NEW DIVERSITIES An online journal published by the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity Volume 19, No. 2, 2017 Indigenous Politics of Resistance: From Erasure to Recognition Guest Editor: Manuela L. Picq (Amherst College) Indigenous Politics of Resistance: An Introduction 1 by Manuela L. Picq (Amherst College) By Whatever Means Necessary: The U.S. Government’s Ongoing Attempts 7 to Remove Indigenous Peoples During an Era of Self-(De)termination by Kathleen A. Brown-Pérez (University of Massachusetts Amherst) Treaty Relations between Indigenous Peoples: Advancing Global 25 Understandings of Self-Determination by Sheryl R. Lightfoot (University of British Columbia) and David MacDonald (University of Guelph) Indigenous Lèse-majesté: Questioning U.S. Federal Indian Law 41 by Peter d’Errico (Emeritus, University of Massachusetts / Amherst) Everyday Acts of Resurgence: Indigenous Approaches to 55 Everydayness in Fatherhood by Jeff Corntassel and Mick Scow (University of Victoria) Hobbes’ Border Guards or Evo’s Originary Citizens? Indigenous People 69 and the Sovereign State in Bolivia by Andrew Canessa (University of Essex) On the Sacred Clay of Botany Bay: Landings, National Memorialization, 85 and Multiple Sovereignties by Ann McGrath (Australian National University) Weaving Abya-Yala: The Decolonial Aesthetics of Indigenous Resistance 103 by Antonia Carcelén-Estrada (College of the Holy Cross) Editors: Elena GADJANOva Julia MARtíNEz-ARIño Guest Editor: Manuela L. PICq Language Editor: Sarah BLANtoN Layout and Design: Birgitt SIPPEL Past Issues in 2008-2016: “Religion and Superdiversity”, Vol. 18, No. 1, 2016 “The Infrastructures of Diversity: Materiality and Culture in Urban Space”, Vol. 17, No. 2, 2015 “Engaging with the Other: Religion, Identity, and Politics in the Mediterranean”, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2015 “Migration and Development: Rethinking Recruitment, Remittances, Diaspora Support and Return”, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2014 “Social Mobility and Identity Formation”, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2014 “Diversity and Small Town Spaces: Twenty Years into Post-Apartheid South African Democracy ”, Vol. 15, No. 2, 2013 “Female Migration Outcomes II”, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2013 “Language and Superdiversities II”, Vol. 14, No. 2, 2012 “Skilled Migration and the Brain Drain”, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2012 “Language and Superdiversities”, Vol. 13, No. 2, 2011 “Female Migration Outcomes: Human Rights Perspectives”, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2011 “Depicting Diversities”, Vol. 12, No. 1, 2010 “Turks Abroad: Settlers, Citizens, Transnationals”, Vol. 11, No. 2, 2009 “The Human Rights of Migrants”, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2009 “The Conditions of Modern Return Migrants”, Vol. 10, No. 2, 2008 “Citizenship Tests in a Post-National Era”, Vol. 10, No. 1, 2008 © MPI MMG (2017) ISSN-Print 2199-8108 ISSN-Internet 2199-8116 Published by the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity Hermann-Föge-Weg 11 D-37073 Göttingen, Germany Available online at www.newdiversities.mmg.mpg.de Indigenous Politics of Resistance: An Introduction by Manuela L. Picq (Amherst College) “To be Indigenous means that the project of the definitions through legislation, blood quantum, nation-state did not triumph […], that there is not and census depending on its interest to erase, one single territory, not one single language, regulate, or displace indigenous presence (Kau- not one single citizenship.” anui 2008). Indigenous belonging is contested 1 (Gladys Tzul Tzul, 2015) in the so-called new world, but the concept is fuzzier in regions that did not experience large Indigenous peoples breathe diversity. there are amounts of European settler immigration, like over five thousand peoples that speak thousands Asia (Baird 2016). Many Asian states recognize of languages in different cultural and spiritual indigenous peoples with the understanding that systems – about 370 million individuals in ninety they inhabit other regions. the concept is fluid, countries. Yet the radical diversity of Indigenous contested and heterogeneous because Indig- peoples lies beyond their own pluralism. Maya enous peoples are as diverse as the processes of scholar Gladys tzul tzul reminds us that Indige- colonization they continue to endure. nous peoples are evidence that the nation state Already in the sixteenth-century, Indian did not triumph despite its efforts to impose emerged as an all-encompassing category refer- one political logic, that there is not one single ring to non-European peoples from the Indies, citizenship or social contract. Indigenous poli- East and West, constructed as Europe’s homog- tics transcend the nation-state, and their resis- enous other (Seth 2010). to