The local translation of global indigeneity: A case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts

Abstract

Indigeneity, a concept and construct, is increasingly gaining currency in academia, in the political sphere, and in public debates. Indigeneity as an active political force with international support has become a resource in identity politics. This article focuses on the dynamics of how the transnational idea of indigeneity has been nationally installed and locally translated within the context of the ethnohistory of an Indigenous movement that stemmed from local–societal relations with the state. The idea of indigeneity is seen as both local and global because it is globally circulated but locally articulated as well as globally charged but locally framed. Focusing on the Chittagong Hill Tracts, in the borderlands of South and Southeast Asia and home to 11 Indigenous groups in Bangladesh, the article argues that the local translation of global indigeneity is necessary for ensuring the rights and entitlements of Indigenous Peoples.