What Is "Post" in Post-Neoliberal Political Economy

Draft copy, do not cite without authors permission
What is Post in Post-Neoliberal Political Economy? Indigenous land rights and the extractive industry in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador
Roger Merino (*) (*)(*)
Indigenous movements in Latin America are considered as important actors in the processes of radical democracy and the constitution of post-neoliberal regimens. In Bolivia and Ecuador political parties representing indigenous people have promoted legal and institutional reforms towards the creation of a plurinational state. In Peru, indigenous movements have supported the candidature of the recently left-wing elected president, forming chains of equivalence with environmentalists, unions, and liberal democrats against a radical conservative neoliberal party. And yet, in these three countries, many indigenous people are still ignored or repressed, particularly when they protest against mining, oil and developmental projects led either by the government or transnational corporations. By exploring the discordance between multicultural policies on the one hand, and extractivist economic dependence on the other hand, I suggest that in spite of the legal recognition of indigenous rights, multiculturalism in Latin America has not challenged the legal and economic mechanisms of assimilation of indigenous peoples land rights. Thus, in the Ecuadorian and Bolivian contexts there is a deep tension between the communal paradigm of the Buen vivir and the liberal framework of the sovereignty of the nation state which owns all natural resources; whereas in the Peruvian context the governmental rhetoric of social inclusion is embedded in the logic of neoliberal assimilation. Keywords: indigenous rights, political economy, liberal multiculturalism, Latin America.
1. Introduction. Indigenous lands rights: from open exclusion to violent assimilation Western legality has justified and legitimized the colonial project of expropriation of indigenous land. During colonization the implementation of International Law was based on two assumptions regarding indigenous peoples land rights: indigenous peoples do not legally exist (thus their land can be occupied), or indigenous peoples exist but are inferior (thus, their rights existed but can be extinguished). Based on that distinction, the dispossession of indigenous peoples was achieved by means of acquisition and means of extinguishment (Gilbert, 2006). The means of acquisition during colonization were the legal doctrines of discovery and conquest. The doctrine of discovery meant that the discoverer of unoccupied lands gained a right to the land title against other European powers. As indigenous peoples were not considered human beings, their lands were regarded as unoccupied, and Spanish and Portuguese explorers applied the doctrine of natural slavery to them (Corntassel and Hopkins, 1995). In De Indis et de ivre belli relectiones (1532) Francisco de Vitoria affirmed that the indians owned the land in America, and discovery was not a proper legal mean of acquisition. However, although the indians had certain rights to property, they can lose their rights if the conqueror had a just cause to make war against them. The just war emerged if the Indians did not fullfill their inherent obligations: 1) leave free passage to colonizers into their lands; 2) allow trading among colonizers; 3) share the wealth of their lands; 4) permit the propagation of
(*)
Ph.D/M.Phil (c) Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath; MSc. International Policy, University of Bath; MSc. Comparative Law, Economics and Finance, International University College of Turin; LL.M. San Marcos University (rm468@bath.ac.uk). (*)(*) Paper to be presented at the Postgraduates in Latin American Studies Annual Conference, Department of International Development, University of Oxford (2527 June, 2012)
Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2088237
Christianity. Thus, just war provided the colonizers with a legal title of territory as part of a legal conquest (Gilbert, 2006). In addition, Vitoria concluded that indigenous peoples were unable to administer a State because, among other failures, they had no proper laws nor magistrates, Europeans therefore could undertake the administration of their country in their benefit (Fromherz, 2008). In sum, Victoria provided the legal framework for the conquest of indigenous territories. The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) meant the ending of the Thirty Years War, the end of the Roman-Catholic Church political hegemony, and the emergence of the modern system of States in Europe, marking a new historical period in which sovereign territorial states replaced the feudal order. This revolution had a deep impact on indigenous land rights because a body of law was set up with only one subject: the nation-state (Gilbert, 2006). Thus, there could be two treatments for indigenous peoples: they are considered as nation-states or they are inhabitants to be assimilated or excluded from the nation-state (Derso, 2010). Other important effect was the distinction between territorial sovereignty (jurisdiction over a specific area of territory) as an issue of International Law, and title to land as a matter of property rights. This distinction between individual property rights and state territorial rights created a disparity in which International Law excluded the indigenous notion of communal land ownership (Gilbert, 2006). Hence, these two denials (the negation of sovereignty and the negation of communal property) were the basis for the doctrine of terra nullius (land belonging to nobody), a discourse that operated to legitimate the dispossession of indigenous people by not conforming to European legality. John Locke provided the foundations for this doctrine by influencing the idea of the superiority of settled agricultural societies over indigenous peoples (Gilbert, 2006). In his Two Treatises of Government, Locke proposed that property in land originated from tilling the soil, in mixing labour with land. The apparent absence of such activities in the colonies led to the colonizers argument that they were free to settle and acquire property rights by agricultural cultivation without the consent of natives (Tully, 1994; Dodds, 1998). Therefore, at the end of the 18th century the strategy of colonial powers was the rejection of the existence of indigenous territorial rights. Terra nullius occupied the place of just war in dispossessing indigenous land. A factor in this evolution was the movement of decolonization in las Americas. During this first wave of decolonization the new emerging states reclaimed territory against the former colonial powers. Indigenous peoples were ignored during the process of transfer of territory between eximperial European colonizers and newly independent States. Whereas early International Law was directed to provide to the colonizers with a legacy of their conquest, modern International Law aimed at justifiyng the stability of these conquest for either the colonizers or their decendant states (Gilbert, 2006). Thus, the decolonization process did not end the expropriation of indigenous land, but the beginning of internal colonialism. In this model the appropriation of the land is not directed only to resettlement and exploitation (which is also true in external colonisation), but for the territorial foundation of the dominant society itself (Tully, 2000). Since the independence, there were recognized some indigenous rights through treaties, private contracts and state legislation but imposing liberal and Western concepts in benefit of the new nation-states (Churchill, 2002; Eudaily, 2004). For example, in United State the General Allotment Act (1887) recognized that each native person have right on their land. Once they received his allotment (private property), the balance of each reserved territory was declared
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Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2088237
