Indigenous Law and Social Mobilization: A History of the Concept of Derecho Mayor in Cauca (Colombia)

No. 2022-24

The chapter analyzes the process of creating the Derecho Mayor and its role in indígena identity during the 1980s in Cauca, Colombia. It analyzes the concept from two different perspectives. The first concentrates on the historical study of the legal category indígena in Colombian legislation and its implications for the birth of the indigenous movement in the Cauca region. The second focuses on how the concept of Derecho Mayor has drawn on different western legal traditions and how it constantly transforms according to local contexts. The combination of these two perspectives seeks to bring light to how the Derecho Mayor translates a call for justice from the quotidian to the legal arena, defining different ways of political organization and plural forms of identification.

Go to Editor View