A Dialogical Approach to Indigenous Lands Protection: Colombian Lessons in a Global Perspective
A Dialogical Approach to Indigenous Lands Protection: Colombian Lessons in a Global Perspective

Summary/Abstract: This article aims to present the epistemological grounds that are required to make law a meaningful instrument in intercultural dialogue. It is based on a case study of the U’wa indigenous community in Colombia and its battle against both transnational corporations and the Colombian government for oil drilling in their territory. The article approaches critically the legal framework in which the U’wa case is inscribed, by contextualizing, in the light of a cultural sensitive perspective, the main facts that constitute the case study and the strategies and institutions dealing with it. Thereafter, the author presents the weaknesses of the current legal approach and unveils the main features of the dominant western logos that impede a fair law-based dialogue on the land issue. He argues for a dialogical dialogue as means to widen the limited horizons proposed by the western logos, and to enriched law, with the resulted common cultural “archetypes”. Then, the author highlights the convenience of a permanent intercultural interaction under the conditions of a dialogical dialogue to push law beyond the western dominant epistemological canon. He concludes that a negotiated law with intercultural foundations will set enriched cultural “archetypes” as the grounds to solve conflicts in which cultural difference is involved.

• Details
• Contents