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 79<br />
WHO IS INDIGENOUS?<br />
79<br />
roots are imbedded in the l<strong>and</strong>s in which they live, or would like <strong>to</strong><br />
live, much more deeply than the roots of more powerful sec<strong>to</strong>rs of<br />
society living on the same l<strong>and</strong>s or in close proximity. urthermore,<br />
they are peoples <strong>to</strong> the extent they compr<strong>is</strong>e d<strong>is</strong>tinct communities with<br />
a continuity of ex<strong>is</strong>tence <strong>and</strong> identity that links them <strong>to</strong> communities,<br />
tribes or nations of their ancestral past. 19<br />
Anaya’s definition of indigenous peoples highlights the continued<br />
colonial domination of indigenous homel<strong>and</strong>s as well as the ancestral roots<br />
of these ‘pre-invasion inhabitants’. He also acknowledges indigenous<br />
peoples as d<strong>is</strong>tinct communities with extensive kinship networks, which<br />
clearly d<strong>is</strong>tingu<strong>is</strong>hes them from minority groups. However, unlike the<br />
Alfred <strong>and</strong> Wilmer definition, there <strong>is</strong> little d<strong>is</strong>cussion of culture or d<strong>is</strong>tinct<br />
worldviews in Anaya’s version. Overall, both Alfred/Wilmer <strong>and</strong> Anaya’s<br />
definitions, while ultimately incomplete, are inclusive <strong>and</strong> demonstrate a<br />
strategic flexibility in terms of defining the world’s indigenous peoples.<br />
John Bodley, who <strong>is</strong> an anthropolog<strong>is</strong>t by training, develops an even<br />
more inclusive definition of indigenous peoples by simply describing them<br />
as ‘a group of people who identify themselves with a specific, small-scale<br />
cultural heritage’. 20 Such an overly generalizable approach excludes key<br />
indigenous identifiers, such as ancestral homel<strong>and</strong>s <strong>and</strong> cultural continuity.<br />
or other researchers in the social sciences, defining indigenous more<br />
rigorously becomes critical <strong>to</strong> operationalizing concepts of indigeneity <strong>and</strong><br />
ethnonational<strong>is</strong>m in order <strong>to</strong> study ‘people versus state’ conflicts more<br />
systematically.<br />
or example, Ted Gurr, an eminent scholar in international relations,<br />
first began work on h<strong>is</strong> Minorities at R<strong>is</strong>k (MAR) project in 1988. 21 One of<br />
the most comprehensive <strong>and</strong> detailed datasets on ethnopolitical conflicts<br />
currently available, MAR has tracked the activities of 275 ethnopolitical<br />
groups from 1980 <strong>to</strong> 1999. After working extensively with Gurr’s dataset, I<br />
found the utility of h<strong>is</strong> conceptual scheme, which divides indigenous <strong>and</strong><br />
ethnonational<strong>is</strong>t phenomenon in<strong>to</strong> mutually exclusive categories,<br />
questionable. or Gurr, ‘ethnonational<strong>is</strong>t’ <strong>and</strong> ‘indigenous’ are d<strong>is</strong>tinctive<br />
classifications under the general heading of ‘national peoples’. <strong>Indigenous</strong><br />
peoples are defined as:<br />
Conquered descendants of earlier inhabitants of a region who live<br />
mainly in conformity with traditional social, economic, <strong>and</strong> cultural<br />
cus<strong>to</strong>ms that are sharply d<strong>is</strong>tinct from those of dominant groups…<br />
<strong>Indigenous</strong> peoples who had durable states of their own prior <strong>to</strong><br />
conquest, such as Tibetans, or who have given sustained support <strong>to</strong><br />
modern movements aimed at establ<strong>is</strong>hing their own state, such as the<br />
Kurds, are classified as ethnonational<strong>is</strong>ts, not indigenous peoples. 22