Engaged Graduate Student Grants
Territorial Control and Access for Indigenous Groups in Latin America
Examining the ways indigenous peoples in Latin America negotiate their political inclusion as stakeholders in land governance with the reality of an economic system that has systematically excluded them from decisions about land control.
The Miskitu peoples in Honduras, one of many indigenous groups in Latin America, have recently obtained rights to their ancestral homelands, amounting to nearly 11,000 square kilometers of land, or about 10 percent of the country’s land surface. This project will examine the new practices of land controls that have emerged since the Miskitu’s legal victory in 2012 and the effect they have had on the population and the environment. Fernando Galeana Rodriguez, a graduate student in global development, will collaborate with the Unity of the Miskitu Peoples (MASTA), an indigenous organization attempting to govern the new territory and revitalize indigenous identity. He will also examine how other indigenous peoples in Latin America are negotiating their political inclusion as stakeholders in land governance in an economic system that has excluded them from decisions about land control.
Topics: Access, Equity and Justice; Culture, Language and History; Law, Government and Policy
The Team
- Graduate student: Fernando Galeana Rodriguez, Department of Global Development
-
Special committee chair:
Wendy Wolford, Department of Global Development
College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
- Community partner: Unity of the Miskitu Peoples (MASTA)