Indigenous Concepts Research Articles

野生チンパンジーとの共存を支える在来知に基づいた保全モデル――ギニア・ボッソウ村における住民運動の事例から――

野生チンパンジーとの共存を支える在来知に基づいた保全モデル――ギニア・ボッソウ村における住民運動の事例から――

Intercultural health in Ecuador: an asymmetrical and incomplete project

ABSTRACTIntimate connections between culture and health are complicated by various understandings of the human body, divergent beliefs about reality and place-bound theories about healing. Health care systems in various countries are modified with a goal of creating ‘hybrid’ structures that make room for traditional practices within a dominant Western model. But genuine intercultural health care is elusive. In Ecuador, a country with great cultural and geographic diversity, the culture-health spectrum is broad and bumpy. This is especially evident in health care politics, education and administration. A constitution adopted in 2008 aims for inclusivity and equality by incorporating indigenous concepts of the ‘good life’ and ideals of an intercultural society. These new values and perspectives should be reflected in economics, law, education and health care. But these concepts confront a racial, political and economic history that has delegitimized indigenous systems of knowledge and belief. This paper contrasts ‘ideal’ and ‘real’ intercultural health care using case studies of the Tsáchila, an indigenous group in coastal Ecuador. The conclusion is that ‘ideal’ intercultural health care, as reflected in medical school education and clinical practice, is a superficial attempt at dialogue and understanding between indigenous and western medicine. ‘Real’ intercultural health care involves a more profound level of mutual respect and cross-cultural understanding that aims for symmetry in patient–doctor relationships. Insights from medical anthropology guide the authors through a critical analysis that addresses interculturality as a political issue and a political struggle that the Tsáchilas – like other indigenous groups – are losing.

An alternative conceptualization of indigenous rights in Africa under the international human rights law framework

<p>This article is a practice-based elucidation of how indigenous rights can be securely protected and implemented in the broader human rights discourse. The concept of indigeneity is contested in many African countries with the primary question being: Who is indigenous? The ‘politics of recognition’ have stalled the work of the African indigenous rights movement thus far and this paper builds upon the discourse on Indigenous rights, making a proposition towards an effective machinery to facilitate their protection. Therefore, the focus is to construct a different perspective which emphasizes the need to utilize, develop and improve the existent human rights machinery. This is done through the reconceptualization of indigenous rights by utilizing the ethno-cultural protections machinery. In the last part of this article I look at the San peoples in Zimbabwe as a representative case study to bring into perspective the lived realities of indigenous peoples in Africa.</p><p><strong>Received</strong>: 28 June 2018<br /><strong>Accepted</strong>: 23 October 2018<br /><strong>Published online</strong>: 11 December 2018</p>

Asian Indigeneity, Indigenous Knowledge Systems, and Challenges of the 2030 Agenda

Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015, the 2030 Agenda pledges to leave no one behind through the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 targets were ratified by the international community to address the global challenges of our time. This framework and universal action plan articulate the inclusion of the indigenous peoples in the social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. Nonetheless, the world’s largest populations of indigenous peoples are in Asia. However, despite the affirmation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the concept of indigeneity is still controversial, politically contested, and considered immaterial by many states in the Asian region. With limited rights and inadequate access to social services, indigenous knowledge systems and practices have evolved through time to provide solutions to local problems that marginalized many communities. This article revisits the sociopolitical notion of indigeneity in the region and its implications for the indigenous community. It also explores the diversity of indigenous knowledge systems and traditional practices and its relevance to the SDGs, particularly on food security, community livelihoods, human well-being, natural resources management, and biodiversity conservation. The conclusion reflects the need for legitimate recognition and political enablement of indigenous peoples in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda by forging collaborations between academic researchers, policy-makers, and indigenous organizations in the Asian community.

Conceptualizing Human Stewardship in the Anthropocene: The Rights of Nature in Ecuador, New Zealand and India

