The Justice of Ubuntu, Ashé and Good Living

The practice of ancestry tests in the black communities of Alto Atrato

Abstract

This article describes aspects of the fascinating world of Afrodiasporic justice in two black communities belonging to the Greater Community Council of Alto Atrato-COCOMOPOCA, the community that initiated the guardianship that led to the emblematic ruling T-622 of 2016 of the Constitutional Court of Colombia that recognized rights to the Atrato River, a faithful companion of the struggles of these black peasant communities for the titling of their ancestral lands. Once the recognition of legal ownership of its territory was achieved in 2011, the COCOMOPOCA authorities have deployed an impressive governance project for its territory where justice operates in a mystical and certain way. Changó, the African orisha of lightning and Justice, Ubuntu, Buenvivir and Ashé are present and vivid protagonists in the ethnoconversation hearings that the Board of Directors of the Community Council holds to wisely resolve the territorial conflicts that arise in its daily life. We try to leave a good reflection in this article of that justice thus delivered, but not before putting in mind a legal context necessary to understand this Afro legal cosmogony.