conflate vastly dis- tance expands the political imagination beyond tinct peoples in a homogenizing legal status the modern state. Indigenous resistance is, in was an act of colonial governance (Van Deusen the words of Anishinaabe scholar-artist Leanne 2015). the term refers to a historical process Simpson (2017, 10), “a radical and complete rather than an essential nature. Indigenous- overturning of the nation-state’s political forma- ness refers less to a constitutive who/what then tions.” to the otherness implied by it (Canessa 2012). the terminology referring to Indigenous peo- Cree and Cherokee scholars taiaiake Alfred and ples can be confusing – Indian, First Nations,t ribal, Jeff Corntassell (2005) explain being indigenous Native, Indigenous and originary peoples. there today as inhabiting lands in contrast to and in are many words to refer to Indigenous peoples contention with the colonial states that spread because their experiences are testimony to many out of Europe. they define indigenousness as an colonial processes leading to state-making. the oppositional identity linked to the counscious- different terms express a plurality of power rela- ness of struggle against dispossession in the era tions across colonial experiences. official under- of contemporary subtler forms of colonialism. It standings have varied over time as states change is a belonging fueled by contention with colonial states, energized by the priorities of each new 1 Gladys tzul-tzul is a Maya intellectual from Guate- generation, and elaborated in a plurality of com- mala (Capiberibe and Bonilla 2015, 1). munities with local agendas. though local and NEW DIVERSITIES Vol. 19, No. 2, 2017 ISSN ISSN-Print 2199-8108 ▪ ISSN-Internet 2199-8116 New Diversities 19 (2), 2017 Manuela L. Picq heterogeneous, Indigenous politics are marked sued diplomatic negotiations, traveled to Europe by oppositional identity and internal pluralism on Indigenous passports, and signed treaties that worldwide. settlers repeatedly broke. Indigenous peoples Indigenous peoples still stand in defense of then resisted Westphalian territorialization and theirs lands, relationships and lifeways: “as they the imposition of state-centric politics. After cen- have always done” (Simpson 2017). they con- turies written out of existence and denied land tinue to resist predatory states and extractive rights by the terra nullius doctrine, Indigenous industries invading their territories. Resistance movements successfully framed international ranges from legal struggles to language revital- law over the last decades. Indigenous politics ization, it is place-based yet engages in inter- gained traction in the inter-national legal system national diplomacy. It takes the form of public with collective rights to self-determination in the mobilizations or invisible intimacies. Continuing ILo Convention 169 (1989) and the UN Declara- resistance reveals the ongoing dispossession tion on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2007). of Indigenous peoples. Settler colonial studies they have created political parties, like Pachaku- established that colonialism is a structure, not an tik in Ecuador, and run for office, electing Presi- event. Patrick Wolfe (2006) argued that invasion dent Evo Morales in Bolivia. is not an isolated historical event because set- Recognition has become a principal mode of tlers come to stay and proposed to think of it as negotiating political authority between state and a structuring principle. Colonialism is an ongoing Indigenous nations, shaping debates over cul- process that still defines borders between imag- tural distinctiveness, legal pluralism, and rights ined centers and peripheries, and the doctrine of to self-determination over land, law, and cul- discovery remains foundational to the interna- ture. Indigenous peoples mostly celebrate inter- tional system of states built on stolen Indigenous national rights as a recognition of self-determi- lands. this violent process is not as a left-over nation and autonomy from the state. Yet many from the past, it is a core principle necessary to resist what they perceive as conciliatory rheto- the survival of the current state system. ric promoting the collaboration between Indian Indigenous resurgence is a radical political nations and colonial states. Indigenous politics project with a profound epistemological dimen- become ever more complex, as some claim rights sion. It serves to contest hegemonic histories to prior consultation and others refuse to be con- with political cosmologies that denaturalize sulted by the states that exercised violence and the state as the sole locus of the political (Beier seek alternative politics of self-recognition. 2005). Indigenous practices of authority, plural, Indigenous experiences cannot not be trivi- shared, and unbounded to states, exemplify how alized as some remnant of