Indigenous land rights: where are we today and where should the research go in the future?

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe indigenous struggle to secure land rights remains a highly contentious issue. This article offers a qualitative discussion of key concepts and a quantitative description of the state-of-the-art indigenous land rights literature based on bibliometric methods. It argues that a Polanyian conception of reciprocity is vital to understanding the relationship between some indigenous peoples and their land. Conceptually, reciprocity is based on the notion of interdependence. The qualitative exercise shows the difference between land rights and territorial rights. Indigenous peoples are fighting for territorial rights as they are linked to self-determination and foster cultural reproduction. The findings indicate that issues related to indigenous land rights in Latin America have generated much scholarly interest in recent times. Arguably, this trend is linked to several factors, including neoliberal multiculturalism, the pink tide, and the territorial turn. The paper highlights the need for research that focuses on social dispossession and social differentiation in indigenous communities. Specifically, it calls for research on how social differentiation plays out in the context of indigenous land rights, including how social dispossession supports the expansion of capitalism in indigenous communities.