The Colombian activist Juan Gregorio Palechor (1923–1992) dedicated his life to championing indigenous rights in Cauca, a department in the southwest of Colombia, where he helped found the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca. Recounting his life story in collaboration with the Colombian anthropologist Myriam Jimeno, Palechor traces his political awakening, his experiences in national politics, the disillusionment that resulted, and his turn to a more radical activism aimed at confronting ethnic discrimination and fighting for indigenous territorial and political sovereignty.
Palechor's lively memoir is complemented by Jimeno's reflections on autobiography as an anthropological tool and on the oppressive social and political conditions faced by Colombia's indigenous peoples. A faithful and fluent transcription of Palechor's life story, this work is a uniquely valuable resource for understanding the contemporary indigenous rights movements in Colombia.
- Contents
- Foreword by Joanne Rappaport
- Preface
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- Part 1. Narrations, Life Stories, and Autobiographies
- For Those Who Come After
- The Anthropological Narrative as Dialogue
- Life Stories, Biographies, and Autobiographies
- Recovering the Subaltern Vision
- Reality, Experience, and Expression: The Authorship of Oral Histories
- Debates on Technique in Life Stories
- Part 2. Juan Gregorio Palechor: Between the Community and the Nation
- Identity and Ethnic Re-creation
- Ethnicity as a Social Relation
- The Limits of Diversity and Ethnic Recognition
- Juan Gregorio Palechor: Between the Community and the Nation
- Cauca, the Resguardo of Guachicono, and Indigenous Movements
- Identity and the Struggle for the Resguardo
- A Politics of Our Own and the Reinvention of Identity
- Part 3. Juan Gregorio Palechor: The Story of My Life
- Where I Come From: Five Generations of the Macizo Colombiano and Guachicono
- Recognizing the Way of the World and Observing the Weather
- Life on the Resguardo
- Our Nervousness about School and What We Were Taught
- The Harshness of Family Life and the Art of Agriculture
- When I Was Conscripted
- Learning New Things
- Public Life and Political Violence
- During the Violence, I Was Forced by Necessity to Work as a Tinterillo
- The Formation of Community Action Committees: The Liberal Revolutionary Movement and the National Front
- Religion, Money, and Politics
- Working with the MRL and the Political Parties
- The Management Class of the Catholic Religion
- Looking for an Organization: The Campesino Association and the Indigenous Organization
- My Work in CRIC
- The Struggles of CRIC and Indigenous Traditions
- Politiqueros and Their Empty Words
- Why an Organization of Indigenous People?
- Appendix: CRIC Documents
- Glossary
- Notes
- References
- Index
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