-Written by AJ Reibel, MIR program, New Zealand
The idea of ending the vestiges of colonialism by extending ‘indigenous rights’, although worthy in theory, will not enfranchise indigenous peoples in the way that many supporters of indigenous rights hope. The notion of special rights is both misleading and undermining in the sense that it serves to render ‘unique’ the experience of the indigenous in the framework of the ‘modern’, globalised system. This uniqueness serves to exclude indigeneity from the prevailing paradigm and, thus, entrench continued marginalisation. Social campaigning and civil rights battles threaten to effectively make permanent the condition of exclusion and defeat that indigenous nations have suffered in the modern system.
In order to accurately describe the chasm between the Western world and an alternative one, such as the world of indigeneity, a clear distinction must be made between the ‘modern’ and ‘pre-modern’ condition. Adam Kruper points out that defining indigeneity is problematic as disagreements over time have led to disparate ethnic and culture groups claiming indigenous rights in different states. Even the absurd case of the Boer nationalists (who demanded representation at the Forum of Indigenous Peoples’ inaugural meeting) validates Kruper’s desire to pin-down a more specific definition of ‘indigeneity’. Kruper resourcefully determines that indigenous people may be recognised as being (or, until recently) a hunter-gatherer people that do not exhibit the sedentary lifestyle that ‘modern’ societies do.[1]
Although often used disparagingly, for the purposes of this explanation, ‘pre-modern’ will be used not to describe a state of inferior development. Instead, it will describe the anthropological treatment of societies that do not meet certain Western conditions; perhaps including agricultural technological implementations, economic machinations, and monotheistic religious devotion. Despite my desire to use the terms free of their pejorative intimations, the division between ‘modern’ and ‘pre-modern’ does establish a comparative relationship that serves to subordinate and exclude the utility of the pre-modern.
Because the international structure favours the westernised system of modernity – including the ongoing process of reducing economic barriers between states, diffusing western cultural behaviours and norms, and fortifying the existence of de-regulated capitalism – any attempt to promote the rights of a marginalised population is problematic. There are two major issues that work to difficult such a task: the concept of sovereignty in the modern context, and the international structure with its intrinsic structural violence.
Sovereignty, thought of as legitimate control over a specific territory and people, has stressed the authority of the state.[2] This Westphalian IR assumption serves to frustrate the understanding of indigenous sovereignty – which may exist in a spatial and temporal sphere different to that of modern society.[3] Herein lies the first underlying discrepancy between the Western and ‘modern’ world and the indigenous one.[4] Indigenous groupings are largely groupings of nations with like-minded members that share a common ethnic, linguistic, and behavioural heritage. What is more, nations do not require a swathe of territory in order to function as a legitimate societal grouping. Most indigenous peoples defend the legitimate sovereign authority of their nations and demand self-determination, yet, often they are forced to settle for limited autonomy as few states can bear to cede sovereignty within their border.
Regardless of how state-makers react to indigenous demands for aboriginal sovereignty, the modern world’s rational state structure inherently denies alternative forms of sovereignty. As such, even modern non-state actors such as multinational corporations lack independence from state actors. In this sense, it can be said that the structure prohibits (both, actively and passively) alternative and independent forms of authority from existing. This structural condition can be seen both at the ideological and communal level.
There is no other way to describe the structural paradigm as anything less than the structural violence described by anthropologist Paul Farmer in his article “Pathologies of Power”.[5] Farmer focuses on the “…social forces ranging from poverty to racism…” and asserts that such forces act to marginalise and subordinate peoples in the current system.[6] Although Farmer relates the experiences of the impoverished Haitian lower class, his observations also apply to the treatment of indigenous people’s throughout the world.
Acts of structural violence, or “structural violations of human rights”, are a direct result of the structures and institutions that govern the international and domestic state system.[7] Rigoberta Menchú, a Maya Indian and recipient of a 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, notably described how her indigenous community faced land invasions, paramilitary attacks, and systematic repression by Guatemalan government functionaries and security services.[8] In addition to describing physical attacks and forced removals, she explained that Guatemalan government, with support from its regional administrations, confiscated indigenous lands by conducting all legal land dealings with indigenous communities in Spanish[9] – a foreign language to most Latin American indigenous peoples – and maintaining the communities in a pitiful state of ignorance. Menchú unknowingly backs Shaw’s emphasis on ‘knowledge as power’ and Farmer’s structural violence by explaining that because indigenous peoples are kept in a state of ignorance, they will continue to be exploited and marginalised.
