Autonomy in black communities: challenges and achievements

Abstract

This article studies the concept of autonomy, its development and appropriation, within the framework of the organizational process of black communities in Colombia. Two central theses guide the reflection, the first is that autonomy is not limited to the normative novelties that arose with the 1991 Constitution, the jurisprudence of the high courts and the international conventions on human rights, but is linked to the trajectories, struggles and forms of resistance in the organizational process of the black people; the second states that exercising autonomy requires overcoming blockades and unconstitutional practices by the State, which affects the guarantee of the territorial, economic and cultural rights of the black people. The theses make it possible to identify, from the ethnic-territorial contexts, the disputes and tensions that exist regarding autonomy, making visible the achievements and challenges in the current context.