I am interested in how people appropriate and use theirancestral legacies, including worldviews and material culture, as a means togain self-understanding, community reinforcement and legal-political mobilization.My current research seeks to understand the impact that a century-old nationalistideology of racial uniformity, uncontrolled poverty and a recent legislative shiftfavouring diversity have in the (re)emergence of indigenous groups in centralColombia. I am exploring the political agendas and other motivations that two groupsof neighbors have had in order to become “indigenous”, and how their pressuresto be and feel different enough from the urban majorities have transformedtheir daily lives, worldviews and sociolegal positioning.