Gender and Rights 9780367245214, 9780367263225, 9780367262167

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GENDER AND RIGHTS

Part of the series Key Concepts in Indigenous Studies, this book focuses on the concepts that recur in any discussion of nature, culture and society among the indigenous. This book, the second in a five-­volume series, deals with the two key concepts of gender and rights of indigenous peoples from all continents of the world. With contributions from renowned scholars, activists and experts across the globe, it looks at issues of indigenous human rights, gender justice, repression, resistance, resurgence and government policies in Canada, Latin America, North America, Australia, India, Brazil, Southeast Asia and Africa. Bringing together academic insights and experiences from the ground, this unique book with its wide coverage will serve as a comprehensive guide for students, teachers and scholars of indigenous studies. It will be essential reading for those in gender studies, human rights and law, social and cultural anthropology, tribal studies, sociology and social exclusion studies, religion and theology, cultural studies, literary and postcolonial studies, Third World and Global South studies, as well as activists working with Indigenous communities. G. N. Devy is Honorary Professor, Centre for Multidisciplinary Development Research, Dharwad, India, and Chairman, People’s Linguistic Survey of India. An award-­winning writer and cultural activist, he is known for his 50-­volume language survey. He is Founder and the first Director of the Adivasi Academy at Tejgadh in Gujarat, India, and was formerly Professor of English at M. S. University of Baroda. He is the recipient of the Sahitya Akademi Award, Linguapax Prize, Prince Claus Award and Padma Shri. With several books in English, Marathi and Gujarati, he has co-­edited (with Geoffrey V. Davis and K. K. Chakravarty) Narrating Nomadism: Tales of Recovery and Resistance (2012); Knowing Differently: The Challenge of the Indigenous (2013); Performing Identities: Celebrating Indigeneity in the Arts (2014); and The Language Loss of the Indigenous (2016), published by Routledge.

Geoffrey V. Davis was Professor of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Literatures at the University of Aachen, Germany. He was international chair of the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (ACLALS) and chair of the European branch (EACLALS). He coedited Cross/Cultures: Readings in the Post/ Colonial Literatures and Cultures in English and the African studies series Matatu. His publications include Staging New Britain: Aspects of Black and South Asian British Theatre Practice (2006) and African Literatures, Postcolonial Literatures in English: Sources and Resources (2013).

Key Concepts in Indigenous Studies Series Editors: G. N. Devy Honorary Professor, Centre for Multidisciplinary Development Research, Dharwad, India, and Chairman, People’s Linguistic Survey of India Geoffrey V. Davis Former Professor of Commonwealth and Postcolonial Literatures, University of Aachen, Germany

This series of volumes offers the most systematic and foundational literature available to date for use by undergraduate and postgraduate students of indigenous studies. It brings together essays by experts from across the globe on concepts forming the bedrock of this rapidly growing field in five focused volumes: Environment and Belief Systems (Vol. 1); Gender and Rights (Vol. 2); Indigeneity and Nation (Vol. 3); Orality and Language (Vol. 4); and Performance and Knowledge (Vol. 5). These contain short, informative and easily accessible essays on the perspectives of indigenous communities from all continents of the world. The essays are written specifically for an international audience. They thus allow drawing of transnational and cross-cultural parallels, and form useful material as textbooks as well as texts for general readership. Introducing a new orientation to traditional anthropology with comprehensive and in-depth studies, the volumes foreground knowledge traditions and praxis of indigenous communities. Environment and Belief Systems Edited by G. N. Devy and Geoffrey V. Davis Gender and Rights Edited by G. N. Devy and Geoffrey V. Davis Indigeneity and Nation Edited by G. N. Devy and Geoffrey V. Davis Orality and Language Edited by G. N. Devy and Geoffrey V. Davis Performance and Knowledge Edited by G. N. Devy and Geoffrey V. Davis For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Key-Concepts-in-Indigenous-Studies/book-series/KCIS

GENDER AND RIGHTS

Edited by G. N. Devy and Geoffrey V. Davis

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 selection and editorial matter, G. N. Devy and Geoffrey V. Davis; individual chapters, the contributors The right of G. N. Devy and Geoffrey V. Davis to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ­ ­ ­ ­ (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-24521-4 ­ ­ ­ ­ (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-26322-5 ­ ­ ­ ­ (ebk) ISBN: 978-0-367-26216-7 Typeset in Bembo by Apex CoVantage, LLC

CONTENTS

List of contributors ix Prefacex Acknowledgementsxv Introduction G. N. Devy 1 Writing and re-­writing indigenous human rights in the African laboratory Michela Borzaga

1

9

2 Indigenous rights in Latin America: repression, resistance, resurgence41 Rebecca K. Root 3 Gender justice and indigenous women in Latin America Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo Translated by Rodrigo Alvarez Hernández

60

4 Gender in North America Priscilla Settee

77

5 Indigenous human rights in Canada Michael Keefer

91

viii Contents

6 Constitutional geographies and cartographies of impunity: human rights and adivasis/tribes in contemporary India Kalpana Kannabiran 7 Empowerment: Gaddi women of Himachal Pradesh, India Molly Kaushal 8 Gender in Australian indigenous literature and Maori and Pacific Island literatures Anne Brewster and Chris Prentice

137 158

177

Index210

CONTRIBUTORS

Michela Borzaga is Lecturer, English Department, University of Vienna, Austria. Anne Brewster is Associate Professor, School of the Arts and Media, University of

New South Wales, Australia. Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo is Senior Professor at the Center for Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), Mexico City. Kalpana Kannabiran is Professor of Sociology and Director, Council for Social Development, Hyderabad, India, a research institute supported by the Indian Council for Social Science Research. She has taught sociology and law at NALSAR University of Law and is co-­founder of Asmita Resource Centre for Women. Molly Kaushal is Professor at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New

Delhi, India. Michael Keefer is Professor Emeritus, School of English and Theatre Studies, University of Guelph, Canada. Chris Prentice is Associate Professor, Department of English and Linguistics, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Rebecca K. Root is Associate Professor of Political Science and International Stud-

ies, and Director of the College Honors Program and the minor in Human Rights and Genocide Studies, Ramapo College of New Jersey, USA. Priscilla Settee is Associate Professor, Department of Native Studies, University of

Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, Canada.

