Sustainable Development for Whom? Challenges and Opportunities for Colombia's Ethnic Peoples

Abstract

Written by a pedagogical technical advisor on ethnic affairs, this article critiques the concept of sustainable development from the perspective of Colombia's ethnic peoples, arguing that the historical pattern of natural resource exploitation established since the Conquest persists today under a predatory capitalist model that dispossesses Indigenous, Afro-Colombian, and peasant communities of their territories. The author documents how the presence of illegal armed actors and mining megaprojects generates terror and displacement, and describes three forms of resistance: civil, civil disobedience, and legal action. The text presents the Social and Solidarity Economy as an alternative to the neoliberal model and closes with the testimony of Indigenous leader Kimy Pernía Domicó, assassinated in 2001.