Indigenous peoples as international political actors: a summary

Abstract

The article discusses the results of a three year research project studying international indigenous political activism using case studies from the Arctic. Drawing on two different disciplinary starting points, international relations and international law, the project addressed two interrelated questions. The first of these was how relations between states, international organisations and indigenous peoples have been and are currently constructed as legal and political practices; the second was how indigenous peoples construct their political agency through different strategies to further their political interests. These questions are addressed from the point of view of power relations. The power to act is the basic form of political agency. However, this power may take different forms of political action, for example, self-identification, participation, influence, and representation. The main conclusions of the article are: 1) indigenous political agency is based on multiple forms of power; 2) practices of power that enable and constrain indigenous political agency change over time; 3) power circulates and produces multiple sites of encounters for states, international organisations and indigenous people; 4) indigenous political agency is a question of acting; and 5) there are new challenges ahead for indigenous peoples in claiming a political voice, in particular in global climate politics.

Old ways for new days: Australian Indigenous peoples and climate change

“…In this example, Indigenous peoples were being consulted and invited to participate in a REDD+ (stands for countries' efforts to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation) negotiation but were nonetheless effectively denied capacity to exercise agency as there were no means by which they can make a direct contribution and make sure their views were reflected. Alternatively, Tennberg (2010) shows Indigenous political agency can be based on multiple forms of powerthat they are changeable over time, that multiple sites of encounters and powers are produced across and within multiple agencies, and that there remain many challenges ahead for indigenous peoples in claiming a political voice, especially in relation to global climate politics. The assertion of agency is further well-defined in UN Climate Negotiations where Indigenous peoples influence the agenda by crafting their immaterial power resources through the transfer of knowledge resources and normative instances from distinct institutions (Wallbott 2014, 1).…”

Societal Impacts of a Rapidly Changing Arctic

“…The role of indigenous peoples in and for Arctic governance is reflected in their special standing as rights-holders in Arctic affairs and as holders of traditional and local knowledge [11,215]. Indigenous peoples' role in regional and international governance is increasingly examined [196,[216][217][218] as well as their own efforts to build political agency grounded in the colonial history of many Arctic states [219,220]. More broadly, contributions have contemplated using human rights as an ordering principle for Arctic governance to strengthen participation, information access, and the principle of free, prior, and informed consent for Arctic communities generally and indigenous peoples specifically [33,Ch.…”

Arctic Indigenous Societal Security at COP21: The Divergence of Security Discourse and Instruments in Climate Negotiations

“…Science, and in turn the policy community, treat the Arctic as a single unit under pressure from a variety of global forces. In analysing how native peoples construct their own political agency through different strategies to further their own political interests in the Arctic, Monica Tennberg furthers Martello's work to find that Indigenous political agency is based on multiple forms of power and activist leaders' ability to change the structure of power relations to create space for their own political agency (Tennberg 2010). Through the emergence of a regional identity, the voice of this new citizen has been recognized as an important part of knowledge creation of socio-ecological changes of the region's systems, providing a certain level of agency on the part of the Arctic Citizen that allows their voice to be heard through regional Indigenous organizations.…”