Indigeneity

Review - James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed (New Haven, 2009)

by Uday Chandra

Religion and Society: Advances in Research, Vol. 2 (2011), pp. 194-96.

Negotiating Leviathan: Statemaking and Resistance at the Margins of Modern India

by Uday Chandra

Draft paper

Margins, as Anna Tsing has argued cogently, are simultaneously “zones of unpredictability at the edges of discursive... more Margins, as Anna Tsing has argued cogently, are simultaneously “zones of unpredictability at the edges of discursive stability, where contradictory discourses overlap, or where discrepant kinds of meaning-making converge” and “an analytical placement that makes evident both the constraining, oppressive quality of cultural exclusion and the creative potential of rearticulating, enlivening, and rearranging the very social categories that peripheralize a group's existence.”  The making of modern state margins thus connotes the co-production or co-evolution of certain distinctive forms of statemaking and subjectmaking that differ from a putative mainstream . These processes of co-production have, nonetheless, been largely neglected by scholars, policymakers, and activists, who have apparently taken the categories of “tribe,” “indigeneity,” “backwardness,” and “primitiveness” to be essentially synonymous . Indeed, recent postmodern ideas of indigenous alterity and irreducible cultural difference in North Atlantic scholarship may, paradoxically, reinforce colonial discourses about so-called tribes/savages/aborigines . But these culturalist/exoticist ideas are unable to explain, on the one hand, how certain populations become “tribal” in particular historical conjunctures in Indian history , and, on the other hand, how the making and maintenance of modern state margins are ultimately matters of contested sovereignty . Therefore, it is now time to raise two critical questions regarding the making of marginal places: firstly, how are certain places constituted as the margins of modern states, and secondly, how do marginal populations negotiate the modern state in their everyday lives even as they become subjects of colonial and postcolonial regimes?

Taking the Chotanagpur region of eastern India (contemporary Jharkhand) as an extended case study from the nineteenth century to the present, this paper seeks to answer these questions by exploring three intertwined genealogical strands of statemaking in the margins of modern India: spatial, governmental, and intellectual. In spatial terms, I show how these fiscally sterile but ritually significant forest highlands were transformed into modern state margins in the mid-nineteenth century. In governmental terms, I trace the evolution of exclusionary notions of “tribe” and “aboriginality” as guiding concepts of modern statemaking, both colonial and postcolonial, in Chotanagpur. In intellectual terms, I examine the production of knowledge in modern social-scientific disciplines, which reify and legitimize exclusionary practices of statemaking in the margins of modern India.

Further, in exploring these complementary strands of modern statemaking in Chotanagpur, this paper draws on original historical and ethnographic research to argue against treating statemaking simply as a top-down imposition on marginal populations. Instead, we ought to pay close attention to everyday and epochal moments of resistance by state subjects in the margins, who seek to negotiate and remake the state from below. These moments of adivasi resistance, which have often been romanticized as emanating from an autonomous domain of subaltern consciousness , may, in fact, be better understood as deeply endogenous to the languages and logics of statemaking. Accordingly, when we say that modern statemaking and subjectmaking coevolve in marginal places, we must appreciate how modern statemaking has been shaped extensively from below by the agency of resisting subjects in the margins, even as these subjects themselves have been shaped culturally and politically by their long negotiations with modern states. Resistance in the margins is consequently best conceptualized as negotiating modern colonial and postcolonial states, both peacefully and violently, to remake it recursively. Far from being backward, therefore, marginal subjects emerge in the pages to follow as sophisticated and creative political agents with complex motives and myriad methods for negotiating leviathan.

Liberalism and its Other: The Politics of Primitivism and Colonial and Postcolonial Indian Law

by Uday Chandra

Forthcoming, Law and Society Review (paper available on request)

Liberalism is widely regarded as a modern intellectual tradition that defends the rights and freedoms of autonomous... more 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.

Federalism, Indigeneity and Ethnicity in Nigeria

by Daniel Bach

published in: Diamond, Larry, Kirk-Greene, Anthony & Oyediran, Oyeleye, eds., Transition without end; Nigerian Politics and Civil Society under Babangida, Boulder, Lynne Rienner, 1997, p. 333-349

Nigeria illustrates a unique attempt in Africa to promote equitable access to state resources through mechanisms of... more Nigeria illustrates a unique attempt in Africa to promote equitable access to state resources through mechanisms of statutory codification and consociational engineering. This approach, initiated in the late sixties as a response to one of the bitterest civil wars which afflicted the continent, has been subsequently accentuated and systematized thanks to expanding resources made available by the oil rent.

