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- Convenors:
-
Marie-Line Sarrazin
(CICADA - McGill University)
June Rubis (ICCA)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 27 October, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Territories of life are governed, managed and conserved by Indigenous peoples and local communities. This panel features perspectives on relationality and on challenges and strategies for documenting, sustaining and defending territories of life.
Long Abstract:
Collective lands, waters and territories governed, managed and conserved by custodian Indigenous peoples and/or local communities can be considered "territories of life". They are characterized by: 1) deep relations between a specific territory and a specific custodian community or Indigenous nation, embedded in their identities, cultures and practices; 2) the custodian community taking and implementing decisions through self-determined institutions, which 3) contribute to the wellbeing and integrity of both community and territory, including conservation of nature. Territories of life can be informed by 'planes de vida' (life projects), which are collective visions and plans for 'buen vivir' (living well), embedded in relational ontologies and experiences of place and self. Research and grassroots experience suggest four interdependent 'pillars' for vibrant territories of life, and carrying out life project strategies: 1) robust local institutions of conservation governance, 2) resilient livelihoods, 3) vigorous legal defense and mobilizing for appropriate recognition and support, and 4) powerful inter-peoples' alliances.
This panel consists of two sessions featuring perspectives and experiences of members of Indigenous peoples and local communities, practitioners and engaged academics.
Session 1 will focus on relationality in the context of territories of life, including the ontological dimension of policy and legal frameworks that affect them.
Session 2 will engage with challenges and strategies for documenting, sustaining and defending territories of life in practice, including the role of the research and conservation industries in supporting or undermining these efforts.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 27 October, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
“Kawsak Sacha [is] a living and conscious being, a subject of rights". Our paper establishes a dialogue between a member of the local community and an activist anthropologist by contrasting their views of how the living forest declaration is an instrument to defend and sustain the "forest being”.
Paper long abstract:
A territory of life implies the recognition that everything has kawsak (life) in its own way. By way of collaborative authorship between a sacha runa (human-being of the forest) and an activist anthropologist, we will approach this "living" from our respective perspectives, accompanied by theories of the anthropology of life (Kohn 2013 & Pitrou 2016) and a multi-species ethnography.
The declaration of the living forest recognizes the Kawsak Sacha as “a living and conscious being, a subject of rights" and emerged in a long political struggle for autonomy. We elaborate on why the Kichwa People of Sarayaku still demand state recognition [of the declaration] and legal re-arrangements despite existing legal frameworks that guarantee the rights of nature and Indigenous People at the domestic and international level. Possible answers are that in Ecuador, there is no binding legal instrument for forest protection, and article 408 of the Constitution states that resources in the subsoil belong to the state, while the Sarayaku Runa (people) perceive them as “goods of life”.
This paper presents the daily life and ethnographic accounts of how strategies of defence, documentation and sustenance resist, transform and adapt to the temporality and logic of extractivist threats. In this sense, the declaration also invites us to rethink the changing relationship with the sacha (forest), as well as the shifting entanglements between the beings of the [cosmic, vegetal, human, spiritual, animal and mineral] forest worlds.
Paper long abstract:
The Shahiki tribe, part of the Balouch transhumant pastoralists of Iran, migrated to Chahdegal (Southeast of Iran), an area of high biodiversity and rich in natural resources, about 150 years ago. With rich biodiversity, wild and domestic flora and fauna, the Chahdegal Balouch peoples’ territory of life encompass extensive areas of desert and semi-desert ecosystems. As semi-mobile communities, the Chahdegal Balouch peoples identify themselves as Indigenous peoples belonging to the broader Iranian Balouch ethnic community. Historic relationship with nature in their territories of life, Chahdegal peoples have been achieving their well-being without irreversible and Irreparable damages to nature. These complex relations have been regulated through the governance institution, which has been established based on their worldviews, ethics, values, knowledge, and experiences. This institution includes decision-making processes, traditional natural resource management methods and techniques founded upon the tribal social structure. Despite the severity and scope of natural and anthropogenic threats, the community continue to fight to keep themselves and the territory alive. With the full participation of the elders and representatives of the community, we carried out a comprehensive cognition and participatory analysis of Chahdegal territory through facilitatory techniques and anthropological methods such as PAR, PRA, participatory GIS, and in-depth interviews. In this presentation, we depict the governance institution of the peoples in the Chahdegal and describe how they sustain their livelihood and conserve biodiversity in their territories of life. By addressing the threats and challenges, we analyse the functional capacity of their institution for nature conservation and human well-being.