Thesis defence The trials and tribulations of indigenous title Add to calendar 2026-02-03 14:30 2026-02-03 16:30 Europe/Rome The trials and tribulations of indigenous title Sala dei Cuoi Villa Salviati - Castle YYYY-MM-DD Print Share: Share on Facebook Share on BlueSky Share on X Share on LinkedIn Send by email Scheduled dates Feb 03 2026 14:30 - 16:30 CET Sala dei Cuoi, Villa Salviati - Castle Organised by Department of Law Julie Wetterslev will defend her PhD thesis This thesis sheds light on how the territorial turn relating to indigenous peoples’ rights in international law has been created, enacted and interpreted in practice. The study revolves around a single case, namely the titling of 73,349 hectares of land in the name of the Mayangna community in Awas Tingni in Northeastern Nicaragua. The thesis is based on collaborative research with indigenous leaders, civil society actors, academics, and lawyers in Nicaragua’s Northern Caribbean region. This research has employed historical and qualitative ethnographic methods to investigate how collective indigenous property rights have been created on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast in a process involving international norms, transnational networks, a local community and a regional human rights court. To explore in detail what the indigenous land title means and how it works, the thesis traces how the indigenous communal property title became a legal figure on Nicaragua’s Caribbean Coast, and how the Awas Tingni community came to play a pivotal role in this process. Against this historical backdrop, the thesis unpacks how the formulation of indigenous claims in human rights terms has played into the transformation of social practices, property relations and organisation in local communities. The analysis shows how indigenous property rights are continuously re-negotiated by different actors on the ground, and how the title has acquired changing meanings in a context of accelerated colonisation and expansion of the agricultural frontier. The thesis demonstrates that judicialization and land titling has not brought security, stability and self-determination for rights bearing indigenous communities. Rather, the titling process has been followed by a process of monetisation of the land that has facilitated colonisation with a range of detrimental environmental and socio-cultural consequences, leaving fractioned indigenous communities in a vulnerable position to protect eco-systems and manage the relations with the many new settlers in their territories. Register