Beyond sedentary property: Territorial corridors as a decolonial framework for the protection of the cultural heritage of isolated Indigenous peoples in Peru

Gálvez Rivas A.; Quispe Mamani M.; Ruiz Molleda J.C. · International Journal of Cultural Property (2026) · DOI: 10.1017/s0940739126100502

Resumen

For Indigenous peoples in voluntary isolation (PIACI: Pueblos Indígenas en Aislamiento y en Contacto Inicial), cultural heritage cannot be separated from territorial mobility. Their seasonal migrations encode sophisticated ecological knowledge, resource management practices, and spiritual relationships that constitute irreplaceable intangible heritage facing extinction. This paper contributes to PIACI protection and the epistemic reconstitution of Indigenous ontologies. Although PIACI are present across Amazonian countries, we focus on Peru because the country established the world’s first comprehensive protection framework, which nevertheless reproduces coloniality in its legal design. We analyze the Indigenous concept of “territorial corridors”—vast interconnected territories where PIACI circulate that transcend administrative boundaries—as a decolonial legal innovation. Drawing from collaborative research with Peruvian Indigenous organizations and grounded in the 2024 Tagaeri and Taromenane Inter-American Court decision, we develop juridical foundations for recognizing territorial corridors and “itinerant Indigenous property, ” challenging Western sedentary property frameworks and demonstrating how legal systems can evolve to protect cultural diversity in motion. © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of International Cultural Property Society