Structuralists maintain that structural violence is an avoidable effect that denies fundamental “human needs” to a group of people.[10] Despite Galtung’s recognition of such systemic and entrenched indirect violence as a challenge to the implementation of egalitarian human rights, he assumes that such a structure could be altered in order to ‘avoid’ such disempowerment and subjugation. What anthropologists such as Galthung and structural theorists overestimate is the ease of change. This is especially troubling considering that significant resistance to such change is deeply entrenched in the international system, individual state governments and institutions, and within the increasingly powerful international economic institutions.
Accordingly, the only way to properly consider indigenous rights as an achievable target is to acknowledge that the contemporary international structure, rooted in a system of state sovereignty, needs to be amended. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples offers a glimpse of a possible future change. It presents a shared hope the entrenched idea of international equality will finally be expanded and altered in order to bring about a paradigm shift that will alter the way that human rights are viewed. Specifically, the document sets the “framework for the future [as]… a tool for peace and justice, based upon mutual recognition and… respect.”[11]
Mutual respect between indigenous ‘pre-modern’ nations and ‘modern’ states is a noble target; however it would mean that states with indigenous nations – including Aotearoa, Canada, the United States, Russia, Finland, Namibia, and Ecuador – would have to cede greater territorial and legal sovereignty to segments of their inhabitants. The question is: would this important concession erode the function of the state as Hobbes described in his Leviathan? What is certain is that without a change to the current international and state system, the notion of indigenous rights will serve to incorporate indigenous peoples into the current international structure. The result of which will be the gradual reduction of the existence of unique indigenous nations and an undermining of indigenous rights.
_________
[1] Adam Kuper, “The Return of the Native,” Current Anthropology, Vol. 44, No. 3 (2003): 389.
[2] Stephen D. Krasner, “Rethinking the sovereign state model,” Review of International Studies, Vol. 27 (2001): 19.
[3] K. Shaw, “Indigeneity and the International,” Millennium, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2002): 4.
[4] Ibid., 3.
[5] Paul Farmer, “Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor,” Public Anthropology, Vol. 4 (?): 2.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Kathleen Ho, “Structural Violence as a Human Rights Violation,” Essex Human Rights Review, Ho’s Master’s Dissertation, Vol. 4, No. 2 (September, 2007): 2.
[8] Elizabeth Burgos, ed., Me Llamo Rigoberta Menchú Y Así Me Nació La Conciencia (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1992), 130.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid., 3. Taken from: Johan Galtung, “Kulturelle Gewalte,” Der Burger im Staat, Vol. 43 (1993): 106.
[11] Paul Oldham and Miriam Anne Frank, “‘We the peoples…’: The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” Anthropology Today, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2008):_.
In order to accurately describe the chasm between the Western world and an alternative one, such as the world of indigeneity, a clear distinction must be made between the ‘modern’ and ‘pre-modern’ condition. Adam Kruper points out that defining indigeneity is problematic as disagreements over time have led to disparate ethnic and culture groups claiming indigenous rights in different states. Even the absurd case of the Boer nationalists (who demanded representation at the Forum of Indigenous Peoples’ inaugural meeting) validates Kruper’s desire to pin-down a more specific definition of ‘indigeneity’. Kruper resourcefully determines that indigenous people may be recognised as being (or, until recently) a hunter-gatherer people that do not exhibit the sedentary lifestyle that ‘modern’ societies do.[1]
Although often used disparagingly, for the purposes of this explanation, ‘pre-modern’ will be used not to describe a state of inferior development. Instead, it will describe the anthropological treatment of societies that do not meet certain Western conditions; perhaps including agricultural technological implementations, economic machinations, and monotheistic religious devotion. Despite my desire to use the terms free of their pejorative intimations, the division between ‘modern’ and ‘pre-modern’ does establish a comparative relationship that serves to subordinate and exclude the utility of the pre-modern.
Because the international structure favours the westernised system of modernity – including the ongoing process of reducing economic barriers between states, diffusing western cultural behaviours and norms, and fortifying the existence of de-regulated capitalism – any attempt to promote the rights of a marginalised population is problematic. There are two major issues that work to difficult such a task: the concept of sovereignty in the modern context, and the international structure with its intrinsic structural violence.
Sovereignty, thought of as legitimate control over a specific territory and people, has stressed the authority of the state.[2] This Westphalian IR assumption serves to frustrate the understanding of indigenous sovereignty – which may exist in a spatial and temporal sphere different to that of modern society.[3] Herein lies the first underlying discrepancy between the Western and ‘modern’ world and the indigenous one.[4] Indigenous groupings are largely groupings of nations with like-minded members that share a common ethnic, linguistic, and behavioural heritage. What is more, nations do not require a swathe of territory in order to function as a legitimate societal grouping. Most indigenous peoples defend the legitimate sovereign authority of their nations and demand self-determination, yet, often they are forced to settle for limited autonomy as few states can bear to cede sovereignty within their border.
