The construction of the indigenous people: notes about the narrative of indigenous people in the judgments of the Constitutional Chamber of the Costa Rican judiciary system

Abstract

This article analyzes the narratives on the indigenous people in the judgments of the Constitutional Chamber of the Costa Rican Judiciary Power and its impact on the exercise of rights. In order to unveil these narratives, the concept of social representations (RS) of the French School of Social Psychology is used. Social representations are constructs established in intersubjectivity, on a social object, that guide actions. This concept allows us to analyze both the narratives about the indigenous, and their effects on the exercise of rights. Considering that this construct can be identified in the discourses of social actors, a set of court sentences, that allow reading the central content of these narratives, were reviewed. As a result, it was detected that a positivist and liberal conception of law prevails, within which an account of the indigenous is woven as a subordinate ethnic quality, which leads to a conditioned recognition