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Indigenous Peoples' Rights and the Politics of the Term

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Indigenous Peoples' Rights and the Politics of the Term Indigenous peoples’ rights and the politics of the term ‘indigenous’ JUSTIN KENRICK This article forms part of an ongoing debate on rights and AND JEROME LEWIS the use of the term ‘indigenous’, which has so far included exchanges in Current Anthropology, the New Humanist, Justin Kenrick is a Lecturer and ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, as indicated in the bibliog- in Anthropology in the raphy. The authors here respond specifically to an article Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Applied by Adam Kuper, published in Current Anthropology and Social Sciences at the the New Humanist. Professor Kuper has been invited to University of Glasgow. His respond and has indicated his intention to do so in the email is ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY. [email protected]. forthcoming issue of Readers are Jerome Lewis is a teaching invited to contribute their own views to the debate. [Ed.] and research fellow in the Department of Anthropology In the July 2003 issue of Current Anthropology, Adam at the London School of Economics and Political Kuper vehemently attacked the indigenous peoples’ Science. His email is movement, claiming it to be retrograde, anti-progressive [email protected]. and right wing. He has given these views extensive pub- licity by speaking on BBC radio and having his article reprinted in the New Humanist, illustrated by a cartoon that forcefully equates indigenous peoples’ struggles with European fascism (Kuper 2003b, BBC 2003). As an analysis of the international indigenous peoples’ movement and of the particular situations of certain indigenous peoples, Kuper’s polemic is misleading in a number of ways, and would perhaps be better ignored. However, as an example of the potential academic argu- Fig 1. Front cover of the ments can have to reinforce discourse that serves to con- New Humanist,118(3), 1 ceal discrimination against such peoples, the article must September 2003. be taken seriously. Its potential for ‘spin’ is confirmed by NEW HUMANIST the recent explicit and implicit promotion of Kuper’s con- national populations. That this remains a contemporary clusions by organizations wishing to justify actions that problem is demonstrated by continuing attempts to dispos- may be in conflict with the rights of indigenous people.1 sess them of their land and resources, and by severe and Kuper’s position has dismayed many professional widespread pressures for cultural assimilation. We discuss anthropologists working with indigenous peoples and some current examples later in this article. As Turner 1. De Beers explicitly refer prompted some of them, ourselves included, to write to (2004) points out, indigenous peoples and their supporters to Kuper’s position in statements aimed at justifying Current Anthropology to correct inaccuracies and refute are struggling to end these abuses and to defend the prin- their lack of any policy that certain key claims (Asch & Sampson, Kenrick & Lewis, ciple that cultural difference should not be used to justify would take indigenous Saugestad, and Turner, all forthcoming in Current the denial of rights. peoples’ rights into account in industrial mining Anthropology 45[2]). In the present article we draw on Instead of considering these key issues, Kuper attacks developments (letter from these letters and offer what we believe to be better ways of the indigenous movement as a recrudescence of apartheid, Rory More O’Ferrall, understanding the indigenous peoples’ movement, on the grounds that it employs the principles of descent Director of Public and through an approach that is not essentialist and that does and collective ethnic characteristics to identify ethnic Corporate Affairs in De Beers’ London Office to not deny the acute problems those peoples labelling them- groups that can make claims to rights. By extension, he Survival International, dated selves as ‘indigenous’ are concerned to address.2 argues, the indigenous peoples’ movement is racist, 15.10.02). In Durban, South despite the fact that apartheid and indigenous activism Africa, during the Fifth World Parks Conference in Misrepresenting the international indigenous employ these principles for opposite purposes. In contrast September 2003, Dr Richard peoples’ movement to the dominant population of a nation-state, indigenous Leakey, the head of the Kuper’s argument against supporting the rights of indige- identity is almost everywhere primarily defined in terms of Kenyan Wildlife Service, nous peoples rests on a surprisingly inaccurate analysis of relative historical priority of occupancy of a territory. As rejected the principle of categorizing indigenous the history of the indigenous peoples’ rights movement, in Turner (2004) points out, this identity is established not people differently from other which he merges many different historical processes into a simply by descent, but by direct participation in indige- local communities. In his single stereotypical presentation. On the basis of this straw nous communities or cultural enclaves, involving a variety presentation, Dr Leakey said national economic and man Kuper argues that indigenous peoples are seeking of kinship, affinal and adoptive relations. Nation states security interests should not ‘privileged rights’ over others (2003a: 390), and that they themselves employ the legal calculus of descent in their be undermined by the base this claim for privileged rights on a ‘blood and soil’ laws concerning citizenship, property and inheritance, traditional claims of minority ideology of descent that echoes Nazi or apartheid ideolo- without being considered racist for doing so. groups. Reported by Z. Musau, 13.09.03. gies (2003a: 395). The opening paragraph of the article by Kuper in Current http://www.nationaudio.com/ In contrast to our own and other anthropologists’ expe- Anthropology contains a number of inaccuracies. His most News/DailyNation/Today/Ne rience and work, Kuper’s polemic ignores the context of serious mistake is to confuse the United Nations Working ws/News1309200313.html 2. We would like to thank the extreme discrimination faced by indigenous peoples Group on Indigenous Populations (WGIP), which was Sidsel Saugestad, James and their many experiences of dispossession by more pow- established in 1982 and meets yearly in Geneva, with the Woodburn and Michael Asch erful groups. Even the most cursory consideration of this Permanent Forum on Indigenous issues, which was inau- for their valuable comments history of discrimination and dispossession against indige- gurated in May 2002 at the UN headquarters in New York on earlier drafts of this article, as well as 13 anonymous AT nous peoples demonstrates the degree to which they are (Saugestad 2004). The creation and activities of these two referees. denied the rights enjoyed by other groups constituting organizations reflect the history of the international 4 ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY VOL 20 NO 2, APRIL 2004 Fig. 2. Mbendjele Yaka boys indigenous peoples’ movement and the process through in Congo-Brazzaville may be which local struggles on the ground came to be taken seri- unable to hunt when they reach there fathers' age due ously by the international community. This history is com- to pressure from posed of 20 years of debates, meetings and resolutions, international achievements as well as disappointments, and with the par- conservationists and loggers. ticipation of thousands of activists, advocates and aca- demics. What has emerged through this is a working definition of what ‘indigenous peoples’ means – one that has provided vital international support to such peoples’ 3. E/CN.4/Sub.2/ACV.4/ often desperate struggles to address their dispossession by 1996/2. Cited, i.a,. by vastly more powerful economic and political forces. Rodolfo Stavenhagen, Special Rapporteur on the situation of Thus, an obvious point of departure for any debate on human rights and the concept of ‘indigenous peoples’ should be to examine fundamental freedoms of its codification within the UN system. Although there is no indigenous people, in his official definition, Saugestad (2001a, 2004) argues that report on Indigenous issues, E/CN.4/2002/97, para. 99 there is a working definition that has stood the test of time (‘UN Indigenous peoples remarkably well (Cobo 1986). From a list of a few salient mandate and activities of the criteria, and with a pragmatic approach to how the criteria special rapporteur on the situation of human rights and should be combined when in use, a de facto definition has fundamental freedoms of emerged. WGIP emphasizes four principles to be consid- indigenous people. ered in any definition of indigenous peoples: (1) priority in Documents relating to the time, with respect to the occupation and use of a specific Special Rapporteur’, IAN STUART www.unhchr.ch/indigenous/ territory; (2) the voluntary perpetuation of cultural distinc- documents.htm#sr). tiveness; (3) self-identification, as well as recognition by their demoralization owing to the continued appropriation other groups and by state authorities, as a distinct collec- of their lands, and the crippling conditions in Labrador tivity; and (4) an experience of subjugation, marginaliza- Innu villages – some of the highest rates of suicide in the Asch, M. 1984. Home and tion, dispossession, exclusion or discrimination, whether world, mass alcoholism, and epidemics of child solvent native land: Aboriginal 3 rights and the Canadian or not these conditions persist. abuse – have led to the Innu Nation continually reducing constitution. Toronto: These criteria are inevitably open
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