“In Guatemala, the land belongs to indigenous people.”

Gladys Tzul Tzul, from Guatemala, is one of the few academics in Latin America who specializes in analyzing the indigenous governance systems that exist in her country, their power relations, and the struggle that occurs between local forms of government and the authority of the State.

In an interview with CLACSO TV and CLACSO Radio, she maintains that land ownership is being debated in Guatemala. She states: “The land is indigenous; the land is neither state property nor private property. There are historical documents that show the communal ownership of the land.”.

Gladys Tzul Tzul is a professor at Rafael Landivar University in Guatemala, holds a doctorate in sociology from the Meritorious Autonomous University of Puebla, Mexico, and a master's degree in Latin American Social and Political Studies from Alberto Hurtado University in Chile. In 2017, she was awarded the Berta Cáceres Scholarship, established in recognition of the Honduran Lenca indigenous leader and environmental activist who was murdered in 2016.

She is also the author of the chapter: "Indigenous communal government systems: The organization of the reproduction of life" in the book "Epistemologies of the South" coordinated by Maria Paula Meneses and Karina Andrea Bidaseca (CLACSO, November 2018).
https://www.clacso.org.ar/libreria-latinoamericana/buscar_libro_detalle.php?id_libro=1487&campo=autor&texto=Tzul