surplus and made available to non-Indian settlers (corporations, federal parks, forest and military bases), reducing the indigenous land-base by two-thirds, affecting their subsistence. Native people seek just resolutions in U.S. courts and refuse to participate in allotments, but the Courts denied their rights, and the refusal of allotments resulted in being left landless (Churchill, 2002). This period referred to as the allotment and assimilation era was based on the reasoning that communal ownership of land only exacerbated tribal Indians uncivilized lifestyles. Similarly in New Zealand, the colonial laws regarding Native Lands (Native title land Act 1862 and Native Lands Act 1865) brought about the extinction of communally held territories in order to weaken the Maori social structure (Gilbert, 2006). In Latin American things were not better. For example, after Upper Perus (Bolivia) Independence from Spain in 1825 the new power elites (Spanish descendants) were faced with the task of building a modern society. They faced two key obstacles: the existence of large indigenous populations and the great extensions of communally-owned land. To overcome these obstacles government power elites attempted to: a) physically eliminate indigenous populations; b) dispossess indigenous peoples of their lands through legal mechanisms; c) assimilate them into the liberal modernization project (Galindo, 2010). Thus, the official policy of all states towards their indigenous populations was violent assimilation. They used a variety of coercive means to obtain this goal, from forced conversion to Christianity to compulsory use of Spanish. The justification for this strategy was national unity and its philosophical underpinning was a conception of indigenous societies as savage and backwards (Sanders, 1989). Thus, the new nations were structured in the image of Western, Catholic, white countries with no place for Indians (Arocena, 2008). The effect of these measures was to turn indigenous people into servants (peons) attached to large land estates (haciendas) (Galindo, 2010). Indigenous rebellions in Latin America emerged as response to this violent assimilation. But the revolutionary project was led by Marxists parties and movements that recognized for first time indigenous rights but through an inclusion from the Left. In Bolivia, the 1952 nationalistic revolution consolidated the process of indigenous inclusion granting them political, social and economic rights, not as indigenous peoples with specific cultural identities, but rather as peasants or useful citizens (Arocena, 2008), and sindicatos campesinos (peasant unions) took preeminence over indigenous organizations. The classist policies were imposed by force in countries like Mexico, Peru, and Bolivia in order to implement a corporate model which tied indigenous peasants to the state economy (Postero and Zamosc, 2006). In these countries indigenous protests led to significant land reforms (Bolivia after 1952 and Peru after 1968), but without contesting the division between state territorial sovereignty and individual property land rights, for even though the notion of individual property in land was suppressed, the only collective ownership that was recognized was state ownership (Gilbert, 2006). In sum, for many indigenous people the socialist approach to land ownership resulted in the relocation of settlements and communities, and the denial of their specific cultural identity and social organization. Indigenous groups have had to fight against this classist position by trying to recoup their ethnic identity (Langer and Muoz, 2003). In April of 1940, the First Interamerican Indigenist Congress was held in the Mexican city of Ptzcuaro, which generated the Ptzcuaro Agreement. This Agreement did not represent a fundamental change in the strategy of assimilating indigenous peoples, but in the form: from
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violent to friendly assimilation. The way to ensure indigenous integration into national societies was to provide better education, technical training, and financial assistance (Roldn, 2004). The approval in 1957 of the International Labor Organizations Convention 107 (ratified by all the independent countries of Latin America and the Caribbean) reinforced this strategic integrationist approach (Roldn, 2004; Sanders, 1989; Suagee, 1997; Stamatopoulou, 1994; Pitty, 2001). The Convention 107 explicitly established the norms by which such integration should be achieved while respecting indigenous peoples rights in the interim (Colchester, 2002). In sum, since colonial times indigenous populations were labeled successively as Indians, peons and peasants, moving from a homogenizing model of exclusion to a homogenizing model of inclusion (Galindo, 2010), in both cases the result was the same: the denial of a different legal, political and economic organization; the denial of a different ontology and epistemology. The mechanisms for inclusion were treaties, contract and the recognition of private property rights in settler colonial context; and policies of integration and modernization in Latin America. In this paper, I argue that the mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion are rooted in the political economy of capitalist expansion, liberal legality and Western modernity. These mechanisms remain today even in so-called post-neoliberal regimens because even though in these regimens there has been a radical critique of Western modernity and an attempt to profoundly reform liberal legality, there has not been a challenge to the dominant political economy. 2. Indigenous peoples in the era of multiculturalism: self-determination or friendly assimilation? The counterpoint to colonialism and assimilation is self-determination (Kowal, 2008), which is the pillar of communal rights, and specifically, land rights for indigenous peoples. For them, land tenure is more than an economic issue; it involves a set of unique and interrelated legal, social, political and spiritual relationships (Daes, 2008; Roldn, 2004), which are prerequisites for their physical and cultural survival (Sewptson and Plant, 1985; Satterthwaite and Hurwitz, 2005; Barsh, 2001; Stamatopoulou, 1994). In sum, holistic indigenous worldviews go well beyond liberal-individualist explanations about property rights (Holder and Corntasell, 2002). Given this unique connection with their lands, it is justified to grant indigenous peoples the highest standard of protection. This standard entails a substantial limitation on the exercise of eminent domain powers by the state through the prohibition of relocation or land exploitation without indigenous peoples consent (MacKay, 2002). The different institutional steps toward self-determination in the last decades have been achieved within todays era of multiculturalism. In this context, article 12 of ILO Convention 107 was strongly criticized because it justified the removal of indigenous from their territories for the interest of national economic development (Sewptson and Plant, 1985). This situation was amended by Convention ILO 169 approved in 1989, which prohibits relocation without indigenous consent; however, in issues regarding the exploitation of indigenous land it does not require consent, but only that the state establish or maintain procedures through which shall consult these peoples (article 15). This weak protection has been challenged by some scholars through interpretations directed to reinforce indigenous rights. They argue that article 15 should be read consistently with article 6, so consultation must be undertaken in good faith and with the objective of achieving consent
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(MacKay, 2002), and if consent is not achieved, there should be a strong presumption that the project should not go forward (Anaya, 2005). In the 1980s, the United Nations (UN) started the efforts to implement a Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP) by creating the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations. Over the years, participation by indigenous peoples increased dramatically (Tennant, 1994); this corresponds with the expansion of the international indigenous peoples movement as a global movement (Barsh, 1987; Oldham and Frank, 2008; Stamatopoulou, 1994; Gilbert, 2007). Thus, after 20 years of negotiation at the United Nations there was enacted in 2007 the Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIP), which recognizes strongly collective rights, the necessity of consent to exploit indigenous land and self-determination (Oldham and Frank, 2008; Gilbert, 2007; Fromherz, 2008). Apart from the Declaration several conventions exist at regional level. The American Convention on Human Rights, ratified by twenty-five American nations, has been interpreted by the Inter-American Commission and Court on Human Rights in favor of indigenous peoples. They have recognized the right of collective property and the necessity to provide their consent to any activity that can cause profound impacts on their land (Page, 2004). Similar interpretation has been made with the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights by the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (Korman, 2010). Moreover, the rights of indigenous