ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the indigenous peoples of Latin America, who inhabited the territories of this region in the centuries preceding colonisation by Spain. It demonstrates that how indigenous peoples are increasingly affected by urbanisation. The chapter examines urban planning and policy practice as the key battleground for indigenous peoples to claim their specific rights to the city. It also focuses on multiple social actors and historic moments within each city in order to demonstrate internal complexities, contradictions, and diversities in the understanding of indigeneity and processes of translating indigenous rights. The book provides some contextual background on the case-study cities, La Paz and Quito. It discusses the role of indigenous peoples as ‘planners’ of their own lives, who, by engaging in processes of self-help, or contestation, seeks to address their specific demands and rights-based claims within the political environment that governs them.