PREFACE

The volumes in this series have long been in making. The idea came up in 2011 in a conversation between Prof. Geoffrey Davis and me. The two of us had by then worked on six anthologies related to Indigenous Studies to which scholars from all continents had contributed. Two of these are published by Orient BlackSwan (Indigeneity, 2009 and Voice and Memory, 2011) and four by Routledge between 2012 and 2016 (Narrating Nomadism, Knowing Differently, Performing Identities and The Language Loss of the Indigenous). However, we felt that we need to do more, a lot more, in order to firmly establish this newly emerging field. Shashank Sinha and Shoma Choudhury of Routledge showed a keen interest in our proposal. Enthused by the idea of bringing out a set of volumes dealing with some of the definitive themes of the field and assured by the possibility of publication of the volumes, we started our work. Of course, it was not entirely easy going for us. The challenges were many and the scale in which we wanted to cast the volumes was not easy to handle. Despite the difficulties and setbacks expected in such an intellectual venture, we kept up. Most of the editorial work was completed by early 2018. As we were getting ready to send the typescripts, alas, Prof. Geoffrey Davis died after a short stay in an Aachen hospital. His last mail came to me a day before he was admitted. The loss was a big blow to me. His friends and colleagues, spread over virtually all continents, deeply mourned his death. For me, the most civilized way of mourning was to ensure that the volumes to which he had contributed so much care and toil get published. Who was Geoffrey Davis and why was he interested in the indigenous? Perhaps the best way for me to explain this is to repeat here the response I sent to two questions from Prof. Janet Wilson (hereafter JW) of Southampton University. JW:

What were the points of synergy (ideological, intellectual, political activist) that brought you and Geoff together, and when and how

Preface  xi

did this  happen, i.e., what were the particular contexts/motivations?  I remember I  think Geoff had just retired and was possibly looking for a new project? And might have been inspired through his involvement with ACLALS [Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies]. DEVY: I think I met him the first time in 1984 at the EACLALS conference at Sitges, Spain. During the 1980s, I was a regular at the EACLALS since India did not have an active Commonwealth Literature culture as yet. But my memory of that meeting is not very clear. In 1988, Geoff had convened a conference at Aachen, Germany, where Geoff spent most of his academic life. I was invited to it for a plenary. This experience left me impressed by his organisational ability. In between, we had met at other places too, Austria, Hungary, Singapore. But all these meetings were casual; and I  do not recall any memorable conversation having taken place between us during these conferences. During the 1990s, Geoff hosted a conference on Literature and Activism. I left my professorship at Baroda, India, in 1996. Geoff had heard about this move from friends. He asked me to lecture at the conference. I did. It was during this conference I noticed that he was deeply respectful of activism, that his empathy for the dispossessed was genuinely deep. I also noticed that he was extremely wary of using clichéd and fashionable jargon. The impression these qualities made on me was strong. A  few years later, he attended the ACLALS Triennial in Hyderabad, India. He wrote to me asking if he could visit me after the Hyderabad conference. He knew that I had stopped attending academic conferences and there was no chance of our meeting in Hyderabad. So I invited him to Baroda, 1500 km north of Hyderabad.   I am not sure if he enjoyed his visit to Baroda. On the day he was to arrive, for reasons difficult for to me know, I altogether forgot about his arrival. I was to meet him at the airport. Baroda in those days was a very small airport and every day, only three or four flights arrived there. And overseas visitors were not a common sight. Geoff waited there till almost the last co-­traveller had left the meeting area. The last one to leave happened to be an architect named Karan Grover, who is a living legend in the field of architecture. Grover asked Geoff if he was expecting anyone. Geoff mentioned my name. This worked. Karan Grover and I had been friends for decades and Geoff was made to feel welcome on my behalf, brought to his lodgings and, the forgetting and forgiving over, we met over dinner. The next day, I drove him in my car to the location of the Adivasi Academy (the Tribal University) that I was trying to establish in those years. This location was 90  km east of Baroda. On the way, I talked with passion all about my plans, my dreams. He listened. He spent another day in Baroda meeting Karan and enjoyed the famous Grover wine. I was busy in my work with the tribal academy. The next

xii Preface



morning, I drove Geoff to the airport as he was leaving for Bombay and then to Aachen. At the airport, he asked me if I could have him visit the Adivasi Academy again for a longer time, a week or so. I said, “Why do you not stay for a semester?” He was a bit puzzled by my offer, made in such a casual manner. So, I added, “Be a Fellow with us.” He took that offer and returned to Baroda the following year, but for a short time. I think it was after two more brief trips that he agreed to spend six months in Baroda.   I must explain that the Adivasi Academy is not like a university. It is a community workstation at best, with really very minimal facilities that makes for most of us what we call ‘civilisation.’ The fellowship had no set rules. They were made looking at the individual’s ability and desire to contribute what one had promised to contribute. . . . The projects ranged from writing a book or an article, teaching music or language to children, keeping the library or museum in good order, tending a piece of agricultural land, setting up a community micro-­credit group or just documenting any of these activities. When Geoff became a Fellow of the Adivasi Academy, there were three others, Brian and Eileen Coates from Limerick, Ireland, and Lachman Khubchandani, a linguist from Pune, India. Eileen had accepted to help us with the museum and Lachman was to write a book on linguistics. I  was more ambitious with Geoff. I said to him, “If you do not mind, please do nothing, only watch what goes on here and when it pleases you, discuss ideas with me.” He agreed. The facilities given to the Fellows included housing in Baroda and meals when they visited the academy, 90 km away from Baroda. All my meetings with tribals were transacted in their languages. English words were rarely heard. Only occasionally, some visitors helped Geoff with English interpretations. Geoff, I must say, braved all of this discomfort without a murmur. The impression I had formed about his deep empathy for the dispossessed became firmer. In the fifth month of his stay, I sent a word to him asking if he was available for a serious conversation. He obliged. We met in my Baroda office – the Bhasha Centre – at 2 pm. I asked him if he would join me in imagining an international ‘non-­conference’ for looking at the world through the perspective of the indigenous. He said, “I cannot promise, but I will try.” Our conversation continued for several hours and, probably, both of us had a reasonably good idea of what must be avoided in making our idea of conference completely rooted to the ground. I  proposed the name chotro (a shared platform); he consented to it with great enthusiasm. Next morning, I found him at Bhasha. He had a ‘Call for Chotro’ ready with him. I made several calls to various offices and individuals in Delhi to finalize the material arrangements for the First Chotro. That afternoon, Geoff sat at the computer and sent out close to 150 emails. Before he left Baroda, we were fully involved in putting together the unusual conference.