peoples gradually developed under very different international institutional settings, including the work of the ILO, the World Bank, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, the UN Forum on Forests, UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the different UN human rights monitoring bodies (Anaya, 2004). These progresses, however, should be analyzed accurately. The era of multiculturalism have meant the era of cultural recognition but not the era of indigenous autonomy. The first problem with the system is the lack of enforcement. The declaration is not a binding instrument and many countries (as the U.S. and Canada) just refuse to be part of the InterAmerican System or to respect its recommendation and decisions (Page, 2004; Pasqualucci, 2009). Another problem is that the indigenous policies of international financial institutions do not recognize the necessity of indigenous consent. For example, the World Bank (WB) Operational Policy 4.10 on Indigenous Peoples (OP) establishes that for all projects that affect native people, the WB borrower must engage in free, prior and informed consultation with indigenous, not being necessary to obtain their consent. Finally, a more critical view on the decisions of the Inter-American system shows that it has not been as progressive as the Declaration (Pasqualucci, 2009). The Inter-American Court does not sustain the right of indigenous peoples to all natural resources on their lands. Rather, the Court holds that indigenous peoples have the right only to those natural resources that they had used traditionally and which were necessary for their very survival, development and continuation of peoples way of life. This holding allows the state, subject to certain safeguards of indigenous rights, to harvest natural resources on indigenous communal lands. Although the state must consult with the indigenous people prior to all development, it is not essential that the state get the free, prior, and informed consent of the peoples in all instances. In the Saramaka case, the Inter-American
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Court held that consent is only necessary when the state is considering large-scale development or investment projects that would have a major impact on a large part of their territory. Conversely, the DRIP calls for free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources. The limitation that the consent of indigenous people is only necessary when major development or investment projects will have a profound impact on a large part of their territory seems to facilitate some partial logging and mining concessions that could negatively impact indigenous communities (Ibid). Moreover, although many indigenous peoples have taken a functional approach to selfdetermination related to the right to control their institutions, territories, resources, social orders and cultures without external domination; some indigenous peoples do define their right to selfdetermination in terms of political independence (Falk, 1993), and the sovereignty recognized to indigenous peoples by the DRIP doesnt relate to original power over people and territory: is sovereignty without imperium (Wiessner, 2008). In addition, although the DRIP has been praised for its broad recognition of collective rights, a number of provisions regarding collective rights were dropped from the 1993 version of the draft in the series of compromises that led to the last version. Articles in the 1993 version, for example, included collective rights to maintain and develop their distinct identities (Article 8), to determine their own citizenship in accordance with their customs and traditions (Article 32); and to determine the responsibilities of individuals to their communities (Article 34). These provisions were led aside because of the trade-off in assuming the framework of human rights (Engle, 2011). However, the history of indigenous resistance shows that a simple application of individual civil and political rights to indigenous peoples would be insufficient. For example, indigenous rights are defined, explicitly or implicitly, with the repugnancy clause. This clause expresses minimum standards being applied as a qualification to the toleration being accorded to the basically unacceptable norms of backward communities. Paragraphs (2) and (3) of Article 46 of the DRIP threaten to function in the same way as the repugnancy clause. By subjecting the rights contained in the declaration to the vague standards of international human rights obligations and justice, democracy, respect for human rights, equality, non-discrimination, good governance and good faith, the provisions offer states a way to define certain indigenous claims out of these categories, and to deny them accordingly (Ibid). Another important point is that although indigenous peoples land rights are somehow universally recognized, they are not universally respected: non-respect is increasingly associated with states efforts to attract foreign direct investment by opening isolated and protected areas of the countryside to development without regard to the wishes or welfare of the actual inhabitants (Barsh, 2001). Thus, legal recognition of rights for indigenous peoples has gone hand in hand with new forms of capital violent accumulation (Sieder, 2011). In the past, the beneficiaries of land theft were non-indigenous farmers, ranchers, mining companies and lumber mills; in the 20th Century world economy, the beneficiaries are largely trans-national corporations engaged in export from South to North (Barsh, 2001). In this context, the two main legal expressions of the era of multiculturalism: the doctrine of native title and the free prior and informed consent, although have been largely celebrated, still do not ensure complete protection to indigenous peoples land rights.
The native title doctrine was mainly developed through the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court of Canada and the High Court of Australia in the 1990s. This doctrine recognizes that the colonization of indigenous territories has not completely extinguished indigenous peoples land rights. The objective of such recognition is reconciliation between States and their indigenous populations (Gilbert, 2007). But the Native title regime (and the policies of reconciliation) is premised on the denial of Indigenous peoples sovereignty. While the courts implicitly recognized the continuance of traditional laws and customs, they do not recognize any concomitant legal and political autonomy (Short, 2003). The Native title claims process is based on the assumption that the Crown holds underlying title to all land and resources on the Australian continent, and Aboriginal people can only make a claim to Native title where it has not previously been extinguished by an act of state (dispossessed indigenous groups stand no chance of regaining lost land). Even then, they can only make a claim if they can prove they have a continuing traditional connection to the land in question, using the white legal systems burden of proof requirements. Thus, the onus of proof is on Aboriginal people, whereas in a system which genuinely recognized Aboriginal peoples originary or inherent sovereignty and nationhood, it would have to be the other way around (Fitzpatrick, 2002; Pratt, 2004). Moreover, native title is considerably weaker than freehold title because is subject to a number of important limitations, including the right of preemption which precludes alienation outside the indigenous community except to the Crown, and susceptibility to extinguishment without compensation (Patton, 2000; Dodds, 1998). Indigenous title could be explicitly extinguished by an act directed to that purpose, or implicitly by an act that creates a situation that would ultimately extinguish the title. Thus, extinguishment raises issues regarding indigenous peoples right to participation in decisions affecting them, as the legislature can potentially extinguish indigenous peoples right over their lands without consultation with the concerned communities (Gilbert, 2007). On the other hand, the right of indigenous peoples to provide a free prior and informed consent to any activity or legislation that can affect their rights is also usually regarded as the most important achievement of the era of multiculturalism. This consent must be expressed in accordance with their customary laws and practices, and must be obtained without coercion or manipulation, at an early stage of project design, and after the project proponents full disclosure of the intent and scope of the activity in language and process understandable to the affected communities (MacKay, 2005). But consent regulation and application is very contentious. While the DRIP does call on states to consult with the communities in order to obtain their prior consent, and in the Inter-American System of Human Rights, the Commission has often promoted the necessity of consent, and many important decisions of the Court regarding indigenous rights have assumed the arguments of the Commission (Page, 2004; Anaya, 2005; Gilbert, 2007); most international instruments and national regulations recognize just the right of indigenous peoples to be consulted in relation to matters affecting them. Why all the improvements in the recognition of indigenous rights seem more decorative than real? Why in spite of the celebrated declarations and recognition of rights still indigenous peoples struggle for defending their land and livelihoods? One interesting answer is that as the globalisation of both extractive capitalism and indigenous rights has intensified over the last two decades, conflicts over the exploitation of indigenous lands have multiplied across the world (Rodrguez-Garavito, 2011). In that scenario, the consultation approach that would overcome the assimilationist approach, is fostered by everyone (World Bank, ILO, the International Council on
