Lieselotte Viaene (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) will talk about “Indigenous water ontologies, plurilegal encounters and interlegal translation: some reflections from the field”. Andrea Ballestero (Rice University) will be the discussant.
When: 23 April 2021 / 2.00-3.30 pm CET
Link: https://zoom.us/j/93210372616pwd=dTZZ…
ID: 93210372616
Password: 4JzWZ6
Abstract
Aiming to strengthen the universality of human rights as a concrete good in peoples’ lives – as opposed to merely a theoretical construct – a global consensus has emerged among legal scholars that: 1) the accommodation of cultural diversity and a plurality of legal orders should not been seen as a threat to the human rights paradigm, but rather as an enriching input for it; and 2) human rights should be decolonised by integrating locally-grounded views rooted in other forms of knowledge belonging to those groups systematically excluded and silenced by colonialism and capitalism. However, these theoretical breakthroughs have not been matched by equal success in human rights practice.
Moreover, water conflicts across the globe in indigenous territories are foregrounding the internal limits of the hegemonic universal human rights paradigm such as its colonial origins and anthropocentric dogma. But, these water controversies also bring to the fore competing views about how the world is made creating legal and anthropological discomfort. Grounded in reflections derived from collaborative and long-term ethnographic research among indigenous peoples in Latin America confronted with systematic human rights violations as a result of colonisation, internal armed conflicts and extractive projects, I will explore competing political and legal water realities that interrogate dominant understandings of the modern world. I will focus on the contributions, constraints, challenges of interlegal translation and the role of indigenous knowledge brokers at the local, domestic and international level in interpreting and negotiating different ways of knowing water, nature and the human.
