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Paper Short Abstract:

Focusing on Atopo W+p+, an Indigenous Kali’na village in “French” Guiana, my ethnographic research explores how Indigenous people navigate, use and experience the law to fight a development project in France, where Indigenous rights are not recognised.

Paper Abstract:

As part of my doctoral research, I am working with and observing the work of Indigenous people who are using the law to defend Atopo W+p+, a Kali’na village in the north-west of “French” Guiana, against a “development” project being built on their ancestral lands. The Western French Guiana Power Plant (CEOG), whose construction is supported by the French state, is located on a 140-hectare site less than 2 km from the village. Earth-beings live on these lands, which are also used for bathing, hunting and fishing. Indigenous people have engaged in a legal battle against CEOG, which is a complex enterprise insofar as Indigenous rights are not recognised in France. By working with them, I aim to elucidate how and why they use the law against CEOG. More specifically, I aim to bring empirical evidence to the concept of juridification, i.e. the process by which Indigenous people articulate their demands in legal terms and define themselves as holders of specific rights, distinct from French individual rights.

Academically, the Kali’na of Atopo W+p+ have much to contribute to the juridification concept. How do they experience and navigate hegemonic norms that seem to be imposed on them? Preliminary observations indicate that they do not see the use of French and international law as a form of neo-colonisation, contrary to what some anthropologists have argued. What is interesting, then, is to understand how Indigenous people appropriate and practice these values, demonstrating the limitations and benefits that juridification implies for their struggles.