Preface  xiii



  He made one visit to India before the conference was held, in Delhi, in January 2008. We met in Delhi. I had to combine some of my other works with the work related to Chotro. One of these involved a visit to the Prime Minister’s office. He was a bit shocked when I told him that after sorting out the conference-­related arrangements for stay and local transportation, I  would be going to the PM’s office and he was welcome to join me. (Years later, I heard him narrating this anecdote to friends over a glass of wine.) The Delhi Chotro was the first one. We put together several more in subsequent years and worked on the conference volumes, meeting in several countries. Geoff became a frequent visitor to India, to Baroda, and to my home and family. I am not aware if we shared an ideology. In a way, all of us in the field of literature have a varying degree of progressive outlook on life and society. But what clicked between Geoff and me is something else, and that is his immense patience with my and his ability to cope with surprises and shocks, which could not be avoided considering my involvement in several social causes. John Keats, speaking of William Shakespeare’s ‘genius’, had used the term ‘negative capability’  – the ability to live amidst uncertainties. The mutual recognition of this negative capability brought us together for undertaking unconventional kind of work, serious though not strictly academic. JW: What roles or positions did Geoff take as collaborator, e.g., in co-­organizing Chotro and in working with the Adivasis/Bhasha more generally? DEVY: When we thought of creating the Chotro non-­conferences, we had no funding support. We had no sponsors, no funds for international travel. Bhasha Centre was not a full-­scale institution before then. Besides, ‘Indigenous Studies’ was not any accepted field of academic work. We were not sure if any self-­respecting publisher would accept to publish the proceedings. Therefore, in all of these matters, we shared responsibility. But, generally speaking, he dealt with the overseas participants and I  handled the Indian issues, material and academic. I  accepted to identify publishers, negotiate with them, do the necessary correspondence; Geoff focused on copy editing the texts. But this division of work was not sanctimonious. Either of us was free to cross over and even required to do so if the other was very busy. Never forget that Geoff had his other major obligations and academic projects, and I had mine. We had no desire to claim credit for the work we were doing. It was born out of our desire to create a legitimate space for the voices of the indigenous. I hope my response to Janet Wilson will have made it clear why I enjoyed working with Geoffrey Davis on so many intellectual projects. In India’s intellectual history, there have been glorious examples of intellectual collaboration between Indian thinkers and scholars, and writers and scholars from other countries. W. B. Yeats

xiv Preface

and Purohit Swamy, Yeats and Tagore, Tolstoy and Gandhi developed their ideas through such collaborations. In our time, with the rising tide of right-­wing political parties, a narrow idea of nationalism is gaining a greater currency, making such collaborations difficult to carry through. I am pleased that this series of volumes is seeing the light of the day bringing my work together with Geoffrey Davis to a successful conclusion.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The initial idea of this volume and the series to which it belongs came up in 2012. In that year, Prof. Geoffrey Davis, who was to be the co-­editor, corresponded with several scholars from the field of Commonwealth Literature and other academic disciplines. These scholars, from various disciplines and several continents, gave their advice and suggestions for identifying scholars to be involved in the project. They are too numerous to be mentioned individually. I would like to record my gratitude to them. The scholars and activists who consented to contribute, and the majority of them who kept their promise, made the putting together of the volumes possible. Their participation in the most tangible way calls for my thanks. Several organizations and institutions offered Prof. Davis and me opportunities to meet and take forward our plans for these volumes. They include the Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, for a conference in Cyprus; Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, Baroda, for various events through these years; the Kiel Voche, organized by Kiel City Council, in Germany; the German Academy, for convening a conference at Hamburg; Aide et Action, for convening a meeting in Geneva; and several Indian colleges and universities, for creating spaces on the sidelines of conferences – I thank all of them. I wonder if, without these meetings, the project would have moved forward at all. I would like to thank Ingrid Davis, Prof. Davis’s wife, for ungrudgingly encouraging him to spend his funds and time on travels to India to work on this project. Surekha, my life partner, has most generously supported the project throughout its years of slow progress by providing ideas, hospitality and courage. I cannot thank her enough. The publication of these volumes would not have been at all possible had it not been for the abiding friendship and support of Dr. Shashank Shekhar Sinha, Publishing Director, and his inspiring colleague Shoma Choudhury at Routledge. I carry in my heart the comfort drawn from their genuine friendship.

INTRODUCTION G. N. Devy

Identity, environment, language, gender, belief systems, performance traditions and rights are some of the more central issues relating to the struggles and the survival of the Indigenous all over the world. Their local features vary from community to community and from country to country. However, the general narrative is fairly common. Quintessentially, this narrative refers to a colonial experience that hammered a break in the long-­standing traditions of the Indigenous, who nevertheless kept close to their traditions, and close also to nature. However, in the process they lost control over natural resources, land, rivers and forests and clashed with a radically different framework of justice, ethics and spirituality. For the Indigenous, invariably, there are two points in time marking their emergence: one that is traced back to a mythological time enshrined in their collective memory and expressed in their community’s ‘story of origin’, and the other that is synchronous with a Columbus or a Vasco da Gama setting foot on the land that was once their dominion. It is true that no established research or theory in archaeology, anthropology, genetics, cultural geography, historical linguistics, agriculture or forestry shows that Indigenous people have inhabited the land where they were when colonialism was inaugurated. In fact, only a very small portion of them have been associated with their present habitat since Homo sapiens have inhabited the Earth. There were migrations from place to place, even from continent to continent, during the pre-­historic times as well. Yet, despite pre-­historic migrations, it is true that the Indigenous communities have been associated with their habitats for a considerably long time. The European colonial quest, the territorial and cultural invasion associated with it, and the interference of alien political, ecological and theological paradigms threatened the traditions that the Indigenous had developed. The absence of desire on their part to accept the new paradigms or internalize them made colonizers view Indigenous peoples as ‘others’ and as ‘primitive’. It is common sense that the term ‘Indigenous’ as a part of a binary

2  G. N. Devy

can have meaning only when there are other terms such as ‘alien’, ‘outsiders’, ‘non-­native’ and ‘colonialists’. The one without the other would cease to have the meaning that it now has. Though the census exercises in different countries do not use a uniform framework, methodology or orientation, the data available through the census carried out by different nations shows that approximately 370 million people in the world population are Indigenous. The communities identified as Indigenous on the basis of their location, uniqueness of tradition, social structures and community law number close to 5,000 and are spread over 90 countries. Several different terms are used for describing them in different continents: ‘Aborigine’, ‘Janjati’, ‘Indigenous’, ‘First Nations’, ‘Natives’, ‘Indian’ and ‘Tribe’. In most countries, the identification and listing of such communities is by no means complete and has remained, over the past seven decades, since the United Nations Organisation was set up, an unfinished process. Despite the inadequacy of the world’s knowledge about the Indigenous, it is clear that their existence, environment, cultural ethos, lifestyles and values have been under a relentless assault by the practices, culture and value of the rest of the world. In recognition of the threat to Indigenous cultures and knowledge systems, to their land and environment, to their languages, livelihood and law, the United Nations came out with a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, accepted by the UN General Assembly in September  2007. The following three Articles of the Declaration address the most fundamental issues involved in the genocidal threat to their survival and their unique cultures: Article 25: Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and coastal seas and other resources and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations in this regard. Article 26: 1. Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired. 2. Indigenous peoples have the right to own, use, develop and control the lands, territories and resources that they possess by reason of traditional ownership or other traditional occupation or use, as well as those which they have otherwise acquired. 3. States shall give legal recognition and protection to these lands, territories and resources. Such recognition shall be conducted with due respect to the customs, traditions and land tenure systems of the indigenous peoples concerned.

