Raizales

The Raizal People of San Andres, Old Providence and Kettlina, along with the Archipelago Movement for Ethnic Natives, Self-Determination (AMEN-SD); the Raizal Community residing outside the Archipelago (ORFA); Civic Oversight Providencia, in continuous reflection and action on their cultural identity, territorial situation and political perspectives as a collective and ethnic subject, has as one of its priorities the defense and protection of their ancestral territorial rights as one of its
top priorities.
To contribute to that great goal, these organizations have undertaken a process of historical and current research on the land ownership of Raizal families; the revision of existing legal, cultural and institutional instruments to generate knowledge and appropriate concepts and mechanisms that can contribute to the effective protection of their land rights, through adequate management, permanent dialogue, and advocacy for the protection of the heritage of the Raizal People.
This project is sponsored by INCODER, and by USAID through the Program for Afrodescendants and Indigenous Peoples operated by the ACDIVOCA Organization, to facilitate the implementation of the identification / research phase of the “Condition of the Indigenous Raizal People’s (of the Archipelago of San Andres, Providence and St. Kettlina) territorial Rights,” which was foundational in the preparation of this document targeting the Raizal young people, men, and women, as well as public officials and the general public.
This material, which was prepared with much love and deep responsibility by AMEN-SD, exposes a short tour through the living history of the Raizal People and the relationship / attachment to their territory. In the first part of this document, you will find the definitions of a few key concepts defined from the cultural and religious principles shared by the Raizal People, and from the perspective of the fundamental rights of ethnic groups according to international human rights laws. Secondly, there is a brief background of the territory’s context and the factors that have influenced the loss of land; followed by a review of national and international legislation and case law, as a springboard for questions intended to promote the reflection and foment the search for solutions based on the use of instruments, programs and mechanisms that enable the construction of tools and routes that seek to support from the cultural, administrative and legal perspectives the protection of the Indigenous Raizal People’s territorial rights.

The authors examine the implications of both a recent international ruling at The Hague curtailing fishing rights and the encroaching Colombian-based tourist industry for Raizals – descendants of African slaves brought by the British to the islands of San Andrés, Providencia and Santa Catalina in the Caribbean Sea. There they developed an autonomous way of life, in a subsistence economy based on fishing after the British abandoned the islands. While nominally under the control of the Spanish empire and afterwards the Colombian state, Raizals differ in many ways from the dominant Spanish-speaking, Creole and Catholic mainland population – being English-speaking, Afro and Protestant. Until the mid-twentieth century, they enjoyed substantial autonomy, now undermined by the Colombian nation-building project and a judgment of the international court at The Hague giving nearby Nicaragua rights over the waters of the Colombian islands, consequently precluding Raizals from accessing their traditional fishing resources. As a result, the islanders, with their culture recast as 'heritage', have become proletarians subordinated to tourist industries owned by mainland Colombians.

Los efectos del fallo emitido por la Corte Internacional
de Justicia del 19 de noviembre de 2012 sobre las
áreas marinas del archipiélago de San Andrés, Providencia
y Santa Catalina, en disputa entre los estados
de Nicaragua y Colombia, son particularmente negativos
sobre el Pueblo Raizal y sus derechos territoriales,
los cuales son ancestrales, permanentes en el tiempo e
indivisibles. Se propone un análisis del caso desde la
perspectiva del Derecho internacional de los derechos
humanos de los pueblos indígenas y tribales, que tenga
en cuenta la presencia del Pueblo Raizal en el territorio
en disputa y en consecuencia su dependencia histórica,
cultural y económica con relación a los mares territoriales
en disputa.

Whilst conducting field work for my doctorate thesis on the Caribbean island of San Andres I had the opportunity to actively participate in the making of music videos with a local production house. Although this was not an experience central to the construction of ethnographic data used for the thesis (which focused on the role of local musical traditions in the processes of ethnicization, the experience radically changed my relationship with the subjects involved in the research. Thanks to this experience, I was able to establish a reciprocal relationship which was sufficiently symmetrical to dissolve the usual barriers between the researcher and the researched. In this paper, following a brief personal narrative of my collaboration with Cotton Tree Media and its implications for ethnographic work, I will reflect on the different shades of the concept of collaboration/participation applied to ethnographic research. In particular, I will discuss aspects of the American tradition “co...

Impresiones de la comunidad raizal frente a los planteamientos de Peter Wilson "
Tienen su verdad, pero con el tiempo han cambiado " Este documento recoge los pensamientos de las y los raizales concernientes a las temáticas analizadas por el antropólogo Peter J. Wilson en su libreo Crab Antics: a Caribbean Case Study  of the Conflict between Reputation and Respectabiluty.

Los efectos del fallo emitido por la Corte Internacional de Justicia del 19 de noviembre de 2012 sobre las areas marinas del archipielago de San Andres, Providencia y Santa Catalina, en disputa entre los estados de Nicaragua y Colombia, son particularmente negativos sobre el Pueblo Raizal y sus derechos territoriales, los cuales son ancestrales, permanentes en el tiempo e indivisibles. Se propone un analisis del caso desde la perspectiva del Derecho internacional de los derechos humanos de los pueblos indigenas y tribales, que tenga en cuenta la presencia del Pueblo Raizal en el territorio en disputa y en consecuencia su dependencia historica, cultural y economica con relacion a los mares territoriales en disputa.

In Colombia, both Indigenous Peoples and traditional black,
Raizal and Palenquero communities are recognised as ethnically,
historically and culturally differentiated groups, with human
and territorial rights of a collective nature. According to the 2018
Census, the Colombian Indigenous population numbers some
1,905,617 individuals who, in turn, belong to 115 different native
peoples. Approximately 58.3% of this population lives in 717 collectively-
owned resguardos (reserves).
The same census counted 4,671,160 people (9.34% of the
national total) who self-identify as black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal
or Palenquero. Around 7.3% of this population lives in 178 collectively-
owned territories, organised around Community Councils.
As a result of a resurgence in the internal armed conflict following
the 2018 electoral success of President Iván Duque, who
is opposed to the Peace Agreement, violence and the armed retaking
of many of the regions inhabited by these peoples intensified
during 2020. In this context, as stated by the Ombudsman’s
Office, there is a conspicuous delay in implementing the Ethnic
Chapter of the Peace Agreement and a clearly deteriorating humanitarian
situation which, in 2020 alone, left 112 Indigenous
people dead in different regions, not to mention the members of
Afro-descendant communities, whose deaths are not fully differentiated
in the records.