Paper short abstract:

In this paper I describe the resolution of two indigenous land´s claim by the Paraguayan state with the contributions of the ontological turn to grasp what is at stake in the discussions about land.

Paper long abstract:

Sawhoyamaxa and Yakye Axa communities from the Enxet Sur Nation were the first indigenous people from Paraguay to get a positive sentence from an international court. These legal cases have some similarities. They involve the same indigenous Nation that not only live geographically close to each other and in similarly difficult conditions, but also have gone through the same long bureaucratic legal process and, as a result, ended in an expropriation law project that had to be finally approved by the congress. But in spite of the similarities, the congress had different resolutions for each community. One obtained the lands claimed, the other was offered 'alternative' lands. Going back to the analysis we made years ago with my indigenous partners and the contributions of some concepts from the ontological turn, I argue that land is an equivocation (Viveros de Castro) that enables partial connections between two worlds that are enacted as a territory multiple (Law). In this sense, what it as stake for each is 'lands' but not only. It is Sawhoyamaxa and Yakye Axa for Enxet Sur communities and national territory, property/land, for the Paraguayan state but, not only.