Introduction  3

Article 27: States shall establish and implement, in conjunction with Indigenous peoples concerned, a fair, independent, impartial, open and transparent process, giving due recognition to Indigenous peoples’ laws, traditions, customs and land tenure systems, to recognize and adjudicate the rights of Indigenous peoples pertaining to their lands, territories and resources, including those which were traditionally owned or otherwise occupied or used. Indigenous peoples shall have the right to participate in this process. Given that the Indigenous comprise less than 5 percent of the world’s total population, and also that they are sharply divided in terms of tribe and community within a given country, every Indigenous community exists as a minuscule minority within its political nation. To be Indigenous is, in our time, to be severely marginalized in economy, politics, institutionalized knowledge and institutionalized religion. The space for the Indigenous is rapidly shrinking. The year of this writing, 2019, has been declared by UNESCO as the Year of the Indigenous Languages. There have been official celebrations and academic conference to observe the year. However, it is a fact that several thousand of the languages still kept alive by Indigenous communities are close to extinction. A comprehensive survey that I conducted of the 780 living languages in India in 2010 showed that nearly 300 languages, all of these spoken by the Indigenous peoples, may disappear in the next few decades. In India, the National Government passed a law in 2008 requiring the land ownership of the tribal communities to be returned to them. However, nearly half of the claims have yet to be settled and the Supreme Court of India has already asked the families whose land title claims not been accepted to evacuate the land. This is the situation not only in India: it is so in Thailand where the tribals in Chiang Mai area have been fighting a bitter battle for land ownership; in Mexico, they are struggling to keep their languages alive; in Australia, despite the best efforts by government, the status of the Aborigines in professions and educational institutions remains far from what was visualized; in New Zealand, they had been facing social discrimination and continue to do so; and in Africa their plight still deserves the description ‘genocidal neglect’. Despite legal provisions aimed at safeguarding these communities and their cultures, they are diminishing and suffering an undeserving obsolescence in the world that is considering when to announce officially that the Anthropocene, the epoch of unprecedented interference with nature fundamentally altering the Earth, has commenced. On 29 May 2019, I received in my email inbox a press release from ESRC, an international network for economic and social rights. It referred to an on-­going struggle of the Ogoni people in Nigeria whose land is slotted to be used for oil drilling. It claims, “The said oil operation, with military cover, is billed to commence in the coming months, as parties involved have been instructed on their respective roles. Each of the security agencies listed in the plan has been tasked with specific roles and responsibilities, particularly, in tackling voices of dissent in

4  G. N. Devy

the Ogoni community.” It rued the fact that “rather than going through the proper and legitimate means and process, the government chooses to ignore the people of Ogoni and prefers to engage and impose an oil prospecting company on them, even with an intent to intimidate, suppress and kill the people more with the use of heavily armed security forces.” The press release concluded by reminding the readers that the Ogoni people have never opposed the government activity in the Ogoniland but have insisted on “the issues of benefits-­sharing, community participation and the proper environmental management of the Ogoni ecosystem, including legacy issues arising from the over four decades of reckless oil operations in the land.” For nearly a quarter-­century now, since the internet became a means of communication, I have been receiving such statements in my mailbox from Indigenous communities or organizations working on their behalf. They bring a narrative in which the characters change but the plot is predictably the same. It involves a rather helpless Indigenous community trying to establish that the natural resource involved is its legacy and a corporate body supported by government and aided by police, military or private security troops denying the community’s right. Normally the conclusion of this story is in the slow dissemination of the community voice and in a gradual success of the state in imposing its will on the community. Rarely do the Indigenous succeed in getting their voices heard and respected. From Paraguay to Malaysia and from Canada to Australia – west, east, north, south – the story of conquest of the natural resources of the Indigenous peoples by the ‘civilized’ (read ‘exploitative economies and industrial technologies’) has been with us as a commonplace for the last few decades. An unending environmental degradation of habitats of the Indigenous has been the norm, not an exception, implied in the massive movement of capital across countries. Exploitation of the natural resources has devastated the traditional habitats of the Indigenous people. This situation is not peculiar to any single country or continent; it is the general condition of the Indigenous all over the world. The unjust exploitation of natural resources in Indigenous habitats has implications far more profound than either anthropologists or ecologists like to accept. In the opening chapter in this volume, ‘Writing and re-­writing Indigenous human rights in the African laboratory,’ Michela Borzaga takes us through the negotiations related to the habitat and resources witnessed by Indigenous communities in Africa over the past century. The chapter opens by pointing out that the first recorded land claim by the Maasai, in 1913, and the formation of the Maasai association, in 1930, led to the emergence of various movements for Indigenous land rights. However, the nature of the movements has been undergoing a transformation as the idea of territory, entangled in global capital forces, requires a fresh reading. The chapter describes the ‘second wave’ of the Indigenous struggles in Africa as deeply entrenched in the new notion of citizenship. The conclusion drawn is true for Kenya and South Africa as it is for the Indigenous people on other continents: In an age of ecological crisis, identity can no longer be dictated by spatial geography alone. New definitions of citizenship, new democratic projects are required

Introduction  5

that go beyond abstract, individualistic definitions of human rights. There is not much point in talking about human rights if life resources are not preserved and eco-­systems are allowed to be destroyed by oil or gas spills. Human rights cannot only be written in the aftermath of disastrous violations or genocide. More than ever, it has become urgent to rethink human rights in connection with life, the preservation of life and life resources. Indeed, it would be a gross travesty of the issue if the question of rights is seen entirely through the narrow perspective of welfare measures and the entitlements accessed by the Indigenous through the state patronage. For instance, the Indian government provides reservations in schools and jobs for the listed Indigenous communities, officially described as jan-­jati, but has introduced discriminatory citizenship policy that will deny shelter to forced migrants – Indigenous people from the neighbouring countries. The question of Indigenous rights acquires dimensions that it did not have in an older and less mobile world of the past. In his chapter ‘Indigenous human rights in Canada’, Michael Keefer delves into the complexities in the rights issues associated with the state policy, particularly when the organic link between the home policy and the external policy are clearly at odds with each other. He takes the case of Canada and argues that “the subject of Indigenous human rights in Canada must be approached with a critical eye to nuance and context. For, as with the gap between Canadian human rights rhetoric and actions in Afghanistan, Haiti and Israel/Palestine, there have been repeated divergences between promise and performance in government statements and actions relating to the Aboriginal treaty and human rights of Indigenous people.” These complexities can become even more bewitching in a country where the general society is divided by unstated but rigidly followed caste norms based on the idea of ‘social pollution’. In ‘Constitutional geographies and cartographies of impunity’, Kalpana Kannabiran details the slippages between the constitutional provisions for the Indigenous and the delivery of those provisions. Her chapter presents a full picture of the anomalies between the ‘meaning of being Indigenous’ and the policy construction of the Indigenous components of India’s vast and complex population. It should indeed be an eye-­opener for every student of Indian sociology and polity. She comments: The trope of ‘legal anomaly’, which is the direct result of the juridification of the geographies of adivasi experience in India, takes several forms – conflicting legal provisions wherein the provision enabling access is inevitably defeated; non-­implementation of legislation by the executive; reductionist interpretations of legislation through administrative law wherein the formulation of rules at the level of states defeats the core purpose or statement of objects and reasons of a legislation (as in the case of Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996); and the overriding powers of eminent domain in a constitutional era where a colonial principle overrides constitutional geographies. Together, these and multifarious other manifestations of such anomalies, legitimized through the marking of a legal regime, imbricate adivasis in webs of cultural trauma, human rights wrongs and constitutional