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Mining and Metals (ICMM), Oxfam, etc.) and entails the juridification of collective claims of cultural identity, self-determination, and control over territories and resources into an ethnicity governance, which is the projection of the neoliberal legal subject onto the plane of collective rights. The fit between consultation and governance explains the ease with which consultation was incorporated into the neoliberal mainstream, specifically in the discourse of economic development (Rodrguez-Garavito, 2011). In Convention 169 itself, consultation rights-based dimension is situated within the economic framework of the development process. This explains the fact that actors of global neoliberalism, from multilateral banks to TNCs, have embraced consultation, finding it to be a useful and business-friendly mechanism for responding to growing criticisms of their operations impact on indigenous peoples. In fact, consultation became a key component of the discursive adjustments with which the development project was repackaged and re-exported across the world (Ibid). In that context, the main problem of consultation/consent is that is trapped within liberal legality. In the jurisprudence of the Inter-American Human Rights system, classic individual rights, including the right to property, have been re-read to accommodate communal perspectives (Pentassuglia, 2011). The problem with this process of accommodation is that indigenous legality can be easily emptied. Goodland (2004) for example, recognized the right to consent but according to the Western view: a majority of 51% suffices (when indigenous tend to require a massive consent); in addition, informed consent would not be in the national interest if an extraordinarily lucrative mine was held hostage by one absentee family (Goodland, 2004). Furthermore, there are limits to what the jurisprudence can do: individual cases may prove less progressive or convincing than others; the reach of jurisprudential assessments varies depending on the contingencies of the regime under which they operate (Pentassuglia, 2011). This situation is perpetuated because the unequal power of indigenous communities with national governments and extractive industries. Typically, indigenous peoples are poor and lack training, experience, access to information and political power (Page, 2004). In that context, the recognition of indigenous rights has as limit the dominant political economy: there are industries seeking valuable resources and promising lucrative returns to governments, as well as some development analysts who point to extractive projects as important anti-poverty measures; and the international financial institutions continue to advocate for mineral, water, oil, and gas projects and private investment while purporting to uphold the rights of indigenous peoples through participatory programming and other non-binding initiatives (Satterthwaite and Hurwitz, 2005). In sum, it seems that there is an slow evolution: from mechanisms of open exclusion and negation of legal subjectivity (discovery, just war, terra nullius) during the colonial era; to mechanism of assimilation (implementation of treaty making, private property rights, national policies of economic and social integration) during the independence era; to finally mechanism of friendly assimilation (native title, consultation) during the multicultural era. However, in all these cases there is a core that is not questioned, a political space that denies real selfdetermination and autonomy to indigenous peoples.
3. Liberal multiculturalism in Latin America In Latin America there are two countries where indigenous populations constitute a majority (Bolivia, Guatemala), and at least three where the population ranges between 10 and 40 per cent of the total (Mexico, Ecuador, Peru), and poverty tends to be higher in countries with larger indigenous populations (Van Cott, 2006; Horton, 2006). In this context, Latin American multiculturalism has been consolidated in the last three decades due to three factors: the emergence of indigenous political movements, the development of an international jurisprudence which characterized the rights of indigenous peoples as human rights, and the constitutional reform process (Sieder, 2002). Latin American constitutionalism engaged in multiculturalism by extending collective entitlements to indigenous peoples, such as rights to customary law, collective property and bilingual education (Horton, 2006). In addition, Latin America is the region with most ratifications of the ILO Convention 169. Some have argued that this trend expresses a friendly liquidation of the past in overcoming centuries of discrimination, exploitation and marginalization of indigenous peoples (Van Cott, 2000). According to the comparative study of Van Cott (2006) the multicultural policies (MCPs) enacting during the nineties have been positive because virtually all Latin American countries recognize some constitutional rights for indigenous peoples. Twelve countries recognize a distinct status for indigenous peoples and most recognize some type of collective land rights and customary law. Those countries classified as strong1 recognize some form of autonomy for indigenous peoples (control over a territorial space and public resources and the power to make and enforce norms) as well as the right to hold land collectively, the right to exercise customary law, and some type of educational or language rights. Although Brazil and Paraguay also recognize some MCPs, in these countries the extent of recognition, particularly with respect to land rights and self-government, is considerably weaker than in the other countries, so they remain in the group of modest countries.2 On the other hand, countries with relatively small indigenous populations adopted the most extensive regimes (Colombia, Venezuela, Panama), while countries with relatively large indigenous populations (Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru) adopted more restrictive ones. Ecuador (a country with both a large indigenous population and a strong regime) is an outlier, probably due to the greater effectiveness during the constitutional reform of its indigenous movement. Van Cott also found (2006) that the countries having the most intense structural reforms (Argentina, Chile, and Peru) have relatively weak MCPs, while the two countries whose adjustments were less traumatic (Ecuador and Venezuela) have the most ample set of MCPs. Thus, she observes an inverse relationship between the strength of multicultural and structural reforms: most Latin American states entered the era of multicultural constitutionalism after the introduction of structural reforms. The timing of the adoption of MCPs (mainly after 1994) coincides with an increase in welfare-state spending in response to sharp increases in poverty and inequality throughout the region. In addition, of the four countries with quadruple-digit inflation, none enacted strong MCPs. Conversely, the three countries with the strongest recognition of indigenous rights (Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela) experienced only moderate, two-digit
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Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela. Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay. The only weak countries would be: Belize, Chile, El Salvador, Guyana and Suriname.
