From Homogenization to Diversity: Reflections on Indigenous Emergencies and Multicultural Citizenship in Colombia and Brazil

Abstract

The objective of this text is to present elements that allow a reflection on political and social emergencies phenomena in the context of the so-called multiculturalism of the late XX century. During the 90s, several Latin American countries adopted new constitutional models and achieve legal reforms that officially recognized ethnic and cultural diversity, including collective territorial rights in their nations. This inaugurated a new stage for indigenous forms of organization who, based on a historical process of mobilizations and ethnic demands, participated in this process actively, and question the indigenist policies of homogenization, assimilation, or integration, which led to social exclusion and physical and cultural genocide of indigenous populations in the historical and political formation of Latin American nations. Thus, from a comparative historical analysis that focuses on Colombia and Brazil, being the first Nation-States to accept and incorporate multicultural citizenship policies, we verify the influence or contribution of indigenous mobilizations in constitutional advances and the subsequent dilemmas and contradictions faced by these organizations, between the formal recognition of cultural / ethnic differences and the progress of neoliberal development models in their territories, now legally recognized by multicultural States.