No todo lo que es oro brilla. Developing community-based documentation as a practice of indigenous self-determination with the Harakbut in Madre de Dios, Peru

Abstract

This thesis examines how community-based documentation can be adapted to the context of the Harakbut in Madre de Dios, Peru, to document human rights violations associated with illegal gold mining under conditions of intimidation and weak implementation of Indigenous rights. It argues that conventional documentation approaches are insufficient in contexts where Indigenous advocacy is restricted by violence, criminality, corruption, and institutional weakness. By combining human rights documentation practices, participatory research approaches, Indigenous methodologies, and Indigenous rights jurisprudence, the thesis develops an interdisciplinary conceptual framework for community-based documentation and evaluates its adaptation to the Harakbut context. The research applies a qualitative and interdisciplinary methodology, combining legal analysis of international and domestic Indigenous rights frameworks with a review of literature on documentation and participatory research, comparative analysis of Inter-American Indigenous rights jurisprudence, and semi-structured interviews with Harakbut representatives. The findings demonstrate that community-based documentation differs from conventional documentation by placing community ownership, Free, Prior and Informed Consent, evidentiary criteria, and the No Harm principle at the centre of the documentation process. Rather than constituting a generic documentation model, it requires adaptation to local governance structures, documentation needs, and security conditions. The thesis concludes that community-based documentation has significant potential to strengthen Indigenous advocacy, evidence generation, territorial governance, and the exercise of self-determination by the Harakbut. At the same time, it cannot substitute for effective implementation of Indigenous rights or state protection and should therefore be understood as a complementary strategy. Consequently, community-based documentation is not merely a technical process of recording rights violations but can become a practical exercise of Indigenous self-determination in contexts where legal protection remains insufficient.