In this text I investigate the increasing usage of the Rights of Nature to approach the task of Stewardship for the Earth. The Ecuadorian constitution of 2008 introduces the indigenous concept of Pachamama and interpretes nature as a subject of rights. Reflecting the two 2017 cases of the Whanganui River (New Zealand) and the Gangotri and Yamunotri Glaciers (India), my main argument is that, although the language of individual rights relies on modern subjectivity as well as the constitutionalism of the secular nation state, it is obviously seen as a trans-cultural tool to justify Human Stewardship over the Earth in the Age of Anthropocene. I argue that the new Rights of Nature debate “provides” a straightforward justification of the Stewardship for the Earth and it includes two moments aimed to transcend European Modernity. The Rights Approach justifies obligations towards nature beyond human interests and it appeals to indigenous knowledge as an alternative sphere of argumentation. The relation of this endevor to the Anthropocene is twofold: The indigenous worldviews can now be translated into Rights of Nature because of the two core items of the Anthropocene that are gaining more and more acceptance: the idea of the Earth as a system and of history as a non-linear process. The scientific description of the Earth system offered by the Anthropocene supports holistic narratives of the Rights of Nature and facilitates the recognition of non-Western worldviews. At the same time the Rights of Nature help to clarify the normative claims implicit in the Anthropocene because the integrity of natural items and processes is presented as the explicit reason for a responsible human stewardship towards the Earth.

Naming and Claiming

Abstract This article analyzes archival and oral records of Ojibwe and Plains Cree words for Two-Spirit people to show the continuity between historical and modern Two-Spirits. In the face of appropriation of historical Two-Spirits by both cisgender and transgender non-Indigenous people, as well as scholarly insistence on a disconnect between historical and modern Two-Spirits, examining the linguistic history of specific communities reveals what the author, a Two-Spirit person themself, terms “trans*temporal kinship.” Referring to the ability of Two-Spirit people to establish kin relations across time, with both ancestors and descendants, the application of trans*temporal kinship and other Indigenous concepts allows Two-Spirit people to circumvent the debate in transgender studies as to whether transgender people can and should claim historical figures as “transgender ancestors.” The article argues that Two-Spirit reclamation of language for people “like us” is a vital element in redressing the violence and exclusion perpetrated against Two-Spirit people today.

Te Mana o te Wai: An indigenous perspective on rivers and river management

AbstractRivers, lakes, streams, and springs have been described as the bloodways of Papatūānuku, earth mother. On this view of the world, water is life. We are witnesses to the importance of water for all communities when the health and well‐being of our waterways are at risk. In New Zealand, governance and management systems have not been able to cope with legacy issues nor are they coping with the complex problems of diffuse pollution from intensive farming, climate change, pest species, and population growth. In seeking ways to improve freshwater management, there are increasing calls to include tikanga (indigenous laws and values) into decision‐making frameworks. Indigenous concepts such as kaitiakitanga (the responsibility to take care of natural resources) and Te Mana o te Wai (restoring and protecting the integrity of water) have gained traction. This article will explain these concepts through a distinctively indigenous lens and highlight some of the challenges of integrating tikanga into dominant western frameworks.

“Peace Is Not a Free Gift”: Indigenous Conceptions of Peace among the Guji-Oromo in Southern Ethiopia

Abstract Indigenous African knowledge of building and maintaining peace is not well known and has not been much used in the dominant modern mechanisms of conflict resolution. With the aim of addressing this limitation, this article analyzes the broader conceptualization of peace and peace building among the Guji-Oromo in southern Ethiopia. The Guji-Oromo are keenly aware that their existence as a society depends on the maintenance of peace (nagaa) among them as a community and between them and God as well as between them and their natural and human environments. They believe that peace is not a free gift, because maintaining it requires continuous and earnest negotiation, social actions, and cooperation among many stakeholders who possess political, cultural, and spiritual powers. The article further argues that the Guji-Oromo conceptualize peace beyond the conventional understandings that position it as the absence of conflict or warfare. Rather, for the Guji, peace is broadly understood as a continuous flow of relationships between the people and their human and nonhuman environments. The article shows that Guji’s conceptions of peace are not static; rather, they are subject to internal and external influences that shape how different members of the society conceptualize it and the way it is maintained.

The Indigenous Concept of Sexuality in African Tradition and Globalization

The Indigenous Concept of Sexuality in African Tradition and Globalization

Settler Colonialism, Ecology, and Environmental Injustice

Settler colonialism is a form of domination that violently disrupts human relationships with the environment. Settler colonialism is ecological domination, committing environmental injustice against Indigenous peoples and other groups. Focusing on the context of Indigenous peoples’ facing US domination, this article investigates philosophically one dimension of how settler colonialism commits environmental injustice. When examined ecologically, settler colonialism works strategically to undermine Indigenous peoples’ social resilience as self determining collectives. To understand the relationships connecting settler colonialism, environmental injustice, and violence, the article first engages Anishinaabe intellectual traditions to describe an Indigenous conception of social resilience called collective continuance. One way in which settler colonial violence commits environmental injustice is through strategically undermining Indigenous collective continuance. At least two kinds of environmental injustices demonstrate such violence: vicious sedimentation and insidious loops. The article seeks to contribute to knowledge of how anti-Indigenous settler colonialism and environmental injustice are connected.

