Labores periciales en contextos de judicialización con pueblos indígenas. Texturas de la experiencia de producción de un peritaje antropológico para el pueblo arhuaco en Colombia

• Published in: Antípoda : revista de antropología y arqueología 2022-07, Vol.48, p.29-53
• Main Author: Ginna Marcela Rivera Rodríguez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: access to justice; anthropological expertise; arhuaco indigenous people; judicialization; state justice
• ISSN: 1900-5407; 2011-4273
• DOI: 10.7440/antipoda48.2022.02

In judicial processes involving indigenous peoples, it has become increasingly recurrent to integrate special mechanisms to allow for dialogue, and the interpretation and translation of the cultural differences of the indigenous worlds before state justice operators. Expert appraisal is one of these devices that summon the anthropological discipline to the courts. The purpose of this article is to show how expert opinion is a device of professional practice for the intervention of anthropology in processes of demand for justice intended to guarantee the understanding of cultural and social diversity. The arguments and elements detailed in the article are based on a research experience involving the Arhuaco indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia between 2018 and 2020, the documentary/bibliographic analysis, and the study of the judicial file related to the facts concerning the retention, torture, and death of three Arhuaco indigenous authorities that occurred in 1990. The article concludes that anthropological expertise is a device of disciplinary practice that can support the demands of indigenous peoples for access to justice and, therefore, to the understanding of cultural diversity in the courts. Its production and the associated epistemological, political, and intersubjective relationships merit further disciplinary analysis. Finally, revealing the methodological process of the elaboration of an anthropological expert opinion, its adaptation to the demands of justice, and the gaps of a particular judicialization process, as well as further exploring the questions posed by anthropology, are discussed in the article as a relevant and pertinent exercise for reflection on the practice of the discipline in judicial scenarios.