Sita Venkateswar - The Politics of Indigeneity: dialogues and reflections on indigenous activism

About the editors

Sita Venkateswar is Director, International, in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and senior lecturer in the social anthropology programme at Massey University. Her ethnography Development and Ethnocide: Colonial Practices in the Andaman Islands is based on her PhD fieldwork in the Andaman Islands from 1989 to 1992. She has since been involved in research on child labour in Nepal and poverty and grassroots democracy in Kolkata, India. She is currently involved in exploring indigenous politics related to climate change as well as questions of displacement and belonging in relation to refugee resettlement in New Zealand and Europe. Email:

Emma Hughes spent several years living in Egypt and working with womens rights groups in Egypt and East Africa, where she was involved with development and advocacy projects. In New Zealand she worked first for the Centre for Indigenous Governance and Development at Massey University, and currently works as a research adviser. As a visiting research scholar at the American University in Cairo during 2008 she returned to Egypt to research the Nubian case. Email:

THE POLITICS OF INDIGENEITY
dialogues and reflections on indigenous activism

edited by Sita Venkateswar and Emma Hughes

The Politics of Indigeneity: dialogues and reflections on indigenous activism was first published in 2011 by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London N1 9JF, UK and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA

This ebook edition was first published in 2013

www.zedbooks.co.uk

Editorial copyright Sita Venkateswar and Emma Hughes 2011 Copyright in this collection Zed Books 2011

The rights of Sita Venkateswar and Emma Hughes to be identified as the editors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

Set in OurType Arnhem and Futura Bold by Ewan Smith, London
Index:
Cover designed by www.alice-marwick.co.uk

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data available

ISBN 978 1 78032 255 1

Contents

SITA VENKATESWAR, EMMA HUGHES, CHRISTOPHER KIDD, JUSTIN KENRICK, BENNO GLAUSER, HINE WAITERE, ATHARINE MCKINNON, SIMRON JIT SINGH

TRANSLATED BY BENNO GLAUSER

BENNO GLAUSER

HINE WAITERE AND ELIZABETH ALLEN

CHRISTOPHER KIDD AND JUSTIN KENRICK

EMMA HUGHES

KATHARINE MCKINNON

SIMRON JIT SINGH

SITA VENKATESWAR

SITA VENKATESWAR, HINE WAITERE, CHRISTOPHER KIDD, AV RIL BELL, BENNO GLAUSER, KATHARINE MCKINNON, EMMA HUGHES, SIMRON JIT SINGH

Figures and table

Figures

Table

Abbreviations

Additional materials

Selected audio files, including some interviews featured in the book, are available for free download from Indigenous Portal www.indigenousportal.com.

As a long-term project, we hope to add to this with various additional materials including previously unpublished transcripts, articles, discussions, podcasts, further reading suggestions etc. aimed at students, researchers, activists and readers interested in these issues. The website also contains a wealth of news, information and documents, with which to provide guidance to states, indigenous peoples, UN agencies, non-governmental organisations, the private sector and academics interested in using new technologies to improve communications and the quality of life for indigenous peoples around the world.

The Indigenous Portal is a focal point online created by indigenous peoples for indigenous peoples. The Portal is a place to share, with indigenous perspectives, cultures, history as well as indigenous aspirations for the future, in a way that supports the work of the global indigenous community. At the heart of this vision is respect for the dignity and human rights of all indigenous peoples as articulated by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous Portal is an outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), a United Nations sponsored summit about information and communication which ultimately resulted in a Declaration and Plan of Action of the Global Forum of Indigenous Peoples and the Information Society. The portal project is administered by

the Indigenous Portal Board and supported by the Swiss Development Agency and Incomindios.

A portal is much more than a web interface. It is a focal point where Indigenous content will be available from our peoples and other stakeholders. Our portal will allow us to share, with our own voices, our traditions, values, history and language as well as our aspirations for the future. Indigenous caucus statement @ WSIS

To the many indigenous activisms and the many more indigenous peoples inhabiting this earth:

We salute you!

Introduction

SITA VENKATESWAR, EMMA HUGHES, CHRISTOPHER KIDD, JUSTIN KENRICK, BENNO GLAUSER, HINE WAITERE, KATHARINE MCKINNON, SIMRON JIT SINGH

This edited volume concurrently explores the notion of indigeneity and indigenous activism in different parts of the world and the strategic ways in which that concept intersects with the local, national and international imperatives of those identifying themselves as indigenous within the current global political conjuncture. As critical interlocutors, the contributors to this collection engage in dialogue with indigenous spokespersons and activists and with each other, to reflect on and envision possible indigenous futures.

Through such a process, the authors in this collection consider some of the key insights from their individual contributions to go on to presage the possibilities for what we want to identify as second wave indigeneity emerged when Manuhuia Barcham, a Mori academic who was based in Massey University during the early stages of this project, coined the phrase to characterize an enabling moment in international indigenous politics, which looked to the future in the wake of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Such a phrase embraces the wisdom garnered from the other major social movements of the last few decades, namely feminism and the politics of identity, marked by a subaltern claiming of rights.