Regardless of how state-makers react to indigenous demands for aboriginal sovereignty, the modern world’s rational state structure inherently denies alternative forms of sovereignty. As such, even modern non-state actors such as multinational corporations lack independence from state actors. In this sense, it can be said that the structure prohibits (both, actively and passively) alternative and independent forms of authority from existing. This structural condition can be seen both at the ideological and communal level.
There is no other way to describe the structural paradigm as anything less than the structural violence described by anthropologist Paul Farmer in his article “Pathologies of Power”.[5] Farmer focuses on the “…social forces ranging from poverty to racism…” and asserts that such forces act to marginalise and subordinate peoples in the current system.[6] Although Farmer relates the experiences of the impoverished Haitian lower class, his observations also apply to the treatment of indigenous people’s throughout the world.
Acts of structural violence, or “structural violations of human rights”, are a direct result of the structures and institutions that govern the international and domestic state system.[7] Rigoberta Menchú, a Maya Indian and recipient of a 1992 Nobel Peace Prize, notably described how her indigenous community faced land invasions, paramilitary attacks, and systematic repression by Guatemalan government functionaries and security services.[8] In addition to describing physical attacks and forced removals, she explained that Guatemalan government, with support from its regional administrations, confiscated indigenous lands by conducting all legal land dealings with indigenous communities in Spanish[9] – a foreign language to most Latin American indigenous peoples – and maintaining the communities in a pitiful state of ignorance. Menchú unknowingly backs Shaw’s emphasis on ‘knowledge as power’ and Farmer’s structural violence by explaining that because indigenous peoples are kept in a state of ignorance, they will continue to be exploited and marginalised.
Structuralists maintain that structural violence is an avoidable effect that denies fundamental “human needs” to a group of people.[10] Despite Galtung’s recognition of such systemic and entrenched indirect violence as a challenge to the implementation of egalitarian human rights, he assumes that such a structure could be altered in order to ‘avoid’ such disempowerment and subjugation. What anthropologists such as Galthung and structural theorists overestimate is the ease of change. This is especially troubling considering that significant resistance to such change is deeply entrenched in the international system, individual state governments and institutions, and within the increasingly powerful international economic institutions.
Accordingly, the only way to properly consider indigenous rights as an achievable target is to acknowledge that the contemporary international structure, rooted in a system of state sovereignty, needs to be amended. The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples offers a glimpse of a possible future change. It presents a shared hope the entrenched idea of international equality will finally be expanded and altered in order to bring about a paradigm shift that will alter the way that human rights are viewed. Specifically, the document sets the “framework for the future [as]… a tool for peace and justice, based upon mutual recognition and… respect.”[11]
Mutual respect between indigenous ‘pre-modern’ nations and ‘modern’ states is a noble target; however it would mean that states with indigenous nations – including Aotearoa, Canada, the United States, Russia, Finland, Namibia, and Ecuador – would have to cede greater territorial and legal sovereignty to segments of their inhabitants. The question is: would this important concession erode the function of the state as Hobbes described in his Leviathan? What is certain is that without a change to the current international and state system, the notion of indigenous rights will serve to incorporate indigenous peoples into the current international structure. The result of which will be the gradual reduction of the existence of unique indigenous nations and an undermining of indigenous rights.
_________
[1] Adam Kuper, “The Return of the Native,” Current Anthropology, Vol. 44, No. 3 (2003): 389.
[2] Stephen D. Krasner, “Rethinking the sovereign state model,” Review of International Studies, Vol. 27 (2001): 19.
[3] K. Shaw, “Indigeneity and the International,” Millennium, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2002): 4.
[4] Ibid., 3.
[5] Paul Farmer, “Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor,” Public Anthropology, Vol. 4 (?): 2.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Kathleen Ho, “Structural Violence as a Human Rights Violation,” Essex Human Rights Review, Ho’s Master’s Dissertation, Vol. 4, No. 2 (September, 2007): 2.
[8] Elizabeth Burgos, ed., Me Llamo Rigoberta Menchú Y Así Me Nació La Conciencia (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1992), 130.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid., 3. Taken from: Johan Galtung, “Kulturelle Gewalte,” Der Burger im Staat, Vol. 43 (1993): 106.
[11] Paul Oldham and Miriam Anne Frank, “‘We the peoples…’: The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” Anthropology Today, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2008):_.
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