Plurinational State and Body-Territory: Indigenous Peoples as Guardians of the Earth’s DNA

When I was a child, the world was explained to me as if the body stopped at the skin and the country stopped at the border.

Later, listening to Indigenous women and reading about body-territory, I realised something that my nervous system already knew in silence:

my body does not end at my skin,
and a people does not end at a flag.

The body is also territory.
The territory is also body.

From there, the idea of a plurinational State stops being a legal curiosity and becomes something obvious:

• if bodies are different,
  
  

• if territories are different,
  
  

• if histories are different,
  
  

then a single, homogeneous “nation” cannot be the only political subject.

A plurinational State, for me, is the minimum correction:

the State recognises that many nations, peoples and worlds
already inhabit the same map
and that Indigenous nations are not “minorities” but
guardians of the DNA of the Earth – biological, cultural and spiritual.

The focus I want to light

Among everything that could be said about plurinationality, I choose one focus:

when we take seriously the concept of body-territory,
attacking Indigenous territories is literally attacking bodies, brains and future generations.

From there, a plurinational State is not only:

• a political arrangement;
  
  

• it is a neuro-ecological obligation.
  
  

Plurinational: more than many flags in one State

Constitutions like those of Ecuador (2008) and Bolivia (2009) already introduced the idea of the State as plurinational and intercultural, recognising Indigenous nations, their collective rights and their own systems of justice and self-government.

They affirm that:

• many nations coexist within the same territory;
  
  

• Indigenous peoples have rights to their lands, languages, institutions and worldviews;
  
  

• collective rights and rights of nature are part of the constitutional order.
  
  

But even in these pioneering cases, there is a tension:

• the old monocultural State continues to operate through ministries, codes and extractive projects;
  
  

• the plurinational promise often remains on paper, while Indigenous territories are pressured by mining, oil, dams and agribusiness.
  
  

For me, the missing piece is exactly the concept of body-territory.

Body-territory: when land and body are the same battlefield

Communitarian Indigenous feminists in Abya Yala, such as Lorena Cabnal and others, developed the notion of cuerpo-territorio / body-territory:

• the body of women and the land are one continuous territory;
  
  

• colonialism and patriarchy act in the same way on both:
  conquest, invasion, extraction, violation;
  
  

• defending the land is also defending the body;
  defending the body is also resisting territorial dispossession.
  
  

This perspective says something very concrete:

a mine on sacred land is not only
“environmental impact” –
it is bodily violence,
with neurobiological and intergenerational consequences.

Research on body-territory also shows:

• how experiences of violence and dispossession are inscribed in the body as pain, illness and trauma;
  
  

• how community healing practices reconnect body and land as a single process of recovery.
  
  

In this language, “Indigenous guardians of the Earth’s DNA” are:

• not romantic figures;
  
  

• they are front-line immune cells of the planetary body,
  defending crucial zones of biological and cultural diversity.
  
  

Neuroscience: the body as first territory

Neuroscience offers tools to understand why the idea of body-territory is more than metaphor.

Recent work on interoception – the perception of internal bodily states – proposes that:

• interoception is a central modality for grounding the self;
  
  

• it is tightly linked to emotional awareness, decision-making and the sense of identity.
  
  

If the body is the first territory, then:

• attacks on the land that feeds and shelters that body
  are also attacks on interoceptive stability;
  
  

• losing one’s territory is not just losing property –
  it is losing part of the sensory basis of the self.
  
  

Studies on embodied earth kinship show that:

• secure, embodied attachment to nature
  is associated with greater interoceptive awareness and
  stronger environmental values and actions;
  
  

• disconnection from nature contributes to a gap between values and behaviour
  and to various forms of psychological suffering.
  
  

Other neuroscientific work emphasises:

• that interoceptive priors – the brain’s expectations about bodily states –
  are fundamental for self-awareness and for regulating emotion and behaviour;
  
  

• that disturbances in interoception are linked to anxiety, depression, chronic pain and addictions.
  
  

If we combine these insights with body-territory:

dispossessing an Indigenous people of its territory
is also attacking its interoceptive ecology –
the subtle fabric that sustains collective self-awareness, emotional regulation
and ways of knowing.

A truly plurinational State must therefore protect:

• not only land titles;
  
  

• but also the neuro-ecological integrity of Indigenous body-territories.
  
  

Plurinationality as defence of the Earth’s DNA

When I say that Indigenous peoples are guardians of the Earth’s DNA, I mean at least three layers:

1. Biological DNA
   
   

• Indigenous territories hold some of the richest reservoirs of biological diversity on the planet;
  
  

• scientific reports repeatedly show that where Indigenous rights are respected, ecosystems are better preserved.
  
