Presas y relocalizaciones en indígenas en América Latina

Abstract

This essay approaches the complex problems that develop when indigenous people are relocalized, especially those issues that are motivated by lhe construction of big infrastructures such as dams. It is argued that these are not occasional, but structural phenomena, since millions of native people all around the world, and particularly in the so called Third World countries, have been subject to compulsive relocalizations during the last years. The essay argues that in addition to considering this problem as a human drama, it has become a relatively new and legitimate field within social anthropology. In commenting recent cases, the paper emphasizes some of the most significant problems that have arisen: the link between territoriality and identity; the specific political configurations that emerge in these situations; the confrontation between indigenous and "occidental" socioecological rationale, as well as the ethnocide processes to which these experiences may and often do lead.