History and Social Sciences

Unlike water, land is usually conceived of as motionless and fixed in place. Because of these characteristics, land lends itself to the delineation of boundaries and spatial determinations of property relations. But what happens to those boundaries and relations when land is mobile, pliable, unfixed, and when its contours are transformed by the fluctuations of other elements such as water? How does an analysis of property relations under those changing material conditions shape our understanding of land as an object of ownership? This paper addresses these questions by analyzing how the socio-ecological dynamics of flooding environments destabilize static notions of property and land. Specifically, this paper criticizes widely accepted ideas that assume that land, as a material element, is temporarily and spatially static, and that property is a social relation between people with regard to an object, not to the object itself. This paper develops this discussion through the analysis of a conflict among peasants, landowners, and the state for the appropriation of newly emerged fluvial land and the definition of its boundaries in the floodplains of northern Colombia. This paper shows how the intricate and shifting connections between water and land make property a highly dynamic relationship. Furthermore, it emphasizes the property and land embed multiple temporalities associated with the socio-ecologies of flooding environments. This paper concludes with a reflection on the implications of this case study for broader discussions on the water-land nexus and for the conceptualization of floodplains.

RESUMEN La población kichwa de Otavalo (Ecuador) constituye uno de los grupos indígenas más afectados por el mer-cado generado en torno a la demanda global de la llamada «autenticidad cultural». El éxito comercial de la venta de los productos artesanales propios tuvo un gran impacto en la reafirmación de la identidad indígena. El presente estudio analiza las transformaciones de la etnicidad de esta población en el contexto migratorio del sur de España. Los resultados demuestran la erosión del empresariado transnacional que originalmente estimuló los flujos de los otavalos. La reorientación de su estrategia laboral y un mayor arraigo en el destino influyen en que sea necesario replantear el significado actual de la dimensión étnica de la identidad. ABSTRACT The Kichwas from Otavalo (Ecuador) are one of the indigenous groups most affected by the global demand for the «culturally authentic» products. The commercial success of their handicrafts had a profound impact on reaffirmation of indigenous identity. This study analyzes the transformations of ethnicity of this population in the migratory context of Southern Spain. The results reveal the erosion of the transnational entrepreneurship which originally stimulated the migratory flows of Otavalos. The reorientation of the occupational strategy and their settlement in the receiving context influence the need to rethink the present meaning of ethnic dimension of identity.