Contacto: eripbolivia26@gmail.com
Land-Body-Nation
This CFP has been developed in dialogue with Verónica Azpiroz Cleñan (political scientist, Mapuche community Epu Lafken, Argentina), Efrén Nango (environmental engineer, Shiwiar Nation, Ecuadorian Amazon), Julieta Paredes (Aymara philosopher and Feminista Comunitaria, La Paz, Bolivia), and Elías Caurey-Kuatiapo (creative writer, anthropologist, and sociologist, Guaraní Nation, Bolivian Chaco).
The ERIP section of LASA, in collaboration with the Bolivia Section, invites participation in its VIII Biannual Conference. The thematic axes of this meeting address the complex articulations—and disarticulations—between the nation-state and Indigenous nations, territories, territorialities, and bodies, both human and non-human.
In 2008, Ecuador’s new Constitution recognized the country as an intercultural and plurinational state. A year later, Bolivia undertook the constitutional refounding of the nation-state by replacing the Republic with the Plurinational State. In both cases, the legal recognition of multiple nations and peoples with full autonomy over their territories was linked to the civilizational horizon of Vivir Bien / sumak qamaña / sumak kawsay / teko porã / küme mogen. The constitutional creation of a legal framework for the plurinational project sparked debate over its viability in other Latin American nations, particularly among Indigenous peoples.
Unfortunately, the right of peoples to autonomy continues to face predatory extractivist economies, sustained by the narrative that the plurinational project “obstructs” progress and development—two concepts that, since the founding of nation-states, have legitimized the plunder of territories (Efrén Nango). This observation becomes all the more urgent in light of the systemic violence against Indigenous and Afro-descendant leaders.
For Feminismo Comunitario, the nation-state represents “the second moment of colonization,” whereas the territory is the communal space that gathers men, women, gender-diverse people, and Mother Earth (Julieta Paredes). For Amazonian nationalities, territory is inhabited as “a space of existence where the visible and invisible coexist—biotic, abiotic, human, and non-human beings forming a living organism, a body-territory—within which the functioning of the state is parasitic” (Efrén Nango). For the Guaraní Nation, territory is also a place of origin and return, not only a sense of belonging but an inalienable exercise of governance (Elías Caurey). From these perspectives, territory is intrinsic to the nations themselves, which pre-exist the colonial system. Hence, it is essential to think of territory also in terms of territoriality—the dynamic dimension of cohabiting, managing, and defending (Verónica Azpiroz).
Within this framework, we invite members of the ERIP and Bolivia Sections, as well as intellectuals, scholars, researchers, activists, artists, and students engaged in the study or creation of artistic production, political and cultural struggles, and the knowledges of the peoples of the Americas. This gathering seeks to circulate the word through exchange, dialogue, and collective construction of thought across contexts and disciplines.
We hope to open conversations that address—but are not limited to—the following areas of reflection:
Other Possible Futures: Education, Epistemologies, and Political Projects
The challenges faced by Indigenous nations in relation to narratives of progress and development, the institutions of nation-states, and the colonial pressures of the private market
Current coordinates in territorial struggles: Indigenous and Afro-descendant epistemologies in the pursuit of Vivir Bien
Scope, limitations, challenges, and perspectives of plurinational projects
Educational transformations emerging from the territories: community schools, Indigenous universities, and decolonial pedagogies
Defending Human and More-than-Human Life against Death-Producing Economies
Global crises—socio-environmental, economic, sanitary, food-related, among others—and the exponential rise of violence
Spiritual, corporeal, and ecological dimensions of earth beings and water bodies in the defense of territories and the preservation of life
More-than-human life, living territories, and multispecies ecologies in the face of extractivist economies
Decolonial Feminisms: Land, Body, and Gender
Ethnicity, gender, and the creation of new horizons of life
Thought and praxis of decolonial feminisms
Reconfigurations of the relationships between body, gender, and power through collective experiences of women and gender-diverse people
Cultural and Artistic Production: Narrative, Digital, Musical, and Embodied Poetics and Politics
Oral narratives, music, performance, visual art, and literature as media of memory, resistance, and historical reparation
The use of technologies, archives, and digital media as spaces for revitalization, preservation, and circulation of practices, languages, and knowledges
Film, photography, and documentary as tools for denunciation, documentation, and visibility
Decolonial aesthetics and the challenge to hegemonic imaginaries
Mobility and Territorialities: Autonomy, Governance, Diaspora, Displacement, and Affective Cartographies
Renewing connections with territory in Indigenous diasporas toward urban or distant contexts
Affective cartographies and relational territorialities
Territories in transit and collective memories of displacement
The collective body, the political body, and the body-territory in processes of defense, autonomy, and governance
Trauma and coexistence: memory, reparation, and processes of healing
Truth, justice, and reconciliation commissions: pathways to reparation and other possible futures
Land and body as sites of trauma, memory, and healing
Coexistence and intercultural dialogue in post-conflict settings
Affect, empathy, and care as political practices of collective healing