'Our Way of Life is Our Resistance': Indigenous Women and Anti-Imperialist Challeges to Militarization along the U.S.-Mexico Border Wall

by MARGO TAMEZ

Соколовский С.В. Аборигенность и права на территорию: антропологические и биогеографические параллели // Ab Imperio. Исследования по новой имперской ис-тории и национализму в постсоветском простран-стве. Казань. 2010, №3. С.319-344

by Sergey Sokolovskiy

The essay explores the relationship between the concept of indigeneity as it is practiced in autochthonous,... more The essay explores the relationship between the concept of indigeneity as it is practiced in autochthonous, nationalistic, and indigenous claim making and identity politics and the more respectable spheres of production of regulatory norms and knowledge, such as international law and biomedical sciences. The essay begins with an analysis of the concept of the indigenous, aboriginal, and autochthonous as modern discursive formations. With the help of political theorist Jeremy Waldron, the author unpacks the essential contestation in the definition of indigeneity. There are two contradictory models: one is based on the claim of first settlement on a given territory and the utilization of land resources; the other defines indigeneity as the preceding social and political order in relation to colonial rule by Europeans. Sokolovsky demonstrates that even though the second model is applied in the system of international law, it is paradoxical because many peoples who are defined as indigenous according to this model were the conquerors of their territories in the distant past. Sokolovsky contends that these contradictions in international law arose as a result of the problematic epistemology of the discourse of indigeneity. The author further discusses how this problematic epistemology is transferred to biomedical sciences and the international program of containment of invasive species. Sokolovsky demonstrates the resemblance of the biology of invasive species and environmental thinking to the discourse of sociocultural nativism and xenophobia. The author then applies the critique of nativism and indigeneity from social sciences to the analysis of discursive formations in contemporary biomedical sciences. With the help of environmental studies of Hawaii, he shows that many premises of the biology of invasive species are based on flawed assumptions about indigeneity taken from cultural and social constructions.

Language as Authenticity: Mapping the Meanings of the Cultural Politics of Quechua

by Tara McGovern

Draft for a Cultural Politics class.  Probably will extend and edit into a larger work.

In this paper, I explore the relationship among language, nation, and culture through the theoretical lens of cultural... more In this paper, I explore the relationship among language, nation, and culture through the theoretical lens of cultural politics in the Andes of South America. In the politics of indigeneity, language plays a major role in the battlefields of recognition and visibility and achieving political self-determination through legal rights and non-discrimination. Andean countries have undergone several phases of redefinition as multi- or bi-cultural, most evident in educational institutions.  Finally, I assess some more recent globalizing appropriations and commodifications of Quechua language and culture by non-Quechua individuals in politics, tourism, and fine arts.

Houses and Hopes: Urban Marae and the Indigenization of Modernity In New Zealand

by Daniel Rosenblatt

This dissertation is an ethnographic and historical account of the revival of traditional culture by indigenous New... more This dissertation is an ethnographic and historical account of the revival of traditional culture by indigenous New Zealanders, who today live mainly in cities, intermingled with the descendants of colonial settlers and immersed in a globally connected world. It is concerned with how we can understand Maori claims to have sought and maintained some sort of cultural distinctiveness in this context, and thus ultimately with whether and how anthropologists can locate and describe cultural orders in the contemporary world. In the dissertation, I focus on one institution, the marae, a complex of buildings centered on an elaborately carved meeting house that is thought of by Maori as an ancestor. Marae have long been central to rural, "traditional," Maori life, but recently there has been an explosion of marae construction, mainly in cities. Marae have come to play a key role in Maori attempts to regain their land, to preserve their language, and to win a place for their “culture” at the center of contemporary New Zealand life. Why are these houses the focus of struggle? I answer that question by showing how houses became institutionalized in the second half of the nineteenth century as a response to a crisis centering on the loss of Maori land and a decrease in the ability of chiefs to organize production and exercise leadership. In the wake of this crisis, houses emerged as both sites and emblems of Maori community life. Symbolically rich, the houses reflect and embody traditional conceptions of persons, groups, and the cosmos—they are inventions that are nevertheless outgrowths of tradition. Their presence today in settings that would otherwise be understood as belonging solely to the world of global modernity reframes those settings, helping to maintain a distinct Maori world. Through practices and rituals associated with meeting houses, contemporary Maori succeed in emphasizing the continued relevance of the conceptions embodied in the houses. At the same time, they make themselves into people whose political activity also reflects and embodies those conceptions. “Culture” is not merely the form their aspirations take: it shapes both the aspirations and the people who hold them.

