Povos indígenas e cidadania: Inscrições constitucionais como marcadores sociais da diferença na América Latina

Abstract

Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay have changed their national constitutions to ratify international treaties, which were pressured by the growing indigenous autonomy in Latin America since the 70s of last century. However, not all adopted a notion of citizenship that includes recognition of the right to difference as legitimate to ensure equal conditions for equivalence, making new social and political fields to allow indigenous people to hold full citizenship without ceasing to be who they are. The constitutional registrations are still guided by a formalism that seems to produce one of many social markers of difference, without considering the plural practice, while ensuring rights to plurality. On the other hand, the effect of the Constitution of Bolivia, not only makes explicit the possibility of legal pluralism, but points to the existence of real conditions for the construction of a plural state, addressing social markers seriously.