6  G. N. Devy

violations that make their everyday lives in a constitutional terrain a place where the past lingers in far-­reaching ways. Clearly, the question of rights is not just the question of state patronage, however noble may be its intentions. It is intimately related with agency. The Indigenous struggles all over the world show that rights ‘taken’ are far more tangible than rights ‘given’. Molly Kaushal’s study of the Gaddi women complements Kannabiran’s chapter. The Gaddi community in the western Himalayan states has traditionally been a nomadic community, leading an existence organically linked with its pastoral lifestyle. It and many other nomadic and pastoral communities were wrongly branded by the colonial government in India as ‘criminal tribes’. The branding led to their becoming disinherited from the organicity of the link between human communities and their cattle, herds, natural seasons and cultural practices. Freedom for them neither begins nor ends with merepolitical freedom. It goes far beyond, to areas such as culture, imagination, craft and arts. The gender empowerment for the Gaddi women, therefore, takes on hues very different from what other gender justice movements understand by the term. Evidently, the gender structuring in Indigenous communities is, as yet, far from fully represented, let alone being adequately theorized. The well-­documented history of women’s imaginative expression by Anne Brewster and Chris Prentice in their jointly written chapter on Australia and the Pacific brings out the many layers of history simultaneously residing in the imagination of women writers. Brewster observes, “Many Aboriginal women authors have emphatically affirmed the truth effects of life writing. They consider that their task is to record Indigenous history in order to correct the silences and omissions of official history.” As it happens with all varieties of post-­colonial literature, the West continues to exert an influ­ ence on the creativity of Indigenous writers in Australia and New Zealand. But, in their case, it is the contestation of the Western fantasy of being in the Pacific that becomes the focus, often resulting in repudiation of the Western idea of eroticism. Prentice comments, “While Pacific women poets have protested the unequal status of women from the 1970s, fictional works from the 1990s more uncompromisingly give voice to female experiences of domestic and sexual violence perpetrated by male family and community members. However, such violence is also cast variously as a repudiation of Western fantasies of Pacific eroticism, and as a colonial departure from more flexible gender and sexual identities, sanctioned within some traditional Pacific cultures, and explored in recent fiction, poetry and drama.” The chapter ‘Gender in North America’ by Priscilla Settee is an essay that combines her anguish as an activist with insightful observations as a cultural analyst. Like Brewster and Prentice with Australia and the Pacific, Settee, too, finds it necessary to look at the colonial impact on the gender construction in Canada. The question of violence comes quite naturally in her analysis: The entrenched history of violence against Indigenous people in Canada has set the stage for what is a tragic phenomenon among Indigenous women.

Introduction  7

Today racist and sexist legacies persist through missing and murdered Indigenous women, Indigenous women being the most rapidly growing prison populations and other factors of marginalization. A huge campaign, largely organized by Indigenous women, continues to develop, forcing the state to take some action; however, more often than not, that action is little better than window dressing. The activist strand in Settee’s chapter is complimented by Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo’s account of the Indigenous movements in Central and South America. She recognizes in it that not all gender justice movements are entirely Indigenous in origin and that many of them are indeed inspired by the global discourse of such struggles. Yet, there are other struggles in action – in Guatemala, Mexico, Ecuador and Bolivia – which are charting their own paths drawn upon the traditional wisdom of the Indigenous and “laying the foundations to rethink culture from a gender perspective, and gender from a cultural perspective.” These movements require a greater attention from the rest of the world and from other leading gender-­theorists in mainstream academic and activist spheres. The chapters by Kaushal, Hernandez Castillo, Prentice, Brewster and Settee need to be read as an extended text that positions the gender-­justice issue in the Indigenous world more as an understanding of women’s symbiosis with nature and tradition rather than their alienation from power and knowledge. Together, they offer a new statement of the politics rooted in concern for the ecological good; and, together, they point to how significantly different is the relationship between rights and gender for the Indigenous people. Rebecca K. Root’s study of repression, resistance and resurgence of the Indigenous in Latin America presents a comprehensive account of struggles waged by the Indigenous in several South American countries for rights and gender justice. The spectrum of struggles she presents forms an insightful and non-­romantic history of the Indigenous of our time, history of a large section of the contemporary world victimized by the past and yet resurgent in the hope of re-­building a civilization that may bring back dignity to land, life and humans. In placing these eight chapters in this volume, I feel reasonably sure that, together, they present a complete perspective on how we should view the equation of rights and the question of gender when we think with the Indigenous and when we think of the Indigenous. This five-­volume series is intended to comment on the processes through which the clash of civilizations affects the society, culture, belief systems and languages. Each of the volumes deals with a related set of two key issues crucial to understanding the Indigenous and thinking about the processes affecting their culture and life. These are: Environment and Belief Systems, Volume 1; Gender and Rights, Volume 2; Indigeneity and Nation, Volume 3; Orality and Language, Volume 4; and Performance and Knowledge, Volume 5. These key concerns were selected for discussion based on my three-­decades of experience of living amidst and working with some of the Indigenous communities in western India. A large number of consultations, discussions, workshops and field visits have led me to believe that at this juncture of history, these ten form the key concepts that one must comprehend

