Indigeneity

... We’d like to show the ways in which the postcolonial writers in English employ referrals (allusions and symbols) and images (similes and metaphors mainly) that reference indigenous elements and experiences, unfamiliar to the metropolitan readers, and unapproachable without the help of glossary, sometimes, as in the case of “Atumpan,” even with a glossary. We argue that this strategy constructs cultural DISTANCE – giving the impression like This literary piece written in English is non-English, non-western, and cultural SPECIFICITY as well – giving the impression that This writing is of THAT community, reinstating the national-historical-cultural nucleus of postcolonial cultures or diasporic continuum. On a subtler level, this strategy has the potential to subvert colonial subject-positioning, situating the otherized object in the position of orator/interpreter/subject that selves, knows others, and redirects the othering gazes.

"Legal Pluralism in the World Society? The Customary Law of Indigenous Peoples Based on the Example of the Greenlandic Inuit

The traditional Greenlandic customary law, which is of significance for villagers in the small settlements on Greenland's west coast, is confronted with conflicting demands by the global environmental regime. Can traditional customary rights of indigenous peoples be maintained in a global society? As the example of the Greenlandic Inuit illustrates the conflict to ensure the continuation of hunting activities, however, cannot be understood as a conflict between societies that have different legal and rationality conceptions. The intellectual elites in the Greenland Self-Government are taking over the structural patterns of the global model of nature and run information campaigns about the biological status of the species. Hunters cite their traditional hunting rights and reject this information and those hunting restrictions. As a consequence, intra-societal conflicts develop between Greenland elites and hunters and thus in situations of legal pluralism within Greenland."

The struggle of Newfoundland’s Mi’kmaq for recognition as First Nations has raised questions within their communities about what it means to be Mi’kmaq and how they differ from others. The Conne River Mi’kmaq powwow began in 1996 as a venue for expressing their indigenous identity to outsiders, but also as a means of sharing ceremonies and instilling certain values within the community. Powwows have strict rules and boundaries based on the conceived ‘sacredness’ of specific areas and the powwow ground as a whole. How is ‘sacredness’ defined in these spaces and what values are being reinforced? In what ways are these boundaries maintained and transgressions discouraged? This paper will analyse the Conne River powwow as a ‘re/produced’ space for performing indigeneity.

"""Liberalism is widely regarded as a modern intellectual tradition that defends the rights and freedoms of autonomous individuals. Yet, in both colonial and postcolonial contexts, liberal theorists and policymakers have struggled to defend the rights and freedoms of political subjects whom they regard as “primitive,” “backward,” or in more politically-correct terms, “indigenous” (Pagden 1982; Damodaran 2006b; Viswanathan 2006; Jung 2008). Liberalism thus recurrently encounters its primitive other, a face-off that gives rise to a peculiar set of dilemmas and contradictions for political theory, policy, and practice in colonial and postcolonial contexts (Ivison 2002; Ivison et al 2000; Banerjee 2006; Ghosh 2006). In what ways can postcolonial law rid itself of its colonial baggage? How can the ideal of universal liberal citizenship overcome paternalistic notions of protection? How might “primitive” subjects become full and equal citizens in postcolonial societies?

To explore these dilemmas and contradictions, I study the intellectual trajectory of “primitivism” in India from the construction of so-called tribal areas in the 1870s to legal debates and official reports on tribal rights in contemporary India. As such, this paper has two principal aims: firstly, to read closely the legal provisions justifying colonial and postcolonial rule over tribal populations in order to highlight the ambiguities and paradoxes of primitivism as an ideology of rule in India, and secondly, to understand these legal texts in their proper intellectual and political contexts in order to develop an historically-inflected understanding of the continuing tension between the constitutional ideal of liberal citizenship and the disturbing reality of tribal subjecthood produced by colonial and postcolonial states in India. In doing so, I seek to put into conversation the small but influential literature on liberalism and modern empire with the voluminous writings on colonial anthropology and administration in British India.

My approach in this paper may be termed interpretive or hermeneutical. I read primary legal texts closely with particular attention to continuities and shifts in their languages and concepts. Furthermore, I situate these texts in their historical contexts in order to better appreciate how the hermeneutics of these texts share a two-way relationship with real-world policy and practice. For the colonial period, I focus on the Scheduled Districts Act (1874), selected administrative and missionary writings on tribal areas and peoples, and extracts from colonial constitutions and commissioned reports. For the postcolonial period, I study the debates over the Constitution of India and its provisions for scheduled tribes, key legislation and court decisions on tribal rights and livelihoods, and reports on tribal development from the 1960s onwards. Lastly, I invoke secondary sources by historians, political theorists, and anthropologists that explore the historical relationship between liberalism and modern empire as well as ideologies of rule that have used anthropological knowledge to justify their raison d’êtres."""

Emphasis on indigeneity, the federal revenue allocation formula and the increasing formalization of the 'federal character' principle, to mention only a few issues, increase sources of tensions and potential conflicts. Nigeria is confronted to the boomerang effects of the evolution of its federalism.

