Indigenizing International Law and Decolonizing the Anthropocene: Genocide by Ecological Means and Indigenous Nationhood in Contemporary Colombia

Abstract

This article displays the idea of indigenizing international law by recognizing indigenous law as law. Transforming international law becomes possible by directing indigenous jurisprudences to it —I call this process inverse legal anthropology—. Based on inverse legal anthropology, i present a case study on the ongoing genocide of Colombian indigenous peoples in the age of the global ecology of the Anthropocene. I also explain the political consequences of valuing indigenous cosmologies regarding their territories. While mainstream representations of indigenous territories include the topographic and biologic dimensions of the earth’s surface, they forget the pluriverse of organic and inorganic beings that make and negotiate their social living together with indigenous peoples, and their ecological and spiritual relationships.

Keywords

• Colombia
• decolonizing the Anthropocene
• indigenous cosmologies
• indigenous genocide
• indigenizing international law
• indigenous movements