8  G. N. Devy

in order to imagine and understand the Indigenous peoples. The volumes present in-­depth studies in the form of long essays ranging from 8,000 to 10,000 words and useful bibliographies. However, these chapters are not purely academic studies. They refer, not so much to previously accumulated knowledge in the fields of anthropology, linguistics, literature, social sciences, law and art criticism; rather, the chapters focus on the lived life more than on any field of knowledge. They relate to the prevailing contexts surrounding the communities discussed, without, however, lacking in academic rigour. Many of the contributors have been activists in addition to being scholars. Besides, they are drawn from all continents, in most cases from the communities themselves, and they bring to these volumes their valuable experience of the Indigenous from all of those continents. Thus, the five volumes, focusing on ten key concepts, effectively speak about the Indigenous peoples in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific region; in India and East Asia; in Africa and in the Americas. Each of the volume has seven or eight chapters which open up a range of themes and questions related to the specific key terms discussed. It is hoped that these volumes will form valuable reading for students, researchers and academics interested in knowing what the Indigenous communities think about themselves and about the contemporary world. The publication of this series of volumes brings me a great personal satisfaction. I was trained in an era when ‘excellence’ in literature was ascribed to works in the main European languages alone. In my early years as a professor at an Indian university, I  started noticing that the rich and unique culture of the Indigenous communities was at that time like a continent about to be submerged under the ferocious cultural assault of urban-­ industrial values and materials. My unease increased so much that I felt compelled to drop out of academic life and to move to a tiny village where the Rathwa Indigenous community lived. That opened a new universe for me. There was so much to experience, see and learn from them, most of all how limited was what I had till then imagined as ‘knowledge’. Throughout my years spent with them, it was never my intention to ‘represent’ them to the rest of the world that was on a path of ecological destruction. My task was to let the Indigenous express themselves, to create spaces for their voice, to facilitate that expression. I  realized that the gap between the Indigenous and the universe of formal knowledge, labour and economy was unbridgeable. During the last three decades, all of my intellectual and activist work has remained devoted to bridging this abysmal gap. The publication of this series, Key Concepts in Indigenous Studies, is a small step in that direction. I would like to hope in all humility that it will achieve what it aims to, and will remind the readers that the Earth does not belong to us; we belong to it.

Reference World Bank. ‘Indigenous Peoples’, www.worldbank.org/en/topic/indigenouspeoples (accessed on 29 May 2019).

1 WRITING AND RE-­WRITING INDIGENOUS HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AFRICAN LABORATORY Michela Borzaga

‘Indigenousness’, intended as a ‘rights-­bearing sign’ (Povinelli 1999: 32), is and is not a recent phenomenon in Africa. If, by indigenous rights activism, we mean the transnational human rights network, whose work culminated in the ratification of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007, Africa’s involvement in and contribution to this movement is a fairly recent one, dating back to the early 1990s. If, instead, by indigenous rights activism, we mean the struggle against Western colonialism, then, of course, we are dealing with a much older phenomenon. The first land claim on behalf of the Maasai, for instance, was filed in the High Court of British East Africa in 1913; the first Maasai Association was founded in Kenya in 1930 (Hughes 2006). As Steven Robins has shown in his magisterial study on South African indigenous activism, organizations set up to defend Nama groups were already present at the time of the anti-­apartheid struggle in the 1980s (Robins 2008). This, then, suggests that the unprecedented number of indigenous rights movements, which have proliferated across the African continent since the early 1990s, did not fall onto an empty stage. This chapter concerns itself with the first of the aforementioned phenomena, with what we could call the ‘second wave’ of indigenous activism in Africa. Obviously, this second wave is not a linear or progressive extension of previous anti-­ colonial struggles. On the contrary: a whole new context has unfolded, with new actors and new power holders in place. When comparing anti-­apartheid movements and more recent indigenous rights movements in South Africa, Robins speaks of a ‘seismic shift’ (Robins 2008: 3), both as far as the political agenda and as far as the political lexicon are concerned. He argues that anti-­apartheid struggles were led by revolutionary militant groups. They unfolded at a time when a socialist vision was still feasible. They represented a class struggle against structural injustices and racial capitalism. Today, many of those who contributed to these revolutionary movements have become part of a privileged ruling elite.

10  Michela Borzaga

They find themselves enmeshed in neoliberal economies in a post-­socialist, hyper-­ consumerist world, which, for some commentators, has led to the ‘depoliticisation of politics’ (Comaroff 2001; Robins 2008). This means that tamer struggles are being fought and are under new rubrics. Robins argues that, in the case of South Africa, political discussions no longer revolve around structural inequality and economic justice; they are all about ‘citizenship’ and ‘liberal democracy’ and, within this context, ‘human rights’ has emerged as the new language of political claims (Robins 2008: 6). The second wave of indigenous rights activism emerged in Africa in the early 1990s. This time span coincides with the decade in which most African countries decided, with the support of foreign aid agencies and institutions like the World Bank, to open up to multi-­party politics, to embrace de-­centralization and democratization processes and to accept development adjustment programmes as well as neoliberal economic reforms. As a result of this changed scenario, indigenous groups were faced with a paradox. On the one hand, predatory development programmes targeted their resources and lands; on the other hand, empowerment programmes were being offered. In any case, a new space opened up which facilitated the emergence of vibrant and dynamic civil society and civic rights movements. Thus, the development of the indigenous human rights movement in Africa, as Dorothy Hodgson suggests, is the product of multiple factors: visionary, well-­ travelled and experienced leaders such as Parkipuny, who recognized structural parallels with other subaltern ‘indigenous’ groups, as well as external interventions, donor aid agendas, adjustment programmes and failed political projects, contingent encounters and chances (Hodgson 2011: 4–5). This chapter is divided into two main parts. In the first, I contextualize the rise of the indigenous rights movement. Instead of providing a taxonomy or a list of movements across the African continent, I concentrate on contexts, as well as seminal issues, such as questions of terminology and definition, different positionings and reactions, on the part of both NGOs and states. Since indigenous rights activism is, to a large extent, the product of Western humanitarian organizations and aid agencies, this raises the vexed problem of Africa as a privileged site of humanitarian intervention. In the second part of this chapter, I present a few case studies. The aim is to show the different trajectories and forms indigenous rights activism has taken in Africa. Obviously, the scope of the topic is such that I could not possibly cover the entire region. I  focus primarily on Eastern and Southern Africa but, again, not on every single state in these huge regions. The selected case studies mark interesting contrasts which enable a certain complexity to be highlighted: the different positionings indigenous NGOs assume towards the state, and the state towards them, and how the inner divisions and the inner intricacy of certain indigenous groups and agendas cut across national boundaries, creating interesting fields of tension and action. These case studies have also been chosen based on the degree of documentation, research and scholarship available. I summarize here key texts, arguments from the fieldwork of anthropologists and academic activists without whom this piece could never have been written. In particular, I am indebted to

Indigenous human rights in Africa  11

Robert Hitchcock, Nicholas Olmsted, Steven Robins, Sidsel Saugestad, Jacqueline Solway, James Suzman, and Renée Sylvain as far as the Southern African region is concerned, and to Elliot Fratkin, John G. Galaty, Dorothy Hodgson, Jim Igoe, Felix Ndahinda, Rob Nixon, and Xavier Péron for Eastern Africa. I conclude with a brief discussion of Wangari Maathai’s world-­renowned women’s environmental movement. Her ‘intersectional’ (Nixon 2011: 138) approach to social, gender and environmental violence allows us to compare it to the indigenous rights framework and to draw some conclusions as to the gains and successes but also the limits and pitfalls of this phenomenon.

