Who is Indigenous? 'Peoplehood' and Ethnonationalist Approaches to Rearticulating Indigenous Identity
by Jeff J. Corntassel
by Jeff J. Corntassel
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91nep04.qxd 13/08/2003 15:53 Page 77<br />
WHO IS INDIGENOUS?<br />
cumulative integration across d<strong>is</strong>ciplines <strong>and</strong> communities. As Maori<br />
scholar Manuhuia Barcham explains:<br />
Theor<strong>is</strong>ts <strong>and</strong> practitioners alike have created <strong>and</strong> reified an<br />
ah<strong>is</strong><strong>to</strong>rical idealization of the indigenous self whereby the constitution<br />
of oneself as an ‘authentic’ indigenous self has been conflated with<br />
special ah<strong>is</strong><strong>to</strong>rical assumptions concerning the nature of indigeneity, a<br />
process intricately linked <strong>to</strong> the continued subordination of difference<br />
<strong>to</strong> identity. 14<br />
Additionally, current conceptual <strong>and</strong> theoretical research on indigenous<br />
groups in the field of ethnonational<strong>is</strong>m tends <strong>to</strong> be ah<strong>is</strong><strong>to</strong>rical <strong>and</strong> reified<br />
when d<strong>is</strong>tingu<strong>is</strong>hing indigenous from ethnonational<strong>is</strong>t groups. or example,<br />
the Minorities at R<strong>is</strong>k project, which <strong>is</strong> a comprehensive dataset examining<br />
the status of some 275 politically active ethnopolitical groups around the<br />
world, makes conceptual d<strong>is</strong>tinctions between ethnonational<strong>is</strong>t <strong>and</strong><br />
indigenous groups in terms of whether or not they seek <strong>to</strong> establ<strong>is</strong>h their<br />
own independent state. As the above quote from Barcham suggests, such an<br />
approach may be ah<strong>is</strong><strong>to</strong>rical while prioritizing identity over cultural <strong>and</strong><br />
political variance between indigenous groups.<br />
Even indigenous scholars who underst<strong>and</strong> the differences between<br />
indigenous peoples <strong>and</strong> other minority groups have developed<br />
conceptualizations of indigenous peoples that are incomplete. Therefore,<br />
previous theories on national<strong>is</strong>m <strong>and</strong> identity, whether primordial or<br />
circumstantial, may help <strong>to</strong> inform how one approaches the<br />
conceptualizations of indigenous peoples. Additionally, interd<strong>is</strong>ciplinary<br />
work stressing the concept of ‘Peoplehood’ may also lend insights <strong>to</strong> th<strong>is</strong><br />
conceptual d<strong>is</strong>cussion. I begin by surveying various definitions that have<br />
been proffered by academicians, indigenous organizations <strong>and</strong><br />
intergovernmental organizations <strong>to</strong> highlight ex<strong>is</strong>ting conceptual<br />
d<strong>is</strong>parities. The final section of the article evaluates the prospects for<br />
conceptualizing ‘who <strong>is</strong> indigenous’ using the concept of peoplehood as a<br />
guide <strong>to</strong> reconceptualize native identity from an interd<strong>is</strong>ciplinar, selfidentification<br />
framework.<br />
77<br />
Academicians Define <strong>Indigenous</strong><br />
While there have been several scholarly works examining global indigenous<br />
rights, I will focus on indigenous definitions developed by the most<br />
prominent researchers in the social sciences given their high v<strong>is</strong>ibility <strong>and</strong><br />
impact on the field. In her acclaimed work, The <strong>Indigenous</strong> Voice in World<br />
Politics, ranke Wilmer was among the first social scient<strong>is</strong>ts <strong>to</strong><br />
systematically examine the global h<strong>is</strong><strong>to</strong>rical process of moral exclusion