Volume 3 issue 2 December 2015

Indigenous Peoples in a Refugee-Like Situation: Living on the Border Between Colombia and Brazil

Gabriel Gualano de Godoy​
This article proposes to raise relevant topics of interest for Latin America in the debate on international refugee protection, concerning indigenous rights, internal and international displacements, hospitality and border cities. This brings into question the international protection system, the production of refugees’ identity and subjectivity, the nondemocratic principle of nation-state borders and the Eurocentric lenses of this political-legal field. After setting out the theoretical and normative frame of reference, the article develops an in¬formative narrative about the context of indigenous refugees in the Amazon region (from Colombia to Brazil). In the conclusion, the text addresses the broader refugee definition and protection in order to be attentive to the peculiarities of indigenous forced relocation and dispossession in the region.