‘Territorial cleansing’ for whom? Indigenous rights, conservation, and state territorialization in the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, Nicaragua

Abstract

This paper examines how spatially exclusionary policies, implemented in the name of environmental conservation and indigenous territorial rights may, paradoxically, work to extend state territorialization and control over resources in indigenous territories. While the colonial legacies of protected areas and conservation enclosures in indigenous territories are well-known, critical scrutiny of contemporary exclusionary conservation mechanisms remains scarce. I suggest that such mechanisms, often based on the selective physical and political removal of “violent” and “destructive” non-indigenous settlers, bear striking similarities to earlier conservation initiatives in that they limit indigenous autonomy and enable state control over indigenous territories and resources, despite the changed rhetoric emphasizing not only conservation goals, but also indigenous rights. I base my argument – that conservation in indigenous territories continues to be motivated by the territorial ambitions of the state – on analyzing Nicaragua’s saneamiento territorial (“territorial cleansing”) policy, which is generally understood as the eviction of non-indigenous peasants from indigenous territories. I show that saneamiento is selective in different ways: it only dispossesses certain populations that compromise the legibility and controllability of indigenous territories and the natural resources in them, and it is implemented only in the spaces and times that are compatible with the territorialization goals of the state, i.e., areas rich in natural resources.