INVITED PAPER Voces de Jóvenes Indígenas. Adolescencias, Etnicidades y Ciudadanías en México

by Alejandro Hernandez

Coordinación Académica: María Bertely Musquets y Gonzalo Saraví
Investigador Asociado: Pedro da Silva Abrantes
Para mayor información:
-Mónica Sayrols, msayrols@unicef.org, UNICEF México
-Tamar Hahn, thahn@unicef.org, UNICEF América Latina y el Caribe
www.unicef.org/lac
www.unicef.org/mexico
2011

Adolescentes indígenas de diferentes etnias de México expresan sus opiniones, experiencias, ideas, sentimientos,... more Adolescentes indígenas de diferentes etnias de México expresan sus opiniones, experiencias, ideas, sentimientos, dudas, dilemas, reclamos e inquietudes que quedan plasmadas en una publicación multimedia coordinada por UNICEF en México y el Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS).

Este documento se realizó con el objetivo de promover la participación de los y las adolescentes indígenas en México y dar a conocer la situación en la que viven. La iniciativa forma parte de los esfuerzos de UNICEF México para promover políticas públicas en favor de la niñez y la adolescencia, en especial de aquellos que se encuentran en las situaciones más vulnerables y desfavorecidas.

Esta iniciativa se desarrolló con la participación de adolescentes en Chiapas, Chihuahua, D.F. , Guerrero, Morelos, Jalisco, Oaxaca, Sinaloa, Veracruz y Estados Unidos de diferentes etnias de México entre las que se encuentran choles, huicholes, mixes, mixtecos, nahuas, rarámuris, tlapanecos, tzeltales, wixáritari, zapotecos y zoques, quienes se conviertieron en los protagonistas de este proyecto.

Con la presencia de jóvenes zapotecos residentes en la Ciudad de México, mixtecos de Morelos y mixes de Oaxaca, se llevó a cabo la presentación de este documento multimedia “Voces de jóvenes indígenas: Adolescencias, etnicidades y ciudadanías en México”, producto de un ejercicio de participación en el que 13 grupos de adolescentes de diversas etnias en México y Estados Unidos se expresaron y reflexionaron libremente sobre sus derechos, su identidad, sus vivencias y sus principales preocupaciones, con el fin de que sus voces sean escuchadas y conocidas más allá de sus comunidades.

“Este ejercicio, del que surgieron diversos proyectos de autoría adolescente indígena, es para nosotros los adultos y para los demás jóvenes de México de gran valor pues con ustedes estamos aprendiendo que no se trata sólo de reivindicar el reconocimiento de la cultura ancestral; sino que lo que ustedes nos proponen va más allá: reivindica el derecho a tener acceso a lo mejor de la producción humana actual en términos de cultura, de ciencia, de tecnología”, dijo Susana Sottoli, representante de UNICEF México.

A través de sus múltiples habilidades expresivas y creativas que incluyen textos, fotografías, video y grabados, entre otras manifestaciones artísticas de su autoría, los y las adolescentes manifiestan que quieren ser escuchados y tomados en cuenta. Demandan espacios de participación para contribuir a mejorar sus condiciones de vida y las de sus comunidades.

Desde 2010 UNICEF y CIESAS han trabajado en esta iniciativa recogiendo las voces de grupos de adolescentes indígenas de diversas partes del país con diferentes condiciones y experiencias de vida: adolescentes indígenas rurales, urbanos, migrantes y jornaleros, entre otros. La metodología utilizada para este libro-DVD prestó especial atención a la participación en igualdad de condiciones de los adolescentes no sólo como indígenas e integrantes de pueblos lingüística y étnicamente diferenciados, sino como jóvenes mexicanos y del mundo contemporáneo.

Indigenous Knowledges in Latin America and Australia: Locating Epistemologies, Difference and Dissent | December 8-10, 2011

by Victoria Grieves

This two day symposium and one day film festival will bring together Indigenous educators and intellectuals from Latin... more This two day symposium and one day film festival will bring together Indigenous educators and intellectuals from Latin America to Sydney to meet with interested Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators, scholars and activists, as well as non-Indigenous practitioners and allies, to discuss different models and approaches of Indigenous KnowledgeS and Education in the tertiary sector and beyond.

