Panel 1- Indigenous Peoples of Latin America

I kicked off my MACLAS experience with this panel that addressed current issues for both indigenous and migrant communities in Latin America. The first presenter, Jeff Puch from Johns Hopkins, spoke about conflict between migrants and host communities and the manner in which institutions can affect this relationship. I was especially interested in the disconnect he addressed between legal structure and practice in treatment of Colombian refugees in Ecuador. Although Ecuador is party to the 1951 Geneva Conventions which outline rights of refugees, only 31% of asylum seekers in this country receive status as a refugee. Prof. Puch outlined the importance of institutions, such as the UNHCR, in encouraging inclusiveness, equal support of both citizens and refugees, reduction of the power imbalance, and promotion of interaction between and within communities.
John Stolle-McAllister spoke on the "moment of crisis" that the indigenous movement is currently experiencing within the context of a globalized world and the intertwining of class and ethnicity in Kichwa populations of Ecuador. I found his description of the dichotomy produced by the indigenous struggle for inclusion and economic opportunity intriguing; he pointed out that with greater participation in society, indigenous communities become decommunalized, stratified by class, and urbanized. Ehtnic markers come to be challenged by increased exposure to society, and indigenous communities must find new ways to maintain their identity while living in the context of a globalized world.
The next presentation by Brian Turner offered an interesting comparison by addressing a more heterogeneous indigenous community- that of Paraguay. He spoke of the challenges of collective action faced by the Paraguayan indigenous peoples as they are separated by conflicts over land and their unique identities. Guarani, he pointed out, is not an indigenous language as it is commonly viewed from the outside, but a language of assimilation. Moreover, although 40% of Paraguay is monolingual in Guarani, most Guarani speakers do not identify as indigenous at all.
The session closed with a presentation by Ben Boone and Holley Nichols on Indigenous higher education. I found this discussion especially interesting, as I have visited one of the Universities they studied, UPEA in Bolivia. These two grad students offered interesting interpretation of University websites and found that the three universities they observed were very different. They found UPEA to be a university with a political mission, the Mexican university located far from the majority of the indigenous population, and wondered if the university in Guatemala existed only to pay lip service to the indigenous movement.
In the Q&A period, interesting discussions arose as to the connection between the refugee and indigenous presentations and the growing separation between the use of language and ethnicity as identity markers for the Kichwa.