"Laut Benedict Anderson ist der Nationalstaat heute die einzige denkbare Staatsform. Infolge-
dessen werden die Kriterien für politische, kulturelle und ökonomische Zugangsmöglichkei-
ten nur im Modell imaginierter Gemeinschaften gedacht.  Anhand der norwegischen Samen-
Politik  und  der  von  Norwegen  ratifizierten  ILO-Konvention  Nr. 169  untersuchen  wir  das
Konzept von Indigenität daraufhin, inwiefern es den Nationalstaat beeinflusst. Die Exklu-
sion die in einem Nationalstaat zwangsläufig gegenüber Einwanderern und Fremden gesche-
hen, so unsere These, werden durch die Erweiterung Norwegens zu einem Zweivölkerstaat
weiter bestärkt und erneuert. Denn auch dem Konzept von Indigenität liegt die Prämisse der
lang währenden Verbindung zu Grunde. 

Abstract
According to Benedict Anderson, the nation-state form of community seems to be the only
possibility these days. As a consequence, the criteria for political, cultural and economic ac-
cess and participation are based upon the model of imagined communities. Taking cue from
the Norwegian Sami policy and ILO Convention No. 169, ratified by Norway in 1991, we
analyse the concept of indigeneity with regard to its power to influence the nation-state. The
exclusions that are inevitably made towards immigrants and strangers are strengthened and
renewed through the extension of the Norwegian state as a bi-national state, since the concept
of indigeneity is also founded on the premise of having been there in the past. ""

This presentation analyses mestizo beauty pageants in the Ecuadorian Amazon through its display of indigeneity and by comparing them to their indigenous analogue events. In mestizo towns beauty pageants become a mise-en-scène of the indigenisation of Andean settlers through the performance of a model of Amazonian femininity. By contrast, Shuar appropriate the format of beauty pageants to turn them into live embodiments of their traditional female archetypes. If Amazonian beauty pageants borrow their form from beauty global contests such as Miss Universe, the incorporation of indigenous insignia in mestizo contests ostensibly creates novel intercultural spaces. These intercultural spaces, however, confine the Shuar to a purely symbolic participation which excludes them from the actual spectacles and their preparation. We will focus on the most salient aspect of these contests: the “folkloric” performance whereby the candidates exhibit a fantasy dress which borrows multisensory elements associated with shuar culture (garments, jewellery, music, dance, etc.). Various new types of mestizo specialists (choreographers, designers, cultural experts, etc.) are in charge of this sequence of the spectacle given their ability to shape through art local conceptions of womanhood, autochthony and interculturality. We will thus examine the indigenisation of a global spectacle and its local effects in what is seen as a new intercultural epoch in Ecuador.

Before the Portuguese arrival in present-day Brazil in 1500, more than 2,000 distinct ethnic groups resided in the region, with a total population of 2 million to 5 million. According to the official census of Brazil in 2006, the country is home to approximately 519,000 native people speaking more than 180 different languages, in addition to millions of Brazilians with mixed native and European ancestry. Over several centuries, most of Brazil’s native people either were killed by the Portuguese as a result of wars of conquest or slave labor, or they died of the diseases that Portuguese brought with them from Europe. Many native Brazilians eventually were assimilated into the settler population. Today, a majority of Brazil’s native people either live in their own home areas, usually in rural parts of the country, or in urban areas, while others remain isolated, having no contact with mainstream society. A number of Brazilian tribes also reside in neighboring countries, including the Baniwa (Venezuela), Chamacoco (Paraguay), Guaraní (Argentina, Bolivia, Parahuay, and Uruguay), and Ticuna (Colombia, Guyana, and Peru).

The aim of this paper is to analyse the construction of collective cultural identity taking the indigenous peoples of the Greenlandic Inuit as an example. One dominant narration of the cultural identity refers to the ‘bearers of a respect culture’ living in harmony with nature in the small settlements along the coast. During the fieldwork the interviewed villagers contrast this ideal image by identifying themselves with this Greenlandic collective identity simultaneously. The paper concludes that the musealization of indigeneity has both a restrictive effect on collective identity constructions and an enabling effect of the development of new rural life forms in a postcolonial society as Greenland.

"""Indigeneity has rapidly assumed significance for non-Aboriginal Australians. Complex signifiers. native landscapes and peoples are heavily implicated in the contemporary quest for settler legitimacy. Th.is article investigates the deployment of indigeneity in the identity strategies of alternative Iifestylers in Australia - drawing upon research conducted on a range of alternative "cultural dramas" (Turner 1982; 1984).' Marshalled to perform a
validating function, invoked to sacralize experience, implicated in postcolonizing gestures, indigeneity constitutes a conspicuous trope in the public events explored. Events transpiring within the counter-spatial precincts of the alternative gathering ConFest (Conference/Festival) held on the Murray River north of Melbourne; a 'carnival of protest' at Olympic Darn uranium mine at Roxby Downs in northern South Australia; and the 'Coming the Right Way' passage ritual at Captain Cook's 230 year old landing site at The Foot in Sydney's Botany Bay, are meta-perfonnative contexts for the evocation. appeal to and solicitation of Aborigines and ecology. Each facilitates reflexive attention to the interwoven
"ultimate concerns" (Tillich in MacAIoon 1984:250) of participants - 'authenticity' and 'reconciliation'. And each demonstrates that as indigeneity proliferates, appropriate perspectives towards its analysis are required.""