The Research Department will host a series of events in which a full paper is presented by an affiliated researcher, followed by a Q&A. Immediately afterwards, all participants are invited to a social event with light refreshments (including wine and non-alcoholic beverages) and mingling. The event is held at the Norwegian Nobel Institute.

The first Academic Refreshments event will take place on April 2nd.

Speaker & Topic: 

  • Paulina Ochoa-Espejo (University of Virginia): “Territory beyond Identity: Indigenous Duty Networks and the Rights of Place” 

Abstract: The idea of self-determination is central to territorial rights and it animates both liberal and republican political theories of legitimacy. Yet, in the context of colonial and post-colonial struggles, as well as in the context of climate change, territorial self-determination’s focus on identity and ownership can produce xenophobic violence and undermine the emancipatory goals that it seeks to achieve. This leads to a paradox: either you severe territorial states from nations and compromise the principle of self-determination, or you align nations and identities with state territory and risk ethnic violence in national rectifications. In this article, I mine recent literature on indigenous peoples’ rights as well as recent developments in the political philosophy of territory to break away from this paradox. Rather than focus on identity (whether civic or ethnic), I turn to place: the ground of territory. According to many indigenous scholars, and new approaches in the philosophy of territorial rights, self-determination need not be grounded on individual rights or the rights of individual peoples, but instead it arises from local material practices, and the value of relations that communities establish with the environment. These “rights of place” emerge from networks of obligation that sustain individual and collective self-determination without relying on exclusionary views of territory or individual ownership. Thus, they are compatible with the principles that animate territorial rights, but do not exclude on the basis of identity. This rights-of-place approach explains how communities (including indigenous communities) have had self-determination over territory and natural resources in post-colonial contexts, without running into the traps of post-colonial ethnic or sectarian violence, or secessionism. It thereby opens a space for cooperation on the basis of common concerns for the environment, and limits ethnic and civic exclusionary claims.