The Walking of Words: Third World feminism and the reimagining of resistance by indigenous communities

Abstract

In 2008 the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN) sent a letter to U.S. president Barack Obama regarding the atrocities committed against the indigenous communities in Colombia. The letter addressed how rights have been stripped from the indigenous communities. However, the letter represented more than documented accounts of injustice. The letter represented the demystification of traditional political representations and processes. This article uses Third World feminism as a theoretical framework to explore how indigenous social movements are making visible “a right” and “collective rights” from an alternative source. It seeks to reconceptualize resistance and revolution outside universal ideologies of liberation by examining how indigenous uprisings represent a new form of resistance, one that is deeply embedded in historical consciousnesses of indigenous communities.