  

2. Cultural DNA
   
   

• languages, rituals, food, music, stories, medicinal practices;
  
  

• each people carries a unique “code” for relating to the living world,
  many of them non-market and non-extractivist.
  
  

3. Spiritual DNA
   
   

• cosmologies that understand rivers, mountains, forests and animals as relatives, not objects;
  
  

• sacred relations with specific places, where body and land are one.
  
  

A plurinational State, in this sense, is:

an immune system that defends the diversity of these DNAs
against the monoculture of extraction and profit.

Without this defence:

• biomes are simplified and degraded;
  
  

• bodies are traumatised and disembedded;
  
  

• democracy itself loses depth, becoming a game of elites over a wounded territory.
  
  

From symbolic recognition to body-territory justice

Recognising Indigenous nations in the Constitution is a step.
But without body-territory justice, it can become decorative.

Body-territory justice implies:

• recognising the right of Indigenous peoples to say NO
  to projects that destroy their lands and bodies;
  
  

• ensuring permanent participation and autonomy in deciding the future of their territories;
  
  

• treating violence against Indigenous women and violence against the land
  as one interconnected problem, not as separate issues.
  
  

A plurinational State that takes body-territory seriously must move:

• from “consultation” to shared decision-making;
  
  

• from “compensation” to restoration and non-repetition;
  
  

• from “ethnic recognition” to co-governance of biomes.
  
  

Draft constitutional article (in Spanish)

Artículo X – Estado Plurinacional y Cuerpo-Territorio de los Pueblos Originarios

1. El Estado se reconoce como plurinacional e intercultural, constituido por pueblos y naciones originarias, afrodescendientes y otras comunidades que han habitado históricamente el territorio, cada una con sus propias lenguas, instituciones, prácticas espirituales y formas de relación con la naturaleza.
   
   

2. Se reconoce el cuerpo-territorio de los pueblos originarios como unidad inseparable, entendiendo que las agresiones contra sus territorios, bienes comunes y lugares sagrados constituyen también agresiones contra la integridad física, psíquica, espiritual y cultural de las personas y comunidades que los habitan.
   
   

3. El Estado garantizará el derecho de los pueblos originarios a la propiedad, administración y protección de sus territorios, incluyendo el derecho a otorgar o negar su consentimiento libre, previo e informado frente a cualquier proyecto que pueda producir daños significativos o irreversibles a sus sistemas de vida.
   
   

4. La planificación económica, energética y de infraestructura respetará las decisiones de los pueblos originarios en relación con sus territorios, asegurando mecanismos de co-gobernanza y de justicia cuerpo-territorio, con énfasis en la protección de las mujeres, niñas, niños y personas mayores.
   
   

5. La ley establecerá procedimientos especiales para la reparación integral de los daños causados a los cuerpos y territorios de los pueblos originarios, incluyendo medidas de restitución, rehabilitación, garantías de no repetición y reconocimiento de su papel como guardianes de la diversidad biológica, cultural y espiritual —el ADN de la Tierra—.
   
   

Suggested references (up to 8, with comments – at least 3 neuroscientific)

1. Cabnal, L. (2010). “Acercamiento a la construcción de la propuesta de pensamiento epistémico de las mujeres indígenas feministas comunitarias de Abya Yala.”
   Foundational text on the concept of cuerpo-territorio from Indigenous communitarian feminism. It links the defence of women’s bodies with the defence of land and territory against colonial, patriarchal and extractive violence.
   
   

2. “Cuerpo-Territorio / Body-Territory.” Kohl: A Journal for Body and Gender Research (2024).
   Explains the genealogy of the term cuerpo-territorio within Abya Yala feminist movements and explores its methodological and political implications. It helps to ground body-territory as a decolonial concept, not just metaphor.
   
   

3. Haesbaert, R. (2020). “Del cuerpo-territorio al territorio-cuerpo.” Investigaciones Geográficas.
   Discusses the intimate alliance between body and territory in Latin American Indigenous and feminist thought, showing how violence on the land is experienced as violence on the body.
   
   

4. Branham, L. (2024). “Embodied Earth Kinship: Interoceptive Awareness and Nature Connectedness.” Frontiers in Psychology.
   Explores how interoceptive awareness relates to secure attachment with nature and environmental action. It supports the idea that connection to land is partly a bodily and neural process, not only symbolic.
   
