Constituições, Estados e povos indígenas na América Latina: a colonialidade do poder e o mito do Estado-nação

Abstract

This article deals with how - throughout Latin American constitutional experiences from the postindependence period until the end of the 20th century - the myth of the nation-state operated in the
sense of giving ideological support to the paradigm of colonial power relations exercised by the State
on indigenous peoples, keeping them in a situation of territorial spoliation, economic exploitation, and epistemic subalternity and invisibility. In the first moment, from the constitutionalism of 19th
century, the text describes how the idea of the unique national identity linked to the State was being processed constitutionally, from the occultation of the indigenous identities. In the second one, the constitutional recognition of the indigenous presence throughout the twentieth century was pursued in the sense of its assimilation or integration into post-independence national identities, as a colonial
subaltern element both in economic and epistemic terms. The so-called "decolonial studies" as a perspective of analysis, the text was elaborated from the systematization and analysis of documentary sources, especially the constitutional texts of all the Latin American countries, in relation to the period described above.