Global Politics and Its Violent Care for Indigeneity

Abstract

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Becoming Indigenous: the ‘speculative turn’ in anthropology and the (re)colonisation of indigeneity

“…11 Indigenous struggles in the 1980s became more overtly political as indigenous movements were able to gain national and even international political support for increased rights and recognition and for opposition to ongoing resource extraction, dispossession and displacement. 12 Political theorists were therefore drawn to particularly focus on indigenous resistance to the nation-state. 13 As indigenous peoples became feted as important political actors in their own right, critical appropriations of these struggles moved beyond the classist peasant studies of the 1960s-1980s to embrace more culturalist approaches that appreciated the distinctive epistemological and cosmological dimensions of indigenous political resistance.…”

Brokers of hope: Extractive industries and the dynamics of future-making in post-colonial Greenland

“…This child metaphor results in a number of related understandings of the Inuit: they need to learn from the whites, they need to be tutored, guided and helped and to be protected from the world until mature enough to engage in it. Consequently, the gradual historical change from colonial dependence to more self-determination has often been phrased as similar to a maturing child getting ready to move away from homeaway from the well-meaning care, embracing protection and supervision of parents (Lindroth & Sinevaara-Niskanen, 2018). The relationship between Denmark and Greenland can be understood by the concept of pastoral power, where Inuit in their helplessness (as seen from Denmark) are taken under the motherly wings of the Danes, brought into the modern world with the best intentions and rewarded when following the new standards and values.…”

Colonialism invigorated? The manufacture of resilient indigeneity

“…Miyazaki, 2004;Sutton, 2009). The resilience of indigenous peoples might enable them to persevere in the future, as they have in the past, but it will not make it possible for them to challenge or change the conditions of inequality embedded in this setting (Lindroth & Sinevaara-Niskanen, 2018). In sum, the political hype over resilient indigeneity presages a future where indigenous peoples can exist, be recognised and even be valued as subjects of a certain kind but may never gain equal rights or wealth.…”

“…With this promise of salvation the call for resilience joins the previous narratives of the postcolonial era, which have implied that the past and present suffering of the peoples will be their redemption in the future (Povinelli, 2011, p. 99). This promise locks indigeneity in a position where the envisioned endpoint or reward keeps eluding the peoples no matter how skillfully they keep adapting and adjusting (Lindroth & Sinevaara-Niskanen, 2018). As the peoples remain at the mercy of their conditions, always vigilant and on alert, 'salvation' turns out to be no more than the requirement that they continue to persevere.…”