A geomorphic perspective on the rights of the river in Aotearoa New Zealand

AbstractThe granting of rights to the Whanganui River in 2017 emerged as an outcome of Tribunal hearings relating to breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, signed between Māori chiefs and the British Crown in 1840. As this expression of a river as having legal personhood with rights reflects a distinctively Māori perspective upon river systems, it offers the prospect for a new era of sociocultural approaches to river management in Aotearoa New Zealand. Using the Whanganui River as a case study, this paper explores prospective geomorphic meanings of river rights. The paper asks, “What role can geomorphology play in identifying, articulating and protecting the rights of a river?” Ancestral Māori relations to the river based upon mutual codependence (reciprocity) are juxtaposed against geomorphic understandings of a river's agency as expressed through self‐adjustment, diversity of form, evolution, and catchment‐scale connectivities. Relations between river science and indigenous concepts of rivers, framed under the auspices of river rights, present opportunities for different approaches to river management.

A Historical Overview of China’s Learning City Construction:

Learning city is an indigenous concept in China, which refers to a development approach that centres on people’s development in order to improve civilization, build learning culture, and enhance a city’s comprehensiveness. This paper aims to demonstrate the historical processes and stages of China’s learning city construction, as well as its basic features and development patterns. This construction has three stages: preparation stage, exploration stage and development stage. Its basic characteristics are analysed from the perspectives of operating mechanism, promoting strategies, key construction, and protection measures. The development of learning city depends on the level of economic knowledge and vitality of the city. At the same time, the development of learning city is limited by the development of modern city and geographical conditions.

Honouring the role of community in community health work with Cambodian Americans.

Despite surviving extreme forms of violence, torture and other traumas during the Khmer Rouge genocide and forced migration, Cambodian Americans experience devastating health inequities and barriers to health access in the United States (U.S.). From the perspective of Cambodian American community health workers (CHWs), we explored three aims in this community-based participatory research (CBPR), qualitative study: Cambodian Americans' understanding of health, community health work strategies that improve health access of Cambodian Americans, and action steps that improve health access for Cambodian Americans. From 2014 to 2016, our two-phased study spanned seven U.S. states, which included a focus group (n=5) and 16 semistructured interviews. Participants identified an indigenous concept of health, and micro-level (e.g. service navigation, peer education) and mezzo-level interventions (e.g. community building, coalition work) to improve health access. Finally, Khmer Health Advocates, a community-based health advocacy organisation, served as a vital study partner in this CBPR study.

Hearing narrative voices of Filipino social enterprise employees

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the personal and contextual factors that shape the work experiences of Filipino social enterprise employees by listening to voices within their narratives.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 11 social enterprise employees were interviewed about their work experiences. Using the Listening Guide as a method of analysis, common themes and the multiple voices within the narratives were identified.FindingsUpon analysis, four stories were identified: stories of serving others, stories of providing for family, stories of managing relationships and stories of personal learning. Results show that the experiences and multiple identities of employees evoke the duality and hybridity that characterizes social enterprise organizations. The importance of relationships in collectivist cultures, and the salience of the indigenous concept of kapwa are also discussed.Research limitations/implicationsThe use of narratives, and particularly, of voices within narratives as a critical tool to study work experiences is highlighted. Generalizability of results may be limited by contextual factors, such as organization type and country culture.Originality/valueIn this study, the narratives of social enterprise workers from different positions were explored. The voices within their narratives were analyzed and used as a means to understand how they viewed the self, others, and their work in social enterprises embedded in collectivist and developing country contexts.

Indigenous categorisation of the Kãa musical heritage in Burkina Faso: a set of repertoires?

The Kãaba are one of the societies in Burkina Faso that still maintain some degree of their ancestral way of living. This article describes the musical heritage of the Kãaba according to their indigenous oral conceptions by highlighting the most pertinent traits of the music ‘classes’ within their related contexts. The long periods spent in fieldwork resulted in a strong bond developing between the researcher and this community, which led to cultural immersion and insight into their religious and social circumstances. Data were collected via observation, interviews and interactive experimentation with the custodians of this culture together with musical analysis. ‘Accredited’ representative groups within the community approved by the community validated analyses and conclusions. After presenting the research process implemented to define the Kãaba musical categories, idiosyncrasies are described to show that the notion of ‘repertoire’ proved ineffective in relation to Kãa music. The term’s relevance is consequently challenged, since it may well be just as unsuitable in describing other musical heritages. Instead, the term ‘categories’ and its derivative ‘categorisation’ are proposed to designate both the process and its outcome.