‘Indigeneity’ in the age of finance capitalism So-­called indigenous populations are subaltern, oppressed communities which, when confronted with the brutal politics of their constitutional states and their predatory economies, have decided to ‘become’ (Hodgson 2011) indigenous and have found a lifeline – albeit (as we will see) a very tenuous and ambiguous one – in supranational legal organs such as the United Nations, in an attempt to stop dislocations, decimations, resource alienations and the destruction of their eco-­systems.1 The emergence of this transnational advocacy network cannot be grasped without first understanding the logic of finance capitalism, an aggressive form of capitalism which, since the late 1980s and early 1990s, instead of producing value has aimed at maximizing profits and accumulating capital by extracting value and by transforming states into mega-­managerial companies. Luciano Gallino (2011) has described finance capitalism as an irrational system based on debt and non-­transparent flows, forms of macro-­transactions and shadow economies in the hands of hedge funds and capital companies. As a result, the world has been transformed into a ‘more fluid, market-­driven, electronically articulated universe’ in which ‘geography is perforce being rewritten; in which transitional identities, diasporic connections, ecological disasters, and the mobility of human populations challenge both the nature of sovereignty and the sovereignty of nature’ (Comaroff 2001: 633). According to Achille Mbembe, the predatory logic of this regime has led to a new form of colonialism, namely the militarization of borders, the privatization of resources, of lands and of common goods, triggering an unprecedented political and ecological crisis (Mbembe 2000). War resources and economies of extraction have led to the destruction of eco-­systems. Gallino, for instance, estimates that human beings are consuming the equivalent of one-­third of another planet Earth and that if all countries were to consume on the same scale as the US, we would need at least four ‘Earths’ to compensate for the loss of resources. Each year 13,000,000 hectares of forests are being felled (equivalent to half of the UK), with the disastrous side effects of soil erosion, alterations to eco-­systems, the pollution of air and seas, the increase in toxic drift and upward-­spiralling global temperatures (Gallino 2011). It goes without saying that it is not possible, in a few paragraphs, to describe the impact the recent neo-­liberal order has had on the African continent. Africa has 53

12  Michela Borzaga

independent states and each state has its own unique and complex political system. Colonialism, a term we tend to use in an undifferentiated manner, has left behind diversified scenarios and variegated state formations. As Alex Thomson suggests, ‘there is no such thing as a typical African polity’ (2010: 3). What can be said, however, is that after independence in the late 1940s and early 1950s, many African states that strongly hoped for autonomy and economic growth found themselves ‘freighted with an impossible tale of debt and dependency’ (Comaroff 2001: 632), a situation which worsened in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the wave of democratizations that were demanded locally but also internationally through liberal reforms and adjustment programmes. In those decades, Jean-­François Bayart explains, Africa lost its competitiveness and diplomatic importance; the continent remained cut off from market investments and technological developments alike, becoming more and more dependent on Western aid donors, an active strategy on the part of African states to retain part of the global flow of capital and to compensate for unequal power relations with the West (Bayart 2009). In order to remain competitive and active at a transnational level, Mbembe explains, African states, instead of employing foreign investments and information technologies, resorted to ‘new extractive mechanisms, the aim of which was to convert territories into resources and power’ (Mbembe 2001: 4). As a consequence, Mbembe speaks of an increasing ‘material deconstruction of existing territorial frameworks’ (2000: 284), the formation of new enclaves, sites of sovereignty beyond the state with new actors at play such as parastatal actors and new militias aiming at exploiting raw materials and decimating what they deem ‘superfluous’ or ‘disposable’ populations (Mbembe 2000, 2003; Bales 2012).

‘Indigenous’: An ‘(in)convenient category’? What line demarcates an Aboriginal subject from a national ethnic subject? (Povinelli 1999: 41)

Within the African context, ‘indigenous’ is an extremely loaded, contested and ambiguous category which has created divisions and passionate debates on various levels and within different discursive fields ranging from the legal to the anthropological. Sidsel Saugestad, for example, considers ‘indigenous’ an ‘inconvenient’ category (qtd. in Hodgson 2002b: 1043). The most telling sign of its inconvenience is perhaps the fact that when, finally, after decades of negotiations, the Declaration of Indigenous Rights was ratified, in 2007, the countries that refused to sign it were those where, one would think, the term was less contested and ambiguous: Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States. When African groups started to become involved in the negotiation process, a legal and epistemological crisis followed.2 Until then, ‘indigenous’ had a fairly clear meaning; it meant ‘aboriginal’ or ‘native’; it was used to refer to the ‘First People’ of Australia or Canada or the United States. In Africa this could hardly be the case. Given the complex colonial

Indigenous human rights in Africa  13

history of the continent, and its inner migrations, it was and still remains impossible to define who is ‘indigenous’ in Africa and what precisely the criteria should be. Obviously, indigenous cannot refer to those populations preceding white colonialism, otherwise almost the whole continent could claim indigenous status and the category would lose its heuristic potential. As Renée Sylvain suggests, the history of indigenous peoples in Africa is the history ‘of a concept of indigeneity that continues to be crafted for the African context’ (2017). Given the complex history of the continent, it could be the history of ‘Africans’, of ‘all Africans prior to colonisation’ or ‘of all Africans before the great migrations that dispersed and mixed languages and cultures’ (Sylvain 2017). When indigenous minorities started to claim indigenous status, African governments reacted in a hostile manner, fearing that accepting the existence of ‘indigenous’ groups and granting them collective rights or rights to self-­determination would threaten the already labile integrity of states and foster ethnic conflicts, including cases of irredentism and separatism. On the other hand, local and international NGOs read this hostility not as a genuine concern but as a strategy to delay processes of democratization and to monopolize resources and territory. African states famously answered by arguing that ‘all Africans are indigenous to the African continent’ and that, given the history of the continent, there was no way to distinguish between ethnic minorities and, strictly speaking, ‘indigenous populations’.2 As a result, the ratification was postponed and negotiations prolonged; the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights organized a task force to investigate the state of indigenous populations in Africa and to evaluate the compatibility of this framework with the African Commission’s Declaration of Human Rights. The African Commission concluded that the term ‘indigenous’ could be applied to the African context, albeit not with the original meaning of ‘first people’ but, rather, to signify a larger pattern of oppression, the marginalization of those minorities that had remained excluded from mainstream cultural, political and economic developments and which were risking cultural and economic extinction on the continent at the hands of local and foreign actors.3 As Peter Geschiere and Francis Nyamnjoh as well as Armando Cutolo have rightly observed, the problem lies in the protean, indistinct quality of the term ‘indigenous’ (autochtone in French) (2000, 2008). In their original inception, the terms ‘indigeneity’ and ‘autochthony’, no matter whether in ancient Greece or during the time of colonization, have drawn their meaning through their ghostly flip side: the ‘Other’, the ‘allochtone’, the ‘non-­indigenous’, the ‘non-­Greek’, the ‘barbar’, the ‘newcomer’. Automatically, in one form or another, Geschiere argues, ‘autochthony always demands exclusion’ (2011: 323). This is a term that arouses strong emotional reactions. According to Mbembe, autochthony is about creating a dangerous and seamless equation between skin and geography: ‘The spatial body, the racial body, and the civic body are thenceforth one, each testifying to an autochthonous communal origin by virtue of which everyone born of the soil or sharing the same color or ancestors is a brother or a sister’ (2002: 256). Such ‘naturalizing’ processes of belonging, treated as natural givens, can easily translate