inflation in the pre-reform period. Thus, intense economic crisis may strengthen neoliberal elites, making it more difficult for indigenous peoples to secure ample multicultural regimes, whereas relatively low levels of economic crisis give more leverage to anti-structural reform coalitions and lower the barriers to securing indigenous rights. Some authors view the relationship between MCPs and economic policies differently. They argue that political elites approve a minimal set of multicultural rights in order to deflect demands for more radical challenges to neoliberalism: multiculturalism is a mechanism to reconstitute the hegemony and legitimacy of weak states and fragile democracies, rather than signifying a real governmental commitment to guarantee rights for indigenous peoples (Sieder, 2011). Thus, indigenous participation in formal politics is limited and largely symbolic since political elites respond selectively to indigenous claims, meeting specific types of demands, while marginalising other types of claims (Horton, 2006). According to Hale (2005), encouraged and supported by multilateral institutions, Latin American elites have moved from being vehement opponents to reluctant arbiters of rights grounded in cultural difference. Thus, they find that cultural rights, when carefully delimited, not only pose little challenge to the neoliberal project but also induce the bearers of these rights to join in the march. For example, collective rights, granted as compensatory measures to disadvantaged cultural groups, are an integral part of neoliberal ideology, as long as they meet two basic conditions: not contradict the principal tenets of the long-term economic development model, and not cross a certain line in the gathering of political space, which would threaten established power holders and destabilize the regime. Indigenous activism, thus, occupies a space allowed for political and economic elites (they become indios permitidos), wining some important battles in the struggle for recognition, yet they exchange protest for proposal, often losing the inclination to articulate more expansive, utopian political visions. For Van Cott (2006) rather than foreclosing more radical proposals, the limited set of MCPs provides a basis in the formal political system for the articulation of their demands. Moreover, although most indigenous organizations denounce neoliberalism and globalisation she saidtheir economic claims can be satisfied within the context of a generous capitalist welfare state. They seek greater political and administrative autonomy within their own territories, combined with a significant increase in economic redistribution through state social programmes that would enable them to compete within the prevailing model (e.g. access to credit, market assistance, and agricultural subsidies like those available to farmers in the West). Therefore, neoliberalism and globalisation for Van Cott have not brought only harm to indigenous peoples. The decentralization implemented in Bolivian and Colombian multicultural constitutional reforms (in the nineties), a key component of contemporary neoliberal economic and state reforms, shifts authority and resources to municipalities and regions where resources can be used more transparently and efficiently and authority can be exercised with greater accountability and responsiveness to public needs. It was the mechanism that provided the structural basis for fulfilling indigenous peoples most important demand: self-government. I suggest that Van Cotts conclusions were mistaken because her analysis on autonomy is superficial and restricted to cultural and political rights of participation. The problem of land (and in general, indigenous commons) is the critical issue in the protection of indigenous rights
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because it is connected to two basic notions that have been rejected by Western modernity: indigenous sovereignty and communal property. A real recognition of this framework has not been ensured neither by the most celebrated doctrines on indigenous rights (native title and consultation), nor by binding international instruments; neither by Latin American constitutionalism. If the analysis would focus on critical issues such as the property on natural resources, the delimitation of ancestral territories as intangible and the necessity of consent (not consultation), no country in Latin America (and elsewhere) would be regarded as having a strong legal framework of protection of indigenous rights, even the most progressive regimes today, such as Ecuador and Bolivia, as I will show in the next section. Some years ago Roldn (2004) identified several problems affecting the legal framework for indigenous land rights (which remain today): 1) Failure to develop the body of laws necessary to operationalize the rights guaranteed by the constitution or international treaties; 2) Poorly conceived procedures for gaining legal recognition of indigenous lands ; 3) Imprecision in the writing of indigenous legislation (for example, the notion of autonomy); 4) Failure to carry out adequate consultation (often consultation is simply the act of informing indigenous representatives of programs that are already approved, without giving them time to study the proposals and inform their own communities); 5) Lack of legal definition of ownership rights over natural resources in indigenous territories; 6) Lack of adequate legal definition of the management of indigenous territories that overlap with national parks or other protected areas. Recognizing the land rights of indigenous peoples then is not a simple question of granting title, but involves addressing a more complex set of interrelated legal, social, and political issues in order to be effective and secure (Roldn, 2004). 4. The political economy of indigenous dispossession: the failure of multicultural policies in Latin America The failure of multicultural policies in Latin American is clearly connected to the impossibility to change the political economy which is part of the matrix colonial of power (Quijano, 2000; Mignolo, 2007). Liberal capitalism is expressed in the form of multiculturalism (or plurinationalism) and in the form of economic development. These two forms are connected and rooted in the modernity project. Insofar that this triad (liberalism-capitalism-modernity) is not challenged, is not possible a real recognition of indigenous rights. Thus, similarly to liberal legality, the economic development in Latin America has entailed (in all its versions) the assimilation and dispossession of indigenous peoples. Thus, the basic discordance of the classic theories of development (modernization and dependency) was not related to the nature and benefits of capitalism, but the form in which it must be implemented, by the market or the state. In both cases there were not questionings on the extractive industries and their impacts on indigenous peoples. Human development does not question the exploitative nature of capitalism either, nor provide responses in cases in which different views of development are irreconcilable. More deeply, no mainstream developmental approach challenges the Eurocentric roots of Western modernity. The term development is not problematized, nor the colonial reasons of underdevelopment, whose patterns remains today. Poverty, democracy, freedom are seen on developing countries from the epistemological perspective of the developers.
