Confronting Genocide and Ethnocide of Indigenous Peoples: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Definition, Intervention, Prevention, and Advocacy

Abstract

This chapter clarifies some key issues on the prevention of genocidal atrocities. It states that the definition of the term indigenous peoples is problematic, since in many places groups may migrate and identify themselves in different ways. It identifies the four key characteristics of indigenous peoples (as stated by the Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues), and distinguishes physical genocide, cultural genocide, “ecocide,” and other typologies of genocide. This chapter also tries to show how such devastation is often implicitly or explicitly legitimated by metanarratives of modernity.