginaries and collective memories, conceives autonomy in a different way. Out of these distinct articulations of autonomy, this thesis argues there are two movements at the forefront of an unheeded and overlooked autonomist project: the Council of Miskitu Elders in Mosquitia (Nicaragua) and the Arauco-Malleco Coordinating Committee in Wallmapu (Chile).