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Todays development macro-policies are still based on modernization, and micro-policies on human development. An analysis of one neoliberal experience (Peru) and two postneoliberal experiences (Bolivia and Ecuador) will show that modernization and assimilation features are still embedded in what I call the political economy of indigenous dispossession. Peruvian neoliberal assimilation Indigenous peoples in Peru have historically suffered legal violence. For example, in 1909 the Peruvian state enacted the Law 1220 which recognized state property over indigenous land. Thus, the state was able to transfer such lands regardless indigenous populations (it entailed the right to displace, eliminate or exploit natives peoples) (Espinosa, 2009). In 1974, the military government of Velasco passed Law 20653 creating the legal figure of the native community in the lowlands and the peasant community in the highlands in order to establish a strong protective system for indigenous peoples. However, in 1978 Law 22175 replaced the provisions of Law 20653 and rescinded the ownership over forests and subsurface resources for all native communities subsequently recognized. Moreover, article 28 subjects native communities to the greater social interest (Stocks, 2005). The legal protection for indigenous peoples was even more weakened during Fujimoris government. The 1993 Constitution, although affirming the ethnic multiplicity of the country, removed the still in force norms in favor of indigenous people contained in the 1974 legislation including the inalienability of indigenous lands, and reasserted the states absolute control and ownership of natural resources. It has produced a rush of concessionaires of oil and gas companies (Stocks, 2005; Hughes, 2010; Green, 2006). President Garca was elected in 2005 with the promise of social justice. However, he deepened the neoliberal credo through policies of free trade and the promotion of extractive industries that affected indigenous peoples land. Against indigenous protests he opposed an openly violent rhetoric called the dog in the manger. In an article published in the right-wing daily El Comercio (2007) he argued that there are millions of wood hectares that are idle, millions of hectares that communities have not cultivated there are many resources that are not transferable, do not receive investments and not produce jobs. And all this due to the taboo of old ideologies, laziness, intolerance or the law of the dog in the manger: If I do not, nobody will do it (a4). Then, in the Dog in the Manger against the Poor (2008a), he argued: Now that the battle is not more economical because the world crushed the dog in the manger in this issue, he appears as pluriculturalist, patriotic and anti-mining (a4). According to Garca, indigenous lands are not exploited due to old ideologies and envy of indigenous communities; they are the dogs in the manger because in defending their lands, they prevent foreign direct investments to derive value from these resources. Thus, Garca identifies the indigenous communal property regime as an obstacle to development and modernization, the responsible for the misery afflicting the Amazonian region (Bebbington and Humphreys, 2011; Rnique, 2009). The vision of indigenous peoples opposes completely this idea. The Inter-Ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Amazon (AIDESEP) criticized Garcas metaphor in a public letter: We are called dog in the manger for defending the live of our indigenous peoples and
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protesting against the imposition of external models of development that responds openly to transnational interests... (2007). The discontent against Garcas policies spread for the whole country. Although according official figures economic growth has increased and poverty rate has decreased from 48% to 34% during Garcas government (INEI, 2010), instability is everywhere. Recent growth was fuelled by high prices of minerals, which is a fragile way of growing (Lee, 2010). Furthermore, the poverty reduction statistics do not tell the whole true. According to the multidimensional poverty index from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP, 2011) Peru is the second worst country in South America. This outcome is a result of poor planning and redistributive policies: Peru spends less than any other Latin American country on social programs; it is estimated that 25 percent of the total population has no access to water, and more than half lack adequate sanitation and the quality of education is among the lowest in the hemisphere; in those vital measurements of a countrys overall well-being, there has been little change in the neoliberal era (Schmall, 2011). Economic growth and social conflicts are two sides of the same coin. On one hand, between 1990 and 2007, Peru received US$12.35 billion in mining investments; it is the main silver producer of the world, second for copper and zinc, fourth for lead, and sixth for gold; in 2007, it ranked sixth in the world in levels of investment in exploration, and this tendency is maintained in spite of the financial crisis because the demand of countries like China or Brazil (Bebbington and Bury, 2009). On the other hand, the extractive industry has produced an increment of social conflicts. In 2007, the Peruvian Ombudsmans office recorded 78 social conflicts in the country, of which 37 were socio environmental; by June 2011, it records 217 social conflicts, of which 91 are socio environmental (Ombudsmans Office, 2011). Anthony Bebbington (2008, 2011) has theorized the socio-environmental conflicts as cases of accumulation by dispossession (Harvey, 2003). In Peru can be observed different patterns of dispossession by transnational investments and the government: the (attempt of) dispossession of land located in hydrocarbons areas (for example, the case of Bagua); the dispossession of resources such as water or grazing (for example, the cases of Tambogrande, Majaz, Yanacocha); the dispossession of the livelihood of agricultural communities (all mentioned); the dispossession of the real value of the mining activity (for example, in Tintaya the main concern at the beginning of the project was the gains from mining). There are many other cases as Antamina (Szablowski, 2002; Taylor, 2011), or recently Puno (Salazar, 2011), Conga (Cajamarca) and again Tintaya 3. Bagua is the only case occurred in the Amazon; however, it shares common patterns with other conflicts. Bagua is included in a group of conflicts called all-or-nothing, which occurs when local people perceive that they do not need mining: they have their own social and economic order and mining is likely to conflict directly with it. This was the case with the threat to the agriculture economy in Tambogrande, Majaz or the issue of water scarcity in Cajamarca (Arellano-Yanguas, 2011).
The conflict with Tintaya has emerged again in the last weeks in the province of Espinar. The new protests however are related to environmental concerns, and the government has declared the state of emergency to control violently the population.
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Arellano-Yanguas (2011) outlines that conflicts are produced because the high company profits and the large, sudden canon minero transfers to under-prepared regional and local governments. However, the conflicts about the distribution of the canon, although important, have not been as transcendental as those connected to the livelihoods of indigenous communities. Only the cases of dispossession of real value for communities might be understood as a problem of public management as Arellano suggests. There are two different situations (Tanaka et al, 2007): in the first one, the project has already been implemented, thus, the conflict is about the participation of the benefits of the activity (the conflict is connected to dispossession of real value); in the second situation, it is attempted to start an operation, thus, the protest addresses the convenience or not of that activity. Thus, not all cases can be addressed by information and dialogue in order to build a different relationship with the company (Anguelovski, 2011: 395); or by proposing an efficient distribution of canon. Many cases are about dispossession of land and livelihoods, and communities do not want any external activity in their lands. These conflicts are complex due to the different actors involved and their interrelation. On one hand, the World Bank and other international institutions have continued to encourage developing countries to attract FDIs on extractive industries as a development strategy (Bebbington et al, 2008); the Peruvian governments have been the most radical in following such recommendations, favoring transnational investments. On the other hand, mining has moved into areas that have no mining tradition but are currently occupied by agro-pastoral communities who have opposed it strongly (Bebbington et al, 2008; Taylor, 2011). In that context, the concern of the state is focused on maintaining the public order, and averting that the protests do not discourage investments. The new government of Ollanta Humala was elected for his left-wing politics, and was supported by environmentalists, unions, indigenous peoples and liberal democrats against a radical conservative neoliberal party. Humala changed the rhetoric of Garcia about the dog in the manger for social inclusion, but this social inclusion is rooted in the assimilation perspective. Thus, the main multicultural policy of the government is limited to recognize the right of indigenous peoples to be consulted after the policy or concession has been made. In addition, the political economy is concerned just with growth plus redistribution, namely, the same political economy of free trade and promotion of the extractive industry plus more social programs. The result is that indigenous peoples are consulted in order to be excluded, they are integrated into the market in order to deny there different view of buen vivir, which entails a different political economy and legality. Consequently, the social conflicts have not stopped. The government have declared the state of emergency in order to control zones of socio-environmental conflicts, in the case of Conga against Newmont and Espinar against Tintaya. The government and its technocrats continue to make invisible other forms of social organization. Some argue that the solution is just to recognize private property of natural resources for indigenous peoples, so they can sell their private property to corporations. Indeed, the message of the neoliberal technocrats is perverse because for them the only way to achieve an efficient distribution of land is by transforming collective property into private property. However, as collective land delimits indigenous identity, the neoliberal solution is a threat: if you want to participate in the economy you must give up being indigenous (Hvalkof, 2008).
