Whipping and jailing: The Kapuria jail, indigenous self-government and the hybridization of punishment in Colombia

Abstract

There are currently 105,148 people imprisoned in Colombia; of these, 777 are indigenous. Although this may seem a small number (especially when compared with the disproportional presence of indigenous people in countries such as Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), their imprisonment shows the persistence of colonial practices within the predominant legal discourse that undermine the indigenous peoples’ right to self-government. However, they also reveal a process of hybridization of punishment, where traditional punishments ( whipping) and Western forms of punishment ( jailing) meet and transform each other, leading to different forms of punishment—and resistance. This article studies how some of the most representative indigenous communities in Colombia have appropriated prison as a form of punishment, the factors that have influenced this process, and its possible outcomes.

Entre dos mundos: pueblos indígenas y espacios de castigo en Colombia

“…En oposición a la idea clásica, derivada de una forma de imaginar lo real, basada en que solo existe un derecho, en que la ley es una y tiene una fuente única, central, organizada y legitimada por una suerte de origen místico de la autoridad jurídica (Derrida 1997), la corriente del pluralismo ha defendido otra forma de imaginar lo real: los territorios estatales albergan múltiples y diversos mundos culturales que reclaman autonomía y respeto por sus formas ancestrales de resolver conflictos, y que han pervivido históricamente al etnocidio y al epistemicidio, a las avanzadas homogeneizadoras del Estado nación monocultural. Esta forma de entender el derecho ha sido denominada pluralismo jurídico clásico o cultural 3 .…”