Challenges of Self-Government: Articulations Between Legal and Illegitimate in an Indigenous Organization in Northern Cauca

Los desafíos del gobierno propio: articulaciones entre lo legal y lo legítimo en una organización indígena del norte del Cauca

For the last two decades, the Indigenous movement in Cauca has looked to position the so-called self-government as their political horizon. That bet should lead us to evaluate, following an ethnographic approach, what are self-government contemporary expressions and how they reflect in territories and among their population. In this article, I intend to conduct an assessment of its concrete manifestations in the Çxhab Wala Kiwe, or the Northern Cauca Association of Indigenous Councils (Asociación de Cabildos Indígenas del Norte del Cauca). To do that, we discuss the articulations between the notions of legal and legitimate brought about by some form of government. Then, we outline the expressions of authority and organization around Nasa people’s notion of self-justice, in order to account for the ongoing building process to get the political project up to date in daily settings, where local authorities display their making-decision roles and local organization, in charge of making public policies that Nasa people claim as their own in Northern Cauca