Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the racialised conflict surrounding the titling of indigenous territories in the Bolivian Chaco. It is argued that the threat of violence, reflective of competing sovereignty claims, has defined the dynamics of the titling process in ways that have undermined its decolonising potential.

Paper long abstract:

In 1996, as part of a package of multicultural reforms, Bolivia's INRA Law enabled indigenous peoples to claim collective rights to their ancestral territories, as Tierras Comunitarias de Orígen (Original Communal Lands). However, the legal process for titling these territories met with strong, and sometimes violent, resistance from local non-indigenous landowners. This paper examines the evolution and dynamics of one such land conflict, in the Guaraní TCO of Itika Guasu, located in the resource-rich but historically marginal Chaco region. Drawing on two years of ethnographic fieldwork, I explore the racialised discourses and practices through which private landowners defend their claims, highlighting how the ever-present threat of violent conflict has informed negotiations between local actors, and between local actors and the state. The result, I argue, has been a selective and incomplete application of legal norms, which has ultimately frustrated the decolonizing aspirations of the Guaraní land struggle.