Kukama women and the marañón river: a history of subjugation, resistance, and environmental litigation

Abstract

In March 2024, the Mixed Court of Nauta recognized the Marañón River as a rights-bearing entity following a lawsuit filed by the Kukama Women's Federation Huaynakana Kamatahuara Kana. This article situates that ruling within a long-term historical trajectory to examine its genealogy and implications. The central question analyzes how a history of dispossession and invisibilization shaped the lawsuit and the leadership of the women who led it. The analysis identifies five historically specific mechanisms through which different forms of power managed indigenous subalternity from the colonial period to the present. The findings show that the 2024 ruling marked a break in this logic of domination by incorporating Kukama ontology as legally binding grounds, and that the female leadership that made it posible reversed the subordinate role historically imposed on Kukama women by the extractive model.