This project aims at helping educators and researchers in the Higher Education sector of Australia and Latin America to identify opportunities for integrating in their research and teaching and learning relevant aspects of Indigenous Knowledges in the areas of culture, education and sustainability.

Apart from the symposium itself, academic publications, public lectures by distinguished visitors and the creation of a website, the project will stimulate debate on Indigenous Knowledge and film production in Latin America and Australia by hosting a documentary screening on the topic. The selection of documentaries will be done in collaboration with the Sydney Latin American Film Festival, and this event will be targeted to the student population and the wider community.

Dissertation Abstract

by Ivone Barriga

Progressive spaces of neoliberalism in Aotearoa: A genealogy and critique

by Jacob Otter

Co-authored with Dr Maria Bargh

Coffee, Christianity and Conflict: An Update on the Central Highlands of Vietnam

by Pamela McElwee

Becoming Socialist or Becoming Kinh? Government Policies for Ethnic Minorities In the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

by Pamela McElwee

Opening the dialogue for Indigenous knowledges developments in Australia, Cultural Studies Review VOLUME15 NUMBER2 SEP2009

by Victoria Grieves

A review of Martin Nakata's Disciplining the Savages: Savaging the Disciplines, Aboriginal Studies Press, Canberra 2007

The "Battlefields": Identity, Authenticity and Aboriginal Knowledges development in Australia

by Victoria Grieves

published in Minde H, (ed) Indigenous peoples: Self-determination, Knowledge, Indigeneity, Tromsoe: Eburon Delft, 2008

The Measure of a Tribe: The Cultural Politics of Constitutional Reclassification In North India

by Kriti Kapila

Indigeneity Construction in the Russian Census 2002

by Sergey Sokolovskiy

The Flavours of the Indigenous: Branding Native Food Products in Contemporary Australia

by Charlotte Craw

Published in Sites: a journal of social anthropology and cultural studies, Vol 5, No 1 (2008).

This essay investigates the recent incorporation of Australian ‘native’ ingredients into a range of food products.... more This essay investigates the recent incorporation of Australian ‘native’ ingredients into a range of food products. Examples of the packaging of products containing such ingredients are analysed to provide an overview of ‘native’ food packaging, demonstrating the semiotic diversity of ideas of ‘indigeneity’ in this context. Te essay then explores how these multiple infections relate to wider discourses of racialised diference in contemporary Australia, focusing on how discussions of ‘natural’ phenomena refect confusion over who can be said to ‘properly’ belong to a place – a question that involves such urgent concerns for postcolonial societies as the (il)legitimacy of settler claims to land ownership. Much analysis of contemporary racisms positions them as articulating cultural rather than biological diferences. Understandings of diference nonetheless continue to be inscribed with reference to particular bodies. ‘Native’ foods are a potent site for investigating such processes: food is ofen presented as a key site of cross-cultural exchange and interaction, but despite this cultural infection, ‘native’ foodstufs are ofen marketed as ‘natural’. This constitutes a crucial diference between native foodstufs and the extensive range of products branded through references to ‘exotic’ ethnicities. Exploring the entanglement of multiple narratives used to position native food products, this essay reveals how the realm of ecology, conceived of as ‘natural’ and therefore exterior to politics, is used as a forum for very political questions of ‘belonging’.

Engaging the faces of ‘resistance’ and social change from decolonizing perspectives: Toward transforming neoliberal higher education

by Riyad Shahjahan

Shahjahan, R.A. (2011). Engaging the faces of ‘resistance’ and social change from decolonizing perspectives: Toward transforming neoliberal higher education. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (JCT), 27(3), 273-286.

‘Resistance’ is an under theorized concept in education, particularly in the study of higher education. While the term... more ‘Resistance’ is an under theorized concept in education, particularly in the study of higher education. While the term is pervasive in educational discourse, what ‘resistance’ means and evokes remain cloudy. Resistance also continues to be an under theorized concept in post-/anti-colonial discourses within the field of education. In this essay review, I examine two recently published books with the objective of addressing gaps in the literature in terms of questions of resistance, education, and social change in higher education. I also analyze these two books to answer the following questions: What makes anticolonialism different from postcolonialism? How does the question of indigeneity fit into postcolonial theorizing? What does resistance look like from these two perspectives? Based on my review, I argue that we need intricate and context specific understandings of resistance, which bridge the discursive and material relations of power. I conclude by examining how the essays in these books theoretically enrich the question of resistance and social change in neoliberal higher education.