The Politics of Indigeneity: Dialogues and Reflections on Indigenous Activism

Provocative and original, The Politics of Indigeneity explores the concept of indigeneity across the world - from the Americas to New Zealand, Africa to Asia - and the ways in which it intersects with local, national and international social and political realities. Taking on the role of critical interlocutors, the authors engage in extended dialogue with indigenous spokespersons and activists, as well as between each other. In doing so, they explore the possibilities of a ’second-wave indigeneity’ - one that is alert to the challenges posed to indigenous aspirations by the neo-liberal agenda of nation-states and their concerns with sovereignty.

Timely and topical in its focus on global indigenous politics, and featuring a variety of first-hand indigenous voices - including those of indigenous activists, scholars, leaders and interviewees - this is a vital contribution to an often contentious topic.

Sita Venkateswar is International Director in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and Senior Lecturer in the Social Anthropology program at Massey University. Her ethnography, ＂Development and Ethnocide: Colonial Practices in the Andaman Islands,＂ is based on her PhD fieldwork in the Andaman Islands from 1989-1992. She has since been involved in research on child labor in Nepal and poverty and grassroots democracy in Kolkata, India. She is currently involved in exploring indigenous politics related to climate change as well as questions of displacement and belonging in relation to refugee resettlement in New Zealand and Europe.
Emma Hughes spent several years living in Egypt and working with women’s rights groups in Egypt and East Africa where she was involved with development and advocacy projects addressing women’s rights issues. In New Zealand, she worked first for the Centre for Indigenous Governance and Development at Massey University, and is currently a research adviser. As a visiting research scholar at the American University in Cairo in 2008, she returned to Egypt to document the Nubian case.