Geography for and with indigenous peoples: indigenous geographies as challenge and invitation

Abstract

In mid-2006, the International Geographical Union established its Indigenous Peoples’ Knowledges and Rights Commission (IPKRC). Inaugurated at the IGU Regional Conference in Brisbane, Australia, the IPKRC represents an effort by the IGU to engage with the Indigenous issues and the relationships between the discipline and the rights, knowledge and interests of Indigenous peoples in the twenty-first Century. In lateOctober 2007, the IPKRC met jointly with the IGU Commission on Islands at the National Taiwan University in Taipei. That conference brought together more than 60 participants and included 52 formal presentations and papers. This special issue of GeoJournal celebrates that meeting by publishing some of the very best papers from that conference and demonstrates the value of a continuing dialogue between Indigenous peoples and geography. While the value of such dialogue is clear, the challenges facing the IPKRC are no small matter. There are relatively few Indigenous geographers in the discipline, and Indigenous geography has not been a major disciplinary focus. Indigenous issues have often been marginalized in the discipline as they were in the affairs of many settler and colonial societies. Indeed, like many scientific disciplines, contemporary geography has a regrettable colonial legacy to address. Colonial geography facilitated the occupation and possession of Indigenous peoples’ lands, waters and resources by the colonizing ‘other’. Through its contribution to mapping and describing Indigenous peoples’ territories, geography was a powerful handmaiden of the colonial project. In 1984, David Stea and Ben Wisner edited a special issue of Antipode that represented an important opening of the discipline’s reconsideration of its relationships with Indigenous peoples (Stea and Wisner 1984). A decade ago, in the case of Australia, Howitt and Jackson (1998, 155) argued that there had been ‘‘substantial change in the relationship between geography in Australia and indigenous people.’’ They went onto suggest that the relationship between the discipline and Indigenous people was ‘‘of great value to the discipline and the nation as we move towards more equitable and sustainable futures’’ (1998, 155). Similarly in New Zealand, Berg and Kearns argued that there was a ‘‘political edge’’ to the work of many cultural geographers in New Zealand, particularly those ‘‘with interests in Maori issues’’ (1997, 1). More recently, special issues of major journals such as Geografiska Annaler (Series B, Human Geography, 88/3, 2006) K. Frantz (&) Institut fur Geographie, Universitat Innsbruck, Innrain 52, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria e-mail: Klaus.Frantz@uibk.ac.at