Discurso jurídico, desenvolvimentismo e exclusão racial na sentença t-622 de 2016

uma análise crítica do reconhecimento do rio atrato como sujeito de direitos

Abstract

This article presents a critical analysis of the discourses (re)produced in the ruling T-622-2016 by which the Colombian Constitutional Court recognized the Atrato River as a “subject of rights”. We aim to describe and analyze the linguistic-discursive resources and ideological strategies used by the Constitutional Court in the making of the decision. In this sense, we question the apparent impartiality of the legal discourse and expose the ways in which the text of the ruling reveals a racist imaginary in the representation and exclusion of the ethnic communities that live on the banks of the Atrato River. Likewise, we show that the supposed emancipation that the ruling produces does not escape the ideological tension between environmental protection and development. Finally, we reveal the ideological polarization implied in the ruling, through which the State positions itself as an agent of development, which produces effects on the (non)compliance with the orders issued and on the integrity of the river and the human and more-than-human communities that live there.