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But conflicts such as the Bagua Massacre has demonstrated that indigenous peoples do not fight for titling their land or for owning the subsoil; they fight for the respect of their legality, economy and culture. Santiago Manuin, an indigenous leader of the Amazonian community Aguaruna, said in an interview: Our ancestors left us the task of defending our territory; we have never let anyone to take our land, the rubber boom was not able to destroy us, or the Incas, neither terrorism nor the settlers; we must defend our land for our children (2011). The neoliberal technocratic rhetoric, thus, serves as a mechanism of legitimation of the old theories of modernization and assimilation. It is not more an open violence as the Garcas dog in the manger; they promote a sophisticate legal violence. Their theses have a universalistic view of economic management through private property, and promote to imitate the development path of Western cultures based on individualism and market expansion (modernization thesis). In addition, they see indigenous as potential capitalists who must be integrated to the market (assimilationist thesis). Obviously, there is some sophistication. The modernization trend is softened by alleging that multiculturalism is not in contradiction to the market; and the assimilation theory is seen as inevitable: it is not more the integration (indeed dissolution) of indigenous cultures to the nation state, but into globalisation. But beyond rhetoric, the foundations of these old theories are the same. Moreover, the new rhetoric also shares the same logic of the colonial project. Colonizers used the idea of terra nullius (there is land available to be conquered); and the neoliberal technocrats use the idea of lex nullius (there is not a legal indigenous regimen or it is inefficient, thus, the private property regimen should be implemented) (Mattei and Nader, 2008). But the indigenous legality exists; it is a legal and social system embedded in the idea of buen vivir (good life). Buen Vivir in Bolivia and Ecuador Buen vivir (Good Life), Sumak kawsay in Quichua or Suma kamaa in Aymara, is the basis of indigenous cosmovision, a way to know (epistemology) and being (ontology) in the world. It projects ancestral social organizations based on the principle of communality and relationality (instead of individuality) among human beings and the nature. Buen vivir proposes an alternative project to Western modernity and its particular ontology based on progress. There is an intrinsic tension between the inherent expansive nature of current capitalism, which creates economic dependence, and the implementation of the Buen Vivir. That is why the current socio-economic and political transformations in Latin America suggest the existence of two projects in tension: (a) alternative modernizations, based on an anti-neo-liberal development model; (b) decolonial projects, based on communal and indigenous practices and knowledge. Both options which are called post neoliberal are taking place at the level of both states and social movements (Escobar, 2010) but in a conflictive way expressing what Bolivian vice president Garcia Linera (2007) calls the dis-encounter of two revolutionary reasons. The most important examples of these tensions are the recent policies of Buen vivir implemented by Ecuador and Bolivia. In the Ecuadorian new constitution Buen vivir is developed in the form of rights of Buen vivir, including many rights (alimentation,
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environment, water, education, housing, health, etc.) which have the same value of other set of rights (collectives indigenous rights, participation, rights of nature). It is also relevant the constitutional recognition of the rights of Mother Earth (arts. 71, 72), which for Escobar (2010) constitutes an epistemic-political event that disrupts the modern political space by challenging liberalism, capitalism, and the State. The Pachamama is a strange entity that cannot be easily fitted into the philosophical structure of a modern constitution; the notion is unthinkable within any modern perspective, within which nature is seen as an inert object for humans to appropriate. On the other hand, the Constitution regulates a section named regimen of Buen vivir focused on inclusion and equity; and the conservation of biodiversity and management of natural resources. In addition the Buen vivir regimen is articulated to the development regimen: development must serve to good life (Gudynas, 2011). In Bolivia Suma qamaa is the ethic foundation of the plurinationality, the recognition that the state is a unity constituted by multiple nations (Larrea, 2010). The constitution of 1994 had acknowledged the multiethnic and pluricultural character of Bolivian society, providing some political rights to indigenous groups. By this time, as part of neoliberal multicultural reforms, was enacted a law that decentralized the state by redistributing economic resources from the nine departments of the country to hundreds of municipalities. Those areas with large numbers of indigenous people were granted the possibility of becoming indigenous municipal districts organized according to their customs, but still subject to a top-down state decision making. The new Constitution of January 2009 goes beyond the previous one by recognizing the plurality of Bolivian society: legislative, judicial and electoral government branches have been relabeled as plurinational to stress this plural character. Thus, from a state led multiculturalism that granted legal and political rights to indigenous people so they could be part of a Unitarian liberal state; indigenous citizens has moved toward a plurinational state that fully acknowledges and incorporates the cultural diversity of its indigenous populations (Galindo, 2010). In spite of the similarities there are important differences in both constitutional texts. In Ecuador Sumak kawsay has two levels: framework for a set of rights, and mechanisms of implementation of those rights. In the Bolivian constitution this connection between Suma qamaa and the rights is not explicit (there is not a reference to this concept in the section of fundamental rights), and there is not explicit recognition of the rights of nature. The Bolivian text, however, develops more the plurinationality than Ecuador (Gudynas, 2011). Nonetheless, both constitutions have dark sides related to the ownership of natural resources, the possibility to exploit indigenous land on behalf of national interests and the lack of recognition of prior and informed consent of indigenous peoples. In the case of Bolivia, this project has not focused on the political economy, in spite of the repetitive allegation in the new Constitution of the necessity of industrialization to break the dependence on extraction (art. 316, 319) and the autonomy of indigenous peoples (art. 1, 2, 289, 290), the state dominates all natural resources of the country (art. 298, 309, 316); in spite of the constant recognition of the right of consultation (art. 11, 352, 403) there is not recognition of consent. In practice, there has not been challenged the economic extractive model, so, there is a constant threat on indigenous peoples land. Similarly the Ecuadorian constitution establishes that the state dominates all natural resources (art. 317, 408) and it can even exploit exceptionally the protected areas (art. 407). There is not recognition of the right of consent.
