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Miguel Gonzalez, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Science at York University, has co-edited Indigenous Territorial Autonomy and Self-Government in the Diverse Americas (University of Calgary Press, 2023), which explores Indigenous-inspired autonomous experiences and self-governments across three decades, from 1990 to 2020.
The book offers country case studies examining autonomy and Indigenous self-government in nine Latin American countries, providing an overview of their achievements, challenges and threats.
Informed by historical understanding and current trends, the book pays particular attention to the role of Indigenous Peoples’ organizations and activism in pursuing sociopolitical transformation, securing rights and, more recently, confronting multiple dynamics of dispossession. It considers, too, how this is – or has – taken place, such as through the mechanisms of broad-based alliances or innovation in governance.
While the chapters included in this book engage with current debates within the literature on Indigenous politics in the region, they also offer updated assessments on a variety of issues, from comparative analysis of land rights implementation and the inauguration of autonomies and self-government deriving from constitutional reforms, innovative practices of governance to processes in which self-government emerges through de facto strategies, like self-proclamation in Peru and Colombia.
Gonzalez’s current research deals with a broader range of development issues related to Indigeneity and Indigenous Peoples in contemporary Latin America, with a particular regional focus in Central America. The book represents Gonzalez’s research focused on themes related to Indigenous governance, and considering to what extent policies of recognition of Indigenous self-governance have strengthened self-determination, or under what conditions Indigenous Peoples have tried to secure the realization of rights to autonomy.
For more information or to secure a copy of the new book, visit University of Calgary Press.