A Decolonial Approach to Comparing Bolivia and Sweden’s Positionality on Indigenous Rights

This study examines the concept of coloniality in relation to states' approach to indigenous people's rights, through the perspective of decoloniality. The two countries being compared are Bolivia and Sweden, two countries that differ in many ways. Indigenous peoples are living in the present time and have struggled since modern/Western interference in claiming their position and rights in the part of a reality of existing together. The states’ positioning towards indigenous peoples' rights is evidently contradicting depending on the context. Although international indigenous rights regimes are encouraging as well as setting new standards and norms, the challenges to fully implement them on a national level continue to exist. Through a semi-systematic literature review, this study aims to analyze and compare how the two states (Bolivia and Sweden) position themselves towards indigenous rights. The theoretical framework for this study is based on decolonial reasoning and indigenous rights regimes, to determine what processes of coloniality are present. In Bolivia and Sweden, the context of indigenous challenges is markedly different, but this study strives to point to some similarities as also incongruencies and gaps when it comes to the state´s approach towards indigenous rights in the two countries