Indigenous communities and social inclusion in Latin America

People of indigenous background are persons who descend from the populations which inhabited the country—or a geographical region to which the country belongs—at the time of conquest, colonization, or the establishment of present state boundaries, and who, irrespective of their legal status, retain some or all of their social, economic, cultural and political institutions (ILO Convention No. 169). An increasing number of people self- dentify as indigenous, and thus, there has been an increase in their census numbers. Indigenous people are themselves vastly diverse in terms of culture, language, world views, and beliefs. So profound is their diversity, that in any given country with a large presence of indigenous communities, more than 50 different indigenous communities speaking different languages can share a common land. The concept of indigenous peoples has four core dimensions: identity, common origin, territory, and linguistic/cultural.