Submitted by AnarchoNeuroBunny in indigenous

I've been following some indigenous and anti-colonial movements for a while, but the more I learn the more I find it hard to define "indigenous" in my own political analysis. I'd like to ask how others define it.

I thought of a few options but none of them are quite satisfactory to me:

  1. People who are (descendants of) original inhabitants of the land. The obvious issue with this definition is how far back you go. For example, a lot of southern China (e.g. Guandong) have been inhabited by Han Chinese for a long time, but if you go back 3000 years, those places weren't inhabited by Han Chinese, but instead by Yue (Viet). They became Han proper through centuries of empire building, but this colonization/assimilation happened way too early for today's politics. So are Han Chinese the "original inhabitants" of those places? You could say no, but it wouldn't be useful for any political analysis today, especially when it comes to Hong Kong. Another issue with this definition is that it excludes nomadic peoples, whose cultures in today's settled civilization are the hardest to preserve. E.g. Romani people - are they indigenous?

  2. People who culturally have a non-extractive relationship with the land. This would make it easy to do political analysis (in other words, it's a lazy anarchist's definition), but obviously it is very exclusive. Cultures outside of the "Old World" can be authoritarian, war-like, and patriarchal even before colonizers arrived; some may have been pushed into these social systems by colonizers. Are they not indigenous? On the other hand, if a group of people start to live in a prefigurative commune, do they suddenly become indigenous?

  3. People who are targets of colonial policies. The problem is that this definition can be too broad. Colonizers can become colonized if their empire loses to another empire, but it doesn't make them "indigenous", e.g. Han Chinese in Taiwan during Japanese rule. Plus, some of the anti-colonial movements are quite literally nation-building projects, e.g. Uyghur and Tibetan independence movements.

Writing here I realized that I'm mentioning things related to China a lot. Perhaps the reason I'm having this question in the first place is that most of the discourse on indigenous peoples are about those who are colonized by white Europeans. When it comes to more nuanced politics that doesn't involve white people, suddenly things don't fit neatly anymore.

What are your thoughts?

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rot wrote

i don't know if using indigenous outside of the americas works for this reason, here there is a clear line of the first people to live on the continent and their cultures opposed to those who came later though colonization or immigration

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lettuceLeafer wrote

Not really, australia its clear to my understanding, and in the age of immperialism the conflic of phiillipies and america is clear and often the conflict of native africans and european powers

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Bezotcovschina wrote (edited )

Had similar conversation before /f/indigenous/121557/what-makes-someone-indigenous, might be helpful, but, still, I think there is no clear universal definition.

There best way to define it - is to reach out to your local indigenous communities, if you have any, and ask for their perspective. It still could be applied only locally, because indigenous people on other side of the world might have another opinion, but that's a start

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Majrelende wrote (edited )

I think the first and third are not really very practical definitions, because they shift around too much, or are unclear; or mostly based in the order of historical events, which is also weird. For #3, also, would that mean that before colonisers found out about some people, they wouldn't be indigenous?

Here is the one I use personally. #2, a culturally non-extractive relationship with the land, is the only one of those that is really viable for dealing with people in the present. Generational continuity seems important too, that the culture is stable enough to be, and has been, passed from generation to generation, without inciting conflict that tears it apart. In short, being stable, the ability to exist without expanding or destroying itself, because that is what cultures labelled "indigenous" have generally had this ability, if nothing else.

If you hear about some people going and conquering, then they probably have an extractive relationship with their own home, thus an inherently unstable/expansionist culture and you wouldn't be likely to call them indigenous, there or here. This also allows for migration, which we know, by people's own and imperial accounts alike, has happened among indigenous cultures. And if there are rebellions, it is unlikely that the culture is able to sustain itself socially.

So according to this definition an anarchic society can be indigenous or not, depending on whether it treats the land and people well enough and thus sustains itself indefinitely. And an indigenous society anarchic or not, but they are more likely to be the former to prevent mass emigration, ecological destruction, and rebellion.

This is all just the most satisfying definition I have found to make sense of things, without tying the definition to a particular conflict or time.

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lettuceLeafer wrote

I disagree with this as a fundamentally misunderstanding about race and ethnicity itself.

Where I live there are several west African restaurants. And a African grocery store that is primarily west African cuisine. And while I support these efforts and think they are interesting. But the idea that all people in west Africa have a same culture would be a ridiculous statement to anyone living there.

If you go to sierra leon and tell a native rural that they are the same ethnicity and the same culture of a creole American migrant I bet they would tell u that u are out of their mind despite all being black living in sierra leon and following a west African culture.

But these are very distinct ethnic groups with a very different dynamic in society. In fact I remember this black America that moved to a African country bc they were sick of racism and in their blog they claim that some of the native Africans would call them white and yell at them for stealing their jobs.

Because in this dynamic black people are extremely culturally different but have a shared identify as being oppressed by white people and colonizers. Pan Africanism wouldn't be a thing without immperialist.

So blackness is identify useful in describing a group oppressed by a cultural fraud that black people are inferior. Sure there is some shared feeling of culture in being oppressed. That can't be denied. And u can't fault black people in America from trying to grasp some cultural identify that was robbed from the.

This is the same for indigenous people. Indigenous people are a group only hemogenius in the fact that they are a group oppressed by settler colonialism. It is a cultural fiction that is only relevant due to while oppression. To prescribe indigenous people some coherent trait is falling for this made up fiction.

Palestinians are definitely indigenous as their story of a colonizing force displacing a native people and attacking them for their land. So they share a same story as the indigenous people of north America again Spaniards, french, English and United States government.

A story similar to how Africans we're treated by European immperialist policy or Phillip ones fighting US forces.

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Majrelende wrote (edited )

Okay. So to clarify, you are saying that indigenous is only a relevant label in the light of imperial oppression? Am I interpreting that right?

I am not arguing that indigenous cultures are all homogeneous if that was how it was interpreted. I was proposing a definition that essentially means they don't have to go out and conquer/expand for their culture to survive without collapsing.

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lettuceLeafer wrote

I was using homogenous more loosely tho I interpreted what ur saying as all indigenohs cultures are environmentally sustainable.

But honestly this definition doesn't work at all. In the Midwestern US there was an indigenous city that was unsustainable because city so they all died before the Europeans even landed but it's still an indigenous culture in my eyes and idk it would be weird to call it much different.

Yeah and for your first question that's what I think. Thi maybe imperialism isn't the right word, Im not sure if I it colonial campaigns count as immperilism for everyone.

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Majrelende wrote

Okay. I'm not well educated in definitions of words anyway.

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lettuceLeafer wrote

I don't think it really matters words can be defined as anything in my opinion as long as you explain it and it makes logical sense. Sure if you have an obscure definition and don't tell anyone that won't work but as long as you are clear in how you define words it works.

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