Doctoral Dissertation Research: Indigenous Rights, Cultural Politics, and the Gaps Between International and Domestic Law

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This doctoral dissertation research project will focus on reasons for and impacts of delays in the implementation of recommendations from an international court of human rights to expropriate land to honor land claims of indigenous communities as restitution for human rights violations. The doctoral student will conduct case studies of three different court rulings to answer three general sets of questions: (1) What factors have led to the implementation delays, and why do they continue in all three cases? (2) How do claimant community members perceive the experience of fighting for territory from the state and its effect on their cultural identity and political power? (3) How do the indigenous communities, private landowners, and state agencies involved in the claims process articulate and perform territory as a concept and in practice? The project findings will contribute to theoretical debates in the fields of political economy, legal geography, and cultural geography regarding the performance of law and territory, multiculturalism, and indigenous rights. The project will add new insights to lines of inquiry in which territory is not viewed as synonymous with a specific political jurisdiction but instead is viewed as a form of spatial organization made from political, economic, legal, and cultural activities where resource control is at stake, power relations are dynamic, and new cultural identities and political subjectivities are created. The project will enhance international collaborative relationships and will build capacity by providing training in community-based mapping methods for members of indigenous communities. The project's findings will be shared with representatives of the international court and with communities engaged in the disputes. Although focusing on a specific set of case studies, the insights and information obtained in this study of legal processes and their impact on the territoriality of people will have relevance to a broad range of other locales where restitution of land is an approach aimed to try to redress wrongs that have been committed in the past. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career.The doctoral student will conduct this research by focusing on three specific rulings issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to expropriate land as restitution for human rights violations against indigenous peoples in Paraguay. The student will employ a mixed-methods qualitative approach that includes semi-structured interviews, participant observation, archival research, and community-based mapping. Among those involved in the project are leaders and other members of the indigenous communities that have made and won their claims, representatives from government institutions, lawyers, representatives from nongovernmental organizations and academics involved in the process, and the owners of the lands to be expropriated.