Unraveling the Ethnoterritorial Fix in the Peruvian Amazon: Indigenous Livelihoods and Resource Management after Communal Land Titling (1980s-2016)

During the past several decades, Latin American governments have increasingly recognized indigenous peoples’ rights to cultural difference and channeled their territorial claims by titling their lands as common property. This “territorial turn” is supported by narratives about indigenous peoples as stewards of the environment. Geographic areas associated with indigenous land titling have increased since the late 1980s. This article presents research based on a case study of present-day livelihoods and resource management in two titled comunidades nativas [native communities] in the Peruvian Amazon. Our research finds that these communal lands have become spaces of dependency, depletion of natural resources, and territorial precarity rather than autonomy and sustainability. In spite of legal title, community members endure the tension between protecting their lands and negotiating their common property rights with outsiders as a strategy for income-earning through the exploitation of gold and timber. These conditions—driven by the encroachment of extractive economies and exacerbated by new road construction—provide new evidence about the contradictory dynamics of the “ethnoterritorial fix” in Latin America. These insights are potentially important for indigenous rights organizations in Latin America that consider territorial control as part of their strategies for the reproduction of indigenous peoples’ cultures, the security of their livelihoods, and the pursuit of autonomy. Desde hace varias décadas, los gobiernos latinoamericanos han reconocido progresivamente los derechos culturales de los pueblos indígenas y han canalizado sus demandas territoriales a través de la titulación de tierras comunales. Este “giro territorial” fue apoyado por discursos acerca de los pueblos indígenas como custodios del ambiente. Las áreas geográficas asociadas a la titulación de tierras indígenas han aumentado desde los 1980s. Este artículo presenta un estudio de caso sobre los medios de vida actuales y el manejo de recursos en dos comunidades nativas tituladas en la Amazonía peruana. De acuerdo a nuestra investigación, estas tierras comunales se han convertido en espacios de precariedad, dependencia y depredación de recursos naturales, en lugar de autonomía y sostenibilidad. A pesar de poseer el título legal, los comuneros sufren una tensión entre proteger sus tierras y negociar sus derechos de propiedad con terceros como estrategia para obtener ingresos económicos a partir