The Struggle for Land, the Demand to Survive in Nicaragua's Autonomous Region (2009)

Undergraduate: Aja Barretto

Faculty Advisor: Della Pollock
Department: International & Area Studies

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In the southeastern corner of Nicaragua’s Autonomous Region live the six remaining communities of the state’s oldest recognized indigenous group, the Rama Indians, along with three communities of Afro-Nicaraguans known as Creoles. Although these communities have been rooted in the region for generations, very few families hold the property rights to their lands. The lack of territorial ownership in this region and makes communities highly vulnerable to displacement and destruction as wide-ranging economic and political interests progressively threaten their lands. A new mandate ratified in 2003, Law No. 445, addresses this grave problem by guaranteeing indigenous and ethnic communities in the Autonomous Region of the Atlantic Coast recognition of their communal property rights as well as the right to regulate the use and administration of their respective territories. Unfortunately, while the Rama and Creole communities have more promise than ever in attaining legal ownership to their lands, they face numerous interconnected obstacles that impede their ability to achieve communal ownership and ultimately their politico-territorial autonomy. The local, regional, and national obstacles impeding the realization of the Rama and Creole’s politico-territorial autonomy stand in the way of these communities' survival. Furthermore, they threaten the continuation of a unique cultural imagining which has a lot to offer the world.