Indigenous Peoples and Demography

Abstract

The definition of “indigenous peoples” is contested within anthropology and beyond. Our interdisciplinary research is aimed at elaborating how different social and institutional systems have defined indigenous peoples, and how indigenous peoples can use historical demographic information to help understand the development of their identities within and relationships to states, and to inform efforts for self-determination. Scholars have recognized the historical continuity of a population, the experience of colonization, and indigenous self-identification as three key components in definitions of indigenous peoples. Each of these factors varies across continents and time periods. For example, the intensity, techniques and effects of colonization vary greatly from location to location. Even if indigenous peoples themselves had complete control over how they are viewed and identified, self-identification has its limits—indigenous identities are often segmentary, place-based, or reflect locally pertinent social structures, dialects, kinship and marriage concerns. Indigenous identities are also highly complex, something that census categories often fail to fully appreciate but can nevertheless impact. Colonial experience is clearly a central element in the histories of most indigenous peoples and, in that light, demography and colonial projects aimed at cataloging and counting indigenous populations have had a major role in their definition and characterization. Here we briefly report on the work of an interdisciplinary group of scholars aiming to contextualize and investigate census materials on indigenous populations from northern Scandinavia and the Siberian Arctic, along with other colonial settings. Demography has been criticized for its close association with modernization theory and exclusively quantitative foundations. These associations are plainly seen in the census materials with which we are working. For example, the 1926–27 Polar Census of Siberia notes the type of trapping equipment individuals used to indicate more or less integration with market forces; thus, the data assume particular Soviet interpretations of these materials, indicating progression along a unilineal evolutionary scale (see separate Knowledge Exchange feature by David G Anderson on page 24 in this issue). Interpreting