Entre la terre et le territoire

In this article I try to build a conceptual difference between “Land” (terre) and “territory” (territoire) by analyzing the political experience of the Misak nation, an indigenous community from the Colombian south-west. The land-back indigenous movement of the 70’s starts as an appendix of the larger farmworker’s movement (the ANUC), but it quickly differentiates itself following the radicalization of the indigenous identity. I will argue that this separation responds to the differences in the way of understanding an inhibiting the land. For indigenous communities and first nations the relationship to the land is fundamentally different from other political movements. Those are the basis for the conceptual distinction between land and territory.