Commentator: Paula Duarte Lopes (CES)
 

Abstract

Water, as the source of life, is at the epicentre of major socio-environmental conflicts in different locations in the world generating multiple human rights violations to local communities disproportionally affecting ethnic, indigenous and Afro-descendant groups. These conflicts arise in response to the hegemonic neoliberal development model marked by the rapid expansion of extractive projects of natural resources, where water is conceived as a strategic natural resource malleable to human needs. Moreover, these conflicts are unfolding in contexts of historical power inequalities, legacies of colonialism, and historical and contemporary race and gender discrimination. In turn, ethnic, indigenous and Afro-descendant groups around the world claim a different human-nature relationship which breaks through dominant scientific and neoliberal knowledge demonstrating alternative ways of knowing, living and being. In the midst of this context, in 2010, the United Nations General Assembly explicitly recognized "the human right to water" as essential to the full enjoyment of life and all other human rights. As this is considered a “new” human right, it is to be expected that international, regional and domestic jurisprudence will further elaborate its contours.

This seminar is organised within the Marie Curie research project (2016-2018) “Challenges of Grounding Universal Human Rights. Indigenous epistemologies of human rights and intercultural dialogue in consultation processes on natural resource exploitation (GROUNDHR)” and discusses one of its main research questions: how do indigenous peoples understand and perceive the right to water and its (potential) violation in the case of large-scale hydroelectric dams? Drawing on long term legal anthropological research among dam-threatened Maya Q’eqchi’ indigenous peoples in Guatemala, this presentation attempts to reconceptualise the content and the scope of the “human rights to water” in the context of the neoliberalisation of nature and the dominance of the modern anthropocentric vision. It argues that it is crucial to anchor this new human rights norm in an intercultural dialogue with other epistemologies in order to strengthening the universality of human rights as a real factor for the good in people’s lives. At the same time, the ethnographic material also questions what is conceivable as the narratives show the crucial role of agentive nonhumans – rivers, hills and valleys – in the indigenous perception on water. In fact, these ethnographic accounts reveal the existence of conflicts involving different assumptions about reality or what exists, demonstrating the possibility of multiple ontologies. Therefore, it supports the so-called ontological turn in social sciences and in anthropology in particular. However, this poses many new questions and challenges about how to deal with ontological encounters within human rights discourse and practice on water.

GROUNDHR’s research design is grounded in a legal anthropological analysis of two case studies about dam-threatened indigenous peoples: Xalalá project in Maya Q’eqchi’ territory (Guatemala) and Los Besotes project affecting Arhuaco communities (Colombia). Both indigenous groups are survivors of gross human rights violations committed during the internal armed conflicts.

Seminar organized within DECIDe and GROUNDHR and in collaboration with OFICINA ECOSOC
 

Bionote

Lieselotte Viaene is a Belgian anthropologist, with PhD in Law (2011), specialized in the fields of human rights, legal anthropology, transitional justice, indigenous peoples' rights and legal pluralism. Since 2002, after having carried out fieldwork on transitional justice and restorative justice within the framework of her master's degree in Cultural Anthropology, she maintains a close relationship with several conflict-torn Maya Q’eqchi’ communities in Guatemala. During her PhD research on transitional justice and indigenous peoples (2006-2010), she conducted long term multi-sited ethnographic research among Maya Q’eqchi’ victims and perpetrators, tracing survivor views, priorities and practices as well as indigenous justice systems in post-conflict settings. After her PhD, she joined the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights in Ecuador (2010-2013) where she was responsible for the area of collective rights of indigenous peoples and afro-descendants and the area of transitional justice. Her latest publication is the research policy report: “La Hidroeléctrica Xalalá en territorios maya q’eqchi’ de Guatemala ¿Qué pasará con nuestra tierra y agua sagradas? Un análisis antropológico-jurídico de los derechos humanos amenazados” (2015). Since September 2016, Lieselotte is a Marie Curie Research Fellow at CES.