Indigenous Struggles for Autonomy

The Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua

Edited by Luciano Baracco - Contributions by Govand Khalid Azeez; Luciano Baracco; Arelly Barbeyto; Dolores Figueroa Romero; Jane Freeland; Alejandra Gaitán-Barrera; Miguel González; Colette Grinevald; Mark Jamieson; Joshua L. Mayer and Eric Rodrigo Meringer

Indigenous Struggles for Autonomy: The Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua offers a broad and comprehensive analysis of Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast and the process of autonomy that was initiated in 1987 as part of a wider conflict resolution process during the years of the Sandinista revolution and has continued through to the present day. Over its 30 year period of development, the autonomy process on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast can be seen as a crucible for the autonomous struggles of minority peoples throughout the Latin American continent. Autonomy on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast remains highly contested, being simultaneously characterized by progress, setbacks, and violent confrontation within a number of fields and involving a multiplicity of local, national, and global actors. This experience offers critical lessons for efforts around the world that seek to resolve long-established and deep-seated ethnic conflict by attempting to reconcile the need for development, usually fostered by national governments through neo-extractivist policies, with the protection of minority rights advocated by marginalized minorities living within nation states and, increasingly, by intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States. This book presents analyses that reveal the broad implications for the struggle for autonomy on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, conducted by scholars with expertise in an array of disciplines including sociology, globalization theory, anthropology, history, socio-linguistics, cultural and postcolonial studies, gender studies, and political science.

Lexington Books

Pages: 246 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9

978-1-4985-5881-5 • Hardback • November 2018 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-4985-5882-2 • eBook • November 2018 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

Subjects: History / Latin America / Central America

Indigenous Struggles for Autonomy

The Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua

Hardback

eBook

Summary

Indigenous Struggles for Autonomy: The Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua offers a broad and comprehensive analysis of Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast and the process of autonomy that was initiated in 1987 as part of a wider conflict resolution process during the years of the Sandinista revolution and has continued through to the present day. Over its 30 year period of development, the autonomy process on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast can be seen as a crucible for the autonomous struggles of minority peoples throughout the Latin American continent. Autonomy on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast remains highly contested, being simultaneously characterized by progress, setbacks, and violent confrontation within a number of fields and involving a multiplicity of local, national, and global actors. This experience offers critical lessons for efforts around the world that seek to resolve long-established and deep-seated ethnic conflict by attempting to reconcile the need for development, usually fostered by national governments through neo-extractivist policies, with the protection of minority rights advocated by marginalized minorities living within nation states and, increasingly, by intergovernmental organizations such as the United Nations and the Organization of American States. This book presents analyses that reveal the broad implications for the struggle for autonomy on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua, conducted by scholars with expertise in an array of disciplines including sociology, globalization theory, anthropology, history, socio-linguistics, cultural and postcolonial studies, gender studies, and political science.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 246 • Trim: 6⅜ x 9

978-1-4985-5881-5 • Hardback • November 2018 • $117.00 • (£90.00)

978-1-4985-5882-2 • eBook • November 2018 • $111.00 • (£85.00)

Subjects: History / Latin America / Central America

Author

Luciano Baracco is associate professor in political science and international relations at the Middle East Technical University, Northern Cyprus Campus.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Indigenous Struggles for Autonomy: The Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua

Luciano Baracco

Chapter 2. From the Kingdom of Mosquitia to the Mosquito Reservation: The Demise of British Imperialism on the Mosquito Coast and the Challenge of Nicaraguan Nation-Building

Luciano Baracco

Chapter 3. The Company Times: Neocolonialism and Ethnic Relations on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast in the Twentieth Century

Eric Rodrigo Meringer

Chapter 4. The Sandinista Revolution and the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua: Revolution, Counter-Revolution, and Indigenous Struggles for Autonomy

Luciano Baracco

Chapter 5. Leasing Communal Lands…In “Perpetuity”: Post-Titling Scenarios on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua

Miguel González

Chapter 6. Negotiating Consultation: The Duty to Consult and Contestation of Autonomy in Nicaragua’s Rama-Kriol Territory

Joshua L. Mayer

Chapter 7. Autonomy in the Caribbean Coast: Neoliberalism, Landless Peasants and the Resurgence of Ethnic Conflict

Govand Khalid Azeez and Alejandra Gaitán-Barrera

Chapter 8. Strong Women: Memories of Miskitu Women forging Peace and Autonomy

Dolores Figueroa Romero and Arelly Barbeyto

Chapter 9. Cocaine Money, Cement Houses, and New Residential Arrangements in a Coastal Miskitu Village

Mark Jamieson

Chapter 10. The Role of Autonomy in the Revitalization of the Languages of Nicaragua’s

Caribbean Coast

Jane Freeland and Colette Grinevald

Index

About the Editor

About the Contributors

Reviews

Written by well-known specialists in the field and based on extensive fieldwork, this book offers new perspectives on the historical preconditions and current contradictions of Nicaragua's autonomy process. The book demonstrates then as now Nicaraguan governments consider the Atlantic coast primarily a source of natural resources.
— Wolfgang Gabbert, Leibniz University Hannover

Once in the eye of a colossal geopolitical storm, the Atlantic Coast of Nicaragua faded back into the margins of public awareness soon after the intense conflict of the 1980s subsided. Yet the struggle for autonomy—one major factor in that conflict—has continued, with equally high stakes and lessons to be learned for similar struggles elsewhere. The “post-conflict” scholars of this volume offer insightful analysis of these discouraging subsequent years, along with provocative revisions of existing historical interpretations, which merit serious and sustained engagement. This book persuasively shows how Black and indigenous Nicaraguan protagonists of these struggles for autonomy, though often invisibilized and always buffeted by more powerful forces, continue to exert a profound influence on the course of Nicaraguan and Caribbean Central American history.
— Charles R. Hale, University of California, Santa Barbara