We Are (Are We?) All Indigenous Here, and Other Claims about Space, Place, and Belonging in Asia

More‐than‐human supremacy: Himalayan lessons on cosmopolitics

“…In our case, situating Hindu supremacists’ assertions of indigeneity within history permits us to distinguish the politics that arise from this claim to ontological excess from the political articulations of tribal and Adivasi groups who increasingly lay claim to the “indigenous slot” in a variety of complex ways (Kikon, 2017; Krishnan, 2022; Li, 2000; Shah, 2010; Xaxa, 1999; Xaxa and Devy, 2021; cf. Eubanks and Sherpa, 2018; Karlsson, 2003). 12 For example, Virginius Xaxa (1999, 3594) notes that while the category “tribe” (which is often used interchangeably with “indigenous”) first emerged as a “term of administrative convenience” and was decisively shaped by colonial and postcolonial ethnography, it has been recently “reclaimed” by Adivasi groups to foreground their “dispossession” and “deprivation,” assert “self‐esteem,” and claim “rights over land, forest, water, minerals, and other resources” (cf.…”

“…Recognizing that indigeneity is a “contingent, interactive, and historical” category (Eubanks and Sherpa, 2018, vi) rather than an immutable ontological essence thus allows for a considered analysis of the ethics, ideology, and politics of different political movements that are rooted in claims to indigeneity. It makes space for casting a skeptical eye on claims to ontological difference and “excess” that authorize violence against ontological others while recognizing the powerful role that the very same claims can play in permitting marginalized groups to challenge historical experiences of violence and exclusion.…”

“…1313Even the term “adivasi,” Eubanks and Sherpa (2018) point out, is a “twentieth‐century Sanskrit neologism meaning, literally, ‘original inhabitant.’” This “singular moniker” conceals a “long and complex history of subjugation and “pacification,” beginning in the British imperial era and extending well beyond it, in which certain groups were identified with geographical areas (such as forested uplands) and accorded particular legal treatment as Scheduled Tribes in need, so the reasoning goes, of civilizing influence.”.…”