Abstract

NG'WENO, BETTINA. CAN ETHNICITY REPLACE RACE? AFRO-COLOMBIANS, INDIGENEITY AND THE COLOMBIAN MULTICULTURAL STATE. Rev. colomb. antropol. [online]. 2013, vol.49, n.1, pp.71-104. ISSN 0486-6525.

Several Latin American countries have declared themselves -including Colombia- as multicultural nations. In the process they have restructured legal rights along lines of cultural distinction that have provided special rights to ethnic groups under new political constitutions. A crucial dimension of this legal change has been the sacralization of a particular conceptualization of indigeneity. In this article I focus on the processes that enable and limit ethnic belonging in Colombia, in order to understand the concept of indigeneity on which these ideas of ethnicity are based. I analyze the use of specific ideas of indigeneity in a territorial conflict in the Andes between Indigenous and Black communities, and also a Supreme Court ruling (Sentencia T-422/96) that discusses the rights of Afro-Colombians.

Keywords : indigeneity; territory; race; ethnicity; multiculturalism.

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