International Indigenism: A Whole New Word

Abstract

Over the past fifteen years, a convergence has taken place among three groups of scholars: those who study international relations, those who study social movements, and the newly emerging field of indigenous studies. Increasingly, these researchers are adopting interdisciplinary approaches to the analysis of social change, and the lines between local or domestic and international or transnational events, and processes are blurring. All three fields now demand research that addresses this crossover, and it is precisely this void that Ronald Niezen's The Origins of Indigenism seeks to fill. Niezen's primary goal is to illustrate the emergence of an international indigenous people's movement and to assess its impact. He suggests that the indigenous movement has helped reshape the international arena by introducing new definitions of legal authority and legitimacy for indigenous nonstate actors. This success comes at a price, however. For indigenous peoples, participating in or reaping the benefits of the movement in terms of greater self-determination may require significant cultural adaptation. For nation-states, the activities of the indigenous movement may represent a perceived threat to sovereignty. Niezen centers his discussion on human rights and indigenous identity in order to define the latter and to place the indigenous movement within a contextual framework. Although many of his arguments are philosophical, Niezen's primary methodology is ethnography, which he effectively uses to analyze both historic events and contemporary observations of local and global phenomena. The strength of this work is that Niezen draws from a wealth of personal experience, having been involved in negotiations and community-based research in Canada and Africa and having attended numerous international forums on indigenous rights. As an anthropologist with a profound understanding of social theory and international relations, he is careful to balance his discussions by presenting indigenous worldviews in the words of the leaders themselves and by illustrating the key concepts of indigenism, indigenous identity, and self-determination with unmistakable clarity through the use of narratives. Neizen's most valuable contribution is his development of an etymology of indigenism. He courageously tackles the challenge of defining a universal indigenous identity and articulating what makes the indigenous movement distinctive as a movement. Universal indigenous identity, Niezen postulates, is based on the shared suffering brought about through the victimization begun in the colonial period and perpetuated by nation-states. It is also largely self-defined, not by individuals but by the collective consent of the international indigenous community. Indeed, beginning with the first chapter, Niezen makes a very important distinction between indigenous identity and ethnic identity. Unlike ethnonationalism, indigenism and the indigenous movement are inherently