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2017-2018 Meetings

Indigenous Resource Governance

The group’s theme was Indigenous Resource Governance, examining the complex forms of governance that link indigenous peoples in Latin America to resource extraction. One the one hand, indigenous groups have managed their lands and resources for thousands of years, co-existing, resisting, and negotiating with conquest, state-building, and capitalism. On the other, as neoliberal policies expanded, the scale and speed of extractivism has increased, but so have the political means for indigenous groups to organize and govern their own territories. With attention to this paradox, our group asked questions about the persistent and ongoing claims to Indigenous sovereignty over land and resources despite the strength of neoliberal settler states. 


Indigenous Knowledge Systems 

October 24, 2017

Dr. Wendy Townsend, Museo Noel Kempf, Bolivia


Water is Life Chapter Workshop 

November 17, 2017

Dr. Teresa Velasquez, Associate Professor, Anthropology, California State University at San Bernardino

We workshopped a chapter from Dr. Velasquez’s upcoming book, Pachamama Politics: Defending Water as Life in the Southern Ecuadorian Andes. 


Sovereign Forces Chapter Workshop 

February 6, 2018

Dr. John Andrew McNeish, Professor, Anthropology, Norwegian University of Life Sciences


Aymara Merchants Chapter Workshop 

March 6, 2018

Jorge Montesinos, UC Riverside


Land Planning in Peru 

March 9, 2018

Dr. Maria-Therese Gustafson, Political Science, Stockholm University 


May 9, 2018: Awas Tingni vs Nicaragua

Dr. Joe Bryan, Professor, Geography, University of Colorado