The Indigenism that Can Be Achieved, or the Limits of the Constitutional Reform in Argentina

BRIONES CLAUDIA; CARRASCO MORITA; ESCOLAR DIEGO; LAZZARI AXEL; LENTON DIANA; OBARRIO JUAN MANUEL; SIFFREDI ALEJANDRA

Congreso Virtual

Otro; Workshop on Indigenous Peoples. Legal and Judicial Issues; 1998

University of Saint Andrews, Escocia

In Argentina, the constitutional recognition of the rights of Indigenous Peoples took place with the 1994 amendment. The process leading to this recognition might be considered paralell to that which took place in other Latin American countries, and came about as a result of both the State need the of adjusting itself to new conditions throughout the world, and the wide movilization of Indian Peoples and their organizations, movilization to be favored within the country by the return to the  democratic form of government in the mid-eighties.  Some indigenous provincial legislations, limited to local realities, were later incorporated as the core of debate for constitutional reforms. Thus, a provincial law  appeared first; then a national one (N° 23302) was issued; and later the contents of such norms were incorporated to some of  the provincial constitutions  and to the national constitution as well. This paper focuses on analyzing how a process of legislative production in which different agents worked builds in interpellations from public law that depict and limit certain features of and for the legal indigenous self. To do so, we concentrate on three texts that constitute significant steps of that process as the backbone of our research: Law 23302 of indian policy; article 75 clause 17  of the National Constitution after the 1994 amendment; and, above all, Resolution N°4811 which rules the achievement of legal standing for indigenous communities.