Resistance and the Sacred: An Approach to the Various Meanings of the “Right to the Sacred” in Mexico Today

Abstract This article analyses a certain philosophical (ethical and political) interpretation of “the sacred” as brought up by native world views of indigenous peoples in the American continent from a decolonial approach. Translation is used as resistance that resounds in the social-environmental struggles in our continent nowadays, particularly in Mexico. The appropriation of the term “sacred” by native peoples reveals the colonial political theory of the State. By challenging consumerism and ecological destruction, the translation of the indigenous concept of ‟sacred” into an ecological conception of intrinsic link between people and “nature” enables a dialogue between those cultures and the warning of modern science about global warming and the over-exploitation of the earth’s resources.

Revisitar la soberanía indígena: los desafíos de una reivindicación excluida

El 14 de septiembre de 2017 se cumplieron 10 años de la Declaración de Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas (UNDRIP). Considerado a menudo como una importante victoria para los pueblos indígenas, el presente artículo aborda sin embargo un punto ausente en la UNDRIP pero central en numerosas luchas indígenas: la cuestión de la soberanía. Empieza explorando la evolución histórica del concepto de soberanía en la teoría política y las relaciones internacionales, antes de estudiar la conceptualización indígena del término. Posteriormente, analiza reivindicaciones y prácticas de soberanía y autogobierno indígenas en tres de los cuatro países que votaron en contra de UNDRIP en 2007: Nueva Zelanda, Australia y Canadá. Este análisis permite examinar diferentes modelos soberanos posibles para el reconocimiento de la soberanía indígena y esbozar sus respectivas configuraciones político-espaciales. A lo largo de este artículo se intenta poner constantemente a prueba la clásica y supuestamente inquebrantable relación entre soberanía, autoridad absoluta y territorialidad indiscutida. Finalmente, se concluye señalando la necesidad de una mirada transdisciplinar para entender la reivindicación de soberanía indígena, y llamando a la transformación de las relaciones internacionales, la política doméstica y el derecho internacional para avanzar hacia su reconocimiento y realización.

Madweng Pottery Tradition in Santa Maria, Isabela

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ESTABLISHING A RELEVANT CODE OF PRACTICE FOR COMMUNITY MUSIC FACILITATORS WORKING IN POSTCOLONIAL CONTEXTS

Community music is a professional area that increasingly provides income for musicians trained as performers in the European classical music traditions. My School of Music, like many higher learning institutions around the world, are creating courses that provide professional development and training to performers wishing to become community music teachers and arts facilitators. When preparing conservatory trained performers to be effective community music facilitators in a (post)colonial context, the genealogical narrative of a European conservatory model can work in direct opposition to the celebration of a local community’s music making. In this context European musical art objects can also act as public reminders of past historical trauma by supporting discourse that represents marginalised communities through the lens of the culture of power. While community music can sit uncomfortably in formal education, it provides the opportunity to unpack, reflect and transform a conventional music learning culture and its signature pedagogies. This paper describes the creation and transformation of a postgraduate research pedagogy course designed to support performance students planning to work in the community. In this course we explore several indigenous concepts including historical trauma as frameworks for discussing public narratives and regazing at communities’ identities, all to support better facilitation of community music activities. Through this process we identified a code of practice that enables our graduating community arts educators to better address socio-political issues that are specific to our context but also equip those students with a set of competencies that are transferrable to other global regions and arts practices.

Health beliefs, healing practices and medico-ritual frameworks in the Ecuadorian Andes: the continuity of an ancient tradition

ABSTRACT This paper introduces the European Commission-funded project ‘MEDICINE: Indigenous Concepts of Health and Healing in Andean Populations’, which takes a time-depth perspective to its subject, and uses a framework of interdisciplinary methods which integrates archaeological-historical, ethnographic and modern health sciences approaches. The long-term study objective is ultimately to offer novel perspectives and methods in the global agenda to develop policies sensitive to indigenous, refugee and migrant people’s social, economic and health needs, as well as culturally sensitive approaches to the conservation of their ‘intangible cultural heritage’. This paper focuses on the project’s first phase, the critical examination of archaeological and ethnohistorical evidence and accounts from contemporary indigenous practitioners of Andean Traditional Medicine. These sources then shape the development of health beliefs and practices models which have informed the development of questionnaires for the second ‘survey’ phase of three indigenous Andean populations in the Central Sierra region of Ecuador.