Indigeneity on the Move. Группа авторов

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СКАЧАТЬ wrote the preface to this volume.

      We are particularly thankful to the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation for its generous support, which allowed Nasir to work in Bochum as a Fellow under the Georg-Forster-Programme. Having the chance to collaborate so closely for more than a year has been decisive in turning our project into something lasting. We also wish to express our thanks to the Hans Kilian and Lotte Köhler Center (KKC) for Cultural Psychology and Historical Anthropology and the Center for Mediterranean Studies for their generous support. The Faculty of Social Science at Ruhr-University Bochum provided us with logistical support.

      We are thankful to Bernadette Möhlen, Corinna Land, Katrin Renschler, and Arne Oster, who have provided valuable support in organizing our meetings and preparing the manuscript. We also thank Charlotte Thornton and Tom Triglone for proofreading previous versions of the chapters and the final draft of the volume. This project has also greatly benefitted from the comments and suggestions made by two anonymous reviewers. We would also like to thank Sasha Puchalski, Amanda Horn and Burke Gerstenschlager for their support throughout the process.

      Eva Gerharz

      Nasir Uddin

      Pradeep Chakkarath

Introduction

      EXPLORING INDIGENEITY

      Introductory Remarks on a Contested Concept

       Nasir Uddin, Eva Gerharz, and Pradeep Chakkarath

      While popular images tend to depict indigenous people as having lived a “simple” and unspoiled lifestyle before they became threatened by the “evils” of modernity and (neo)colonial exploitation, there is evidence for the argument that, in many parts of the world, indigenous people were neither “locally locked” in the deep forest or remote hills, nor socioculturally “isolated,” dissociated from others and the outside world. Historians, political scientists, and anthropologists have shown that trade networks reached not only over great distances but also to remote places, and that, even though they may have been able to elude the power of state societies (Scott 2009), people living in those places were never completely isolated. This makes it even more astonishing that the notion of indigeneity has become a universalist concept that has gained global recognition for representing exactly this: a population that is economically “backward,” due to a lack of modern technology, and politically “independent,” due to the freedom from external forces and global capitalism, and therefore in need of protection. Such images tend to ignore the fact that it was colonialism itself that produced the well-known image of the noble or dangerous savage: simple, innocent, even childish, yet untamed and therefore threatening people, who lived in harmony with nature. But while colonial and postcolonial imaginations rested upon the idea that human progress is inevitably connected with a clearly defined path towards modernization, today’s discourse on indigeneity considers the indigenous “way of life” as being endangered by the latter, and therefore as requiring protection. Both approaches disregard the fact that their universalist claims do not necessarily match the self-images of the populations usually labeled “indigenous.” They also tend to ignore that, like other people all over the world, these populations are extensively connected to, and deeply influenced by, transformative global socioeconomic and political rhetoric and realities (for more detail, see Cadena and Starn 2007; Clifford 2013). Mobility is a feature of the modern world as people, goods, and ideas move rapidly from one place to another. This fosters the emergence of new visions and aspirations for development that are embedded in the dynamics of local and global statecraft. While one should refrain from constructing indigenous people as clearly demarcated “groups” who exist “out there,” and even when one accepts that in general the world’s population struggles with the impact of neoliberal notions of economic formation and governmentality, it is also important to recognize that the label “indigenous” has recently become a powerful category that continues to inspire identity politics, emancipatory projects, and protectionist measures worldwide.

      Even today, indigenous activists across the world to some extent tend to reproduce images of locally locked, culturally confined, socially egalitarian, economically self-sufficient, and politically independent “peoples” in international forums and indigenous peoples’ rights discourses in order to pursue particular claims. These images are particularly plausible and illustrative because they constitute a counter-narrative to modernization—a discourse frequently pursued by activists’ main opponent, the nation-state. Modernization, globalization, industrialization, and other forms of what we call “neoliberalism” are not projects “out there” that hang over people’s heads like a phantom, but strategies that are being pursued, and quite often actively protected and promoted, by the nation-state. Accordingly, indigenous activism mostly addresses state actors who are regarded as complicit in “selling out” indigenous rights to lands and natural resources without recognizing their way of life as being different to that of the majority population. This explanation, however, does not tell the entire story. It ignores the fact that the national imagination of many postcolonial states rests upon the ideal of a culturally homogenous society, for which minorities constitute a potential threat (Appadurai 2006). It also ignores the fact that within nation-states it is not only the so-called indigenous people who have been marginalized, but also often other segments of society who have not been able to gain recognition and influence. In contrast to explanations that tend to ignore the complexity of historical processes—that is, those acted out by a variety of protagonists at various global and local scales—this volume addresses the question of how indigeneity has manifested itself as a global discourse, feeding into very concrete policies and politics at different moments in time. It highlights that the concept itself is not a new invention, with a clearly defined meaning and scope, and related to a well-crafted set of rights, but rather that it has been used in many different ways by various actors. Accordingly, it has been used as an ascriptive and self-ascriptive category, as it is strategically employed by activists in order to pursue a particular set of claims, and by governments to defeat said claims or to make strategic concessions. Indigeneity has been appropriated by states and organizations exactly because it carries a particular meaning that is loaded with essentialist sentiments. However, it is not the validity of these sentiments over which activists continue to fight, but rather access to resources, rights, and dignity. This volume presents empirically grounded case studies from different parts of the world, which show that indigeneity is a contested concept and manifests itself in various ways.

      Being concerned with “indigeneity on the move” indicates a keen interest in the question of how far, and under what conditions, the concept of indigeneity, which can be considered one of the key concepts of current social sciences, has the potential to change, alongside the rapidly changing lives and lifestyles of indigenous peoples across the world. And by extension, how these changes might reshape or at least modify our perspectives on established theories about social, economic, and political dynamics and their underlying factors. The concept of “indigeneity” and the various understandings of its meaning have had an impact not only on how social scientists think about the interconnections of identity, space, language, history, and culture, but also on how they describe the increasingly complex interplay of diverse players and agents within dynamic global socioeconomic, and political realities, and the rhetoric that accompanies it.

      Indigeneity has become a resource in identity politics, a matter of “deep belonging,” desired more than discouraged, and proclaimed more than hidden as one’s attachment to a particular place, culture, and nation. It is woven together in an intricate web of concepts such as ethnicity, identity, hybridity, authenticity, autochthony, diaspora, nation, and homeland, and the ways in which these ideas are formed, developed, and “owned.” In so far as territoriality and ancestral rights over land are inscribed into the notion of indigeneity, the imagination of place, space, and time are central analytical dimensions that are highly relevant, particularly with regard to questions concerning the redistributive power of states and political (e.g., democratic) processes. Although indigeneity is primarily expressed as an attachment СКАЧАТЬ