Introduction
This chapter explores the Kachi Yupi community protocol as a case study that
provides a good basis for a discussion of these tools within a broad frame of local
activism. In this case, a community protocol was used to underpin local community action for the stewardship of the earth, and this reveals how a community
protocol can be linked to other forms of collective action in a longer timeframe.
It also allows us to reflect on when and why community protocols might lead to
legal change, foster dialogue with various institutional actors, or lead to other
forms of collective action. The Kachi Yupi community protocol was produced
by Kolla and Atacama communities in the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc area of northwest Argentina. For these communities, drafting, publishing
and following up on this community protocol constituted one form of collective
action within a wider campaign to protect their lands, waters and livelihoods.
The chapter draws on legal scholarship and seeks to place community protocols in the perspective of literature on collective action, drawing in particular
on political and legal opportunity structure approaches to explain community
action choices of different types.
We explore the case as follows. First, in the remainder of this introduction, we
describe the political and legal contexts that preceded and framed the decision
to draft the community protocol. We then give the reader an overview of early
community actions as well as the process of drafting the community protocol, its
aims and content. The discussion of the protocol then begins by considering the
effects and impacts it had following its publication, before a reflection on why it
did not become a tool for legal pluralism, but did become a key basis for other,
including more contentious, forms of action. The latter reflection provides ideas
about what conditions are needed for legal change to follow from community
7
COMMUNITY PROTOCOLS AS
TOOLS FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION
BEYOND LEGAL PLURALISM – THE
CASE OF TRACKS IN THE SALT
Pía Marchegiani and Louisa Parks
1
DOI: 10.4324/9781003172642-9
This chapter explores the Kachi Yupi community protocol as a case study that
provides a good basis for a discussion of these tools within a broad frame of local
activism. In this case, a community protocol was used to underpin local community action for the stewardship of the earth, and this reveals how a community
protocol can be linked to other forms of collective action in a longer timeframe.
It also allows us to reflect on when and why community protocols might lead to
legal change, foster dialogue with various institutional actors, or lead to other
forms of collective action. The Kachi Yupi community protocol was produced
by Kolla and Atacama communities in the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc area of northwest Argentina. For these communities, drafting, publishing
and following up on this community protocol constituted one form of collective
action within a wider campaign to protect their lands, waters and livelihoods.
The chapter draws on legal scholarship and seeks to place community protocols in the perspective of literature on collective action, drawing in particular
on political and legal opportunity structure approaches to explain community
action choices of different types.
We explore the case as follows. First, in the remainder of this introduction, we
describe the political and legal contexts that preceded and framed the decision
to draft the community protocol. We then give the reader an overview of early
community actions as well as the process of drafting the community protocol, its
aims and content. The discussion of the protocol then begins by considering the
effects and impacts it had following its publication, before a reflection on why it
did not become a tool for legal pluralism, but did become a key basis for other,
including more contentious, forms of action. The latter reflection provides ideas
about what conditions are needed for legal change to follow from community
7
COMMUNITY PROTOCOLS AS
TOOLS FOR COLLECTIVE ACTION
BEYOND LEGAL PLURALISM – THE
CASE OF TRACKS IN THE SALT
Pía Marchegiani and Louisa Parks
1
DOI: 10.4324/9781003172642-9