   

5. Toussaint, B. et al. (2024). “A Computationally Informed Distinction of Interoception and Exteroception.” Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews.
   Proposes a functional framework for interoception and exteroception, highlighting the central role of internal bodily signals in self-awareness and behaviour. It provides a neuroscientific basis for seeing the body as the first territory.
   
   

6. Connell, L. et al. (2018). “Interoception: The Forgotten Modality in Perceptual Grounding of Abstract and Concrete Concepts.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.
   Shows that interoceptive signals contribute to how we represent and understand concepts, including abstract ones. This helps us think about how land, territory and identity are partially grounded in bodily sensations.
   
   

7. UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2019). “Report on Ecuador.”
   Analyses Ecuador’s plurinational and intercultural constitutional framework and stresses that true plurinationality requires real respect for Indigenous land and territorial rights, not just symbolic recognition.
   
   

8. Bedriñana, K. G. A. (2020). “‘Living Well’ in the Constitution of Bolivia and the American Convention on Human Rights.” International Journal of Constitutional Law.
   Examines how Bolivia’s plurinational Constitution integrates the principle of “Vivir Bien” and Indigenous rights, while highlighting the challenges of turning these norms into effective territorial justice.
   
   

Chile – 12 Fundamentos para una Nueva Constitución

Libertad de Expresión del ADN y Estado Laico DANA

Principio Biocéntrico: el ser humano como parte del bioma, no su señor

Estado Plurinacional y Cuerpo-Territorio: pueblos originarios como guardianes del ADN de la Tierra

Comunicación Viva: enfrentando el poder de los 01s sobre medios, deuda y narrativas

Buen Vivir Metabólico: economía al servicio de la vida, no de la ganancia de los 01s

Democracia de Quorum Sensing Humano: otra forma de decidir en sociedad

DREX CIUDADANO CHILENO: moneda metabólica para distribuir existencia y proteger el bioma

Créditos de Carbono, Ciudadanía Climática y DREX INMIGRANTE: pertenencia más allá de las fronteras

Soberanía de Datos DANA: tributación de la minería de datos humanos por los municipios

Centros de Datos Ecológicos Municipales y Red de Pagos Local: cuando el PIX no se apaga

Democracia Metabólica de los Biomas: cuando la Constitución deja de ser promedio y se vuelve territorio vivo

Jiwasa y Sistemas Complejos: liderazgo orgánico por pautas y biomas

 
Una Nueva Constitución Chilena  - Politica Decolonial

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Liberdade de Expressão do DNA e Estado Laico DANA

Princípio Biocêntrico: o humano como parte do bioma, não senhor

Estado Plurinacional e Corpo-Território: povos originários como guardiões do DNA da Terra

Comunicação Viva: enfrentando o poder dos 01s sobre mídia, dívida e narrativas

Bem-Viver Metabólico: economia a serviço da vida, não do lucro dos 01s

Democracia de Quorum Sensing Humano: outra forma de decidir em sociedade

DREX CIDADÃO CHILENO: moeda metabólica para distribuir existência e proteger o bioma

Créditos de Carbono, Cidadania Climática e DREX IMIGRANTE: pertencimento para além das fronteiras

Soberania de Dados DANA: taxação da mineração de dados humanos pelos municípios

Datacentros ecológicos municipais e rede de pagamentos local: quando o PIX não desliga

Democracia Metabólica de Biomas: quando a Constituição deixa de ser média e vira território vivo

Jiwasa e Sistemas Complexos: liderança orgânica por pautas e biomas

Chile – 12 Foundations for a New Constitution

Freedom of Expression of DNA and the DANA Secular State

Biocentric Principle: the Human as Part of the Biome, Not Its Master

Plurinational State and Body-Territory: Indigenous Peoples as Guardians of the Earth’s DNA

Living Communication: Confronting the Power of the 01s over Media, Debt and Narratives

Metabolic Well-Being: An Economy at the Service of Life, Not of the 01s’ Profit

Democracy of Human Quorum Sensing: Another Way of Deciding in Society

Chilean DREX Cidadão: Metabolic Currency to Distribute Existence and Protect the Biome

Carbon Credits, Climate Citizenship and DREX Immigrant: Belonging Beyond Borders

DANA Data Sovereignty: Taxing Human Data Mining Through Municipalities

Municipal Ecological Datacenters and Local Payment Networks: When PIX Never Turns Off

Metabolic Democracy of Biomes: When the Constitution Stops Being an Average and Becomes Living Territory

Jiwasa and Complex Systems: Organic Leadership by Issues and Biomes