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At the level of policymaking the inconsistences are even worse. In the development plan of Ecuador there are contradictory conceptions (regarded the role of economic growth), lack of clarity in the processes to implement the Plan, it maintains the macro-developmentist principles and a strong individual orientation (based on human development), opposed to the collectivistic and relational potential of Buen vivir. Similarly the development Plan of Bolivia (2006) is still rooted in the conventional view of development (Radcliffe, 2012). The implementation of social and economic policies in both cases has been consequently very polemical. There is a big distance between the pronouncements and the practices, because the governments still are trapped in developmentist conceptions, and the models still are modernizing and led by experts (Escobar, 2011; Radcliffe, 2012). The problem of these experiences is that the financing of all programs still is based on the conventional development of appropriation of nature, maintaining the pattern of exportation of natural resources: the increasing of social spending makes the government even more dependent of exporting minerals, hydrocarbons and promoting monocultives. In sum, the space of dispute of the Buen vivir against conventional development is related to the extractivism (Gudynas, 2011). In the case of Ecuador, despite the potential significance of the Yasun-ITT initiative4, oil exploration in the rest of the Amazon region is being increased: the Ecuadorian government has zoned 65% of the Amazon for oil activities (52,300 km2), overlapping the ancestral lands of ten indigenous groups. The activities are carried out by Andes Petroleum, which is owned by the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Petrochemical Corporation (SINOPEC), on behalf of Petro Ecuador. Similarly, the Correa government has initiated the process of opening of Ecuadors gold and copper reserves to exploitation. Once again, while the Ecuadorian state will hold majority shares in these mining sites, foreign corporations will carry out the actual work. These plans have fuelled strong resistance by indigenous communities that fear that the expansion of mining will only worsen their livelihoods (Bebbington, 2009; Arsel, 2012; Finer et al., 2008). Correas public position has radically shifted, and he increasingly lauds the benefits of socially responsible, large-scale mining, emphasizing that the revenues generated can be used for social development. At the same time, his attacks on environmentalists have become sharper; he has referred to them as extortionists, terrorists, infantile leftists and romantic ecologists. Correa has vowed that mining critics will not impede the exploitation of the resources that the country needs (Bebbington, 2009). In that context, economic elites have incorporated indigenous peoples into the formal political system without undermining their own power, excluding demands and tactics that undermine elite political and economic power. When the indigenous movement fails to work within the
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The Yasuni Project was meant to leave at least 850 million barrels of heavy crude oil beneath one of the most intact and biodiverse areas of the Amazon in order to protect biodiversity, respect indigenous land, and combat climate change. In exchange for not extracting petroleum Ecuador seek financial compensation from a developed world increasingly concerned about the destruction of the Amazon and the perils of climate change. This compensation would be obtained by selling the Yasuni Guarantee Certificates for the CO2 locked in the oil fields. The idea was that EU member states operating under the European Trading System of carbon would be able to purchase and trade these certificates (Finer et al, 2010).
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formal institutions of democracy, it is subject to criticism (and punishment by the state) because its activities fall outside the bounds of acceptable political behavior. The use of economic development funds to integrate the leaders of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) into the formal political system, the creation (and relative success) of Pachakutik as a political party and the targeted use of political appointments for indigenous leaders all represent mechanisms of political incorporation that successfully bring indigenous peoples into the formal political arena while effectively marginalizing their more radical or redistributive demands (Bowen, 2011). In Bolivia, in spite of the environmentalist rhetoric, there is a stress of the extractivist strategies (expanding the industry of iron and lithium) and is announced flexibilization of environmental norms (cutting participation and affecting protected areas) (Radcliffe, 2012). Indeed, under the current Morales administration, hydrocarbon operations have significantly expanded in the countrys northern Amazon basin, generating consternation among indigenous groups and tensions between them and the government. In addition, hydrocarbon concessions in Bolivia overlap with protected areas and indigenous territories. In the departments of La Paz, Beni, and Cochabamba, significant parts of the Madidi and Isiboro Secur National Parks and of the PilonLajas Biosphere Reserve are covered by hydrocarbon contracts. In the Gran Chaco of Tarija, most of the Aguarage National Park has been affected by contracts given to Petrobras and Petroandina that allow for exploratory seismic testing and drilling, while the Chinese company Eastern Petrogas is set to operate in the parks buffer zone. Plans to increase gas production have intensified since the Morales administration took power, and the emphasis is clearly on expanding such operations. The Morales governments rationale for this expansion is that these resources belong to the nation and are needed to finance national social policy and cash-transfer programs for the poor (Bebbington, 2009; Finer et al., 2008). In general, it is true that the improvements have opened a space for the expression of indigenous voices and agency, facilitating pro-indigenous policies and legislation (Sieder, 2011). But it is necessary to acknowledge the limits of that space and its content. Since multiculturalism (and plurinationalism) has been adopted as a project of elites (Horton, 2006), political participation, cultural rights, rights of Mother Earth even decentralization and judicial and administrative autonomy all of these are outcomes that have been provided under the condition to not challenge a extractivist political economy that is defended violently in Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador. In sum, neoliberal and post-neoliberal governments approach a political economy of indigenous dispossession: the term post is more rhetorical than substantive (Bebbington and Humphreys, 2011; Webber, 2011; Radcliffe, 2012). 5. Conclusion It seems that there is an slow evolution from mechanisms of open exclusion, elimination and negation of legal subjectivity (discovery, just war, terra nullius) during the colonial era; to mechanisms of assimilation (implementation of treaty making, private property rights, national policies of economic and social integration) during the independence era; to finally mechanisms of self-determination (native title, consultation/consent) during the multicultural era. However, in spite of the apparent legal and institutional evolution in favour of indigenous peoples, there is a core that has not been questioned; a political space related to the capitalist
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political economy, Western modernity and liberalism that deny real autonomy to indigenous peoples. Western modernity and liberal legality recognizes indigenous rights and promote toleration but still they rely on an epistemic hierarchy. Multicultural liberals talk in terms of participation within liberal institutions, but their solutions to collective disadvantage are framed in a liberal discourse of rights that has been historically forced on indigenous peoples. It is true that liberal multiculturalism has opened a space for the expression of indigenous voices, facilitating proindigenous policies and legislation, but it is necessary to acknowledge the limits of that space and its content: political participation and cultural rights are outcomes that have been provided under the condition to not challenge the dominant political economy. In fact, self-determination or autonomy for indigenous peoples has not been fully ensured neither by International Law and its most celebrated doctrines on indigenous rights, nor by Latin American constitutionalism. If the analysis would focus on critical issues such as the property on natural resources, the delimitation of ancestral territories as intangible and the necessity of consent (not consultation), no country in Latin America (and elsewhere) would be regarded as having a strong legal framework for protection of indigenous rights. This is clear even in regimens called post-neoliberals such as Bolivia and Ecuador. In fact, in spite of the insightful improvements such as the constitutional recognition of the Buen vivir, these regimens have not challenged the extractivist political economy. Similarly to Peru, these countries still practise a political economy of indigenous dispossession. The development of the whole country is still based on the expansion of capitalist extractivism, namely, on the displacement of indigenous peoples or the dispossession of their livelihoods.
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What Is "Post" in Post-Neoliberal Political Economy

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