Date of Award
Spring 5-17-2025
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts (BA)
Advisor(s)
Goutam Gajula
Second Advisor
Oliver Murphey, Ph.D.
Abstract
The Wayuu, Colombia’s largest Indigenous group, endure systemic marginalization and various forms of structural, direct, and slow violence, which is compounded by preexisting vulnerabilities such as water scarcity, malnutrition, and displacement in La Guajira, a border region situated between Colombia and Venezuela. These challenges are worsened by state neglect, inaction, and environmental degradation caused by El Cerrejón, Latin America’s largest open-pit coal mine. Despite awareness of their suffering, both the Colombian state and Glencore, the company that owns El Cerrejón, perpetuate these harms, with the state hiding behind protective legal frameworks intended to protect and uphold the Wayuu’s rights but, instead, serves as a facade for inaction. The Wayuu continuously employ resistance strategies in response to their suffering and state neglect. However, the Wayuu’s visibility through protests, advocacy, and legal action paradoxically intensifies their marginalization. This visibility amplifies their struggles but provokes silencing, retaliation, and unmeaningful solutions, perpetuating cycles of exclusion and harm. The Wayuu are visible in terms of their resistance methods and indigenity but invisible in terms of their rights as Colombian citizens and as human beings. Categorized under “Indigenous rights,” the Wayuu are isolated as “other,” denying them full recognition as Colombian citizens. This thesis explores how preexisting vulnerability, state and corporate inaction, and the paradox of visibility perpetuate the Wayuu’s suffering. Using legal analysis, public health data, and firsthand accounts, this thesis critiques the state’s complicity in maintaining this cycle. This work calls for enforceable action to dismantle structural forces prioritizing profit over dignity, demanding accountability and transformative change to break the persistent cycle of injustice that the Wayuu endure.
Recommended Citation
Kren, Courtney, "Visibility Without Justice: The Wayuu’s Paradox of Resistance Amid Marginalization and Systemic Violence" (2025). Senior Theses. 175.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/international_senior/175