14  Michela Borzaga

into chauvinistic and totalizing political projects, with catastrophic consequences for those who are neighbors but cannot make claims of belonging, reclaim citizenship or access to resources and land by the simple virtue of falling into the arbitrary category of ‘second-­comers’ (Geschiere and Nyamnjoh 2000; Geschiere 2011). Ndahinda explains that ‘indigeneity’ and ‘autochtony’ are not only protean terms but, more importantly, they have been subject to competing uses in Africa not only by marginalized indigenous groups but by those in power themselves. He explains that, with the advent of multi-­party politics in the 1990s, power holders had started to use indigenousness as a ‘rallying concept for political mobilisation by self-­styled autochthonous against individuals or groups considered as not belonging to the land’ (2014: 27–28). Geschiere, for example, recounts the case of President Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivory Coast, according to whose politics, in order to claim national citizenship, every person had to return to their village of origin and those who could not identify with a specific village would not count as ‘citizens’ (2011: 333). Geschiere also mentions the case of Zambia, where Kenneth Kaunda could not run for election because he was not believed to be ‘indigenous’ or ‘autochtonous’ and was considered to descend from strangers. The case of the Mbororo, in Cameroon, is also a telling and paradoxical example, since it exemplifies how fragile the term ‘indigenous’ can be and how different actors can appropriate it and distort it in different ways according to various interests. The Mbororo appear on the official list of indigenous populations in Africa; they are a sub-­ethnic group of the Fulani, who are spread across West, Central and North Africa and arrived in Cameroon rather late, in the early 1900s (Pelican 2009: 52). They share the same predicaments of other indigenous groups on the African continent: land grabbing and a lack of political representation as well as poor access to basic services. Yet, in Cameroon, where the state has appropriated the French term autochtone since the 1990s to pursue a politics of ethnic favouritism, it has discriminated against the Mbororo and defined them as ‘allochthone’, as ‘migrants’, ‘strange’ latecomers. Felix Ndahinda is right in arguing that the UN rapporteurs and NGOs activists have simply ‘downplayed the importance of the definition debate’ in Africa (2014: 25). By not taking this debate seriously, Western and other external agents keep ignoring how material disparities and divisions between ethnic communities are direct repercussions of the colonialist legacy not so much because of what have been called the arbitrary borders drawn by European powers in the aftermath of the Berlin conference than because of the inner topographical politics of colonialism. Inner geographical lines were usually a product of the administration of labour and usually worked along ethnic lines, forced migrations and dislocations, while connections with the élites and chiefs were also always maintained along racial and geographical lines (Mbembe 2000). As Thomson suggests, post-­independence African countries have had to face two important challenges: avoiding ethnic conflict and keeping national borders intact – despite the artificial nature of those borders and despite the fact that they did not make sense to most Africans (2010: 36–38). That this is a real problem has been demonstrated by the separation of Eritrea from Ethiopia, or the Somali case, to name but a few. Recently, as the fight over resources is

Indigenous human rights in Africa  15

escalating and economic and politics are becoming increasingly deregulated, certain African states have witnessed a new phase of Balkanization; many are in the hands of militias and parastatal organs.4 The Central African Republic is a paradigmatic example. This is a serious problem in Africa which cannot be cynically reduced to governments’ reluctance to acknowledge indigenous rights. It is not an either/or question. Kleptocratic governments are indeed reluctant to grant rights of self-­determination and collective rights to indigenous groups while, at the same time, granting rights over resources on the basis of a very tenuous category which might be read as ethnic favouritism could easily unleash ethnic conflicts. But the category of ‘indigeneity’ or ‘autochthony’ brings with it other dangers and costs. One concerns their homogenizing character. These are ‘abstracting’ categories that tend ‘to congeal into object-­form’ (Comaroff 2009: 12) a wide range of differences across gender and class. The most problematic aspect is that by conferring rights to ‘indigenous groups’ we tend to forget their inner divisions, the violations of rights that can happen within those very communities and the fact that they are seldom ‘egalitarian’ groups. Thus, we constantly project a lack of agency onto them, a vulnerability, which, once these groups are submitted to closer scrutiny, hardly exists. John and Jean Comaroff, for instance, cite a Pedi chiefdom in South Africa which has become successful at commodifying its ‘indigenous practices’. They explain how in this community, initiation rites have become a ‘lucrative business’ (2009: 19) for tourists to consume. The South African Human Rights Commission has estimated that 215 initiates died in the Eastern Cape between 2001 and 2006 while 118 suffered penis amputations (Comaroff 2009: 159). Further, as we will see towards the end of this chapter, indigenous women have not been protected or represented by the 2007 declaration. Their position, in fact, has been made all the more vulnerable by a legal document which fosters the preservation of culture and traditions and, thereby, maintains and supports patriarchal structures that certainly do not benefit or liberalize San women (Sylvain 2011). Also, taking the case of Namibia, which this chapter will not be able to explore in more detail, Renée Sylvain has persuasively argued how the 2007 declaration and ideas of collective and land rights tend to privilege those who live in conservation areas. But, in Namibia, a large number of indigenous San were incorporated into the labour economy and live on the margins of society or in impoverished urban areas (Sylvain 2005). What kind of indigenous collective and land rights can they claim? In addition, it is a well-­known fact that indigenous rights NGOs are dependent on donor agencies and their volatile agendas. ‘Indigenous authenticity’ is one of the requirements to receive financial support. In his fieldwork in South Africa, Steven Robins has shown that this kind of political agenda often ends up dividing indigenous communities into those who believe themselves to be, dress and live as ‘authentic San’ and those who are considered more modern, false and artificial San, who thereby compromise financial aid (Robins 2001b). But, as the next section shows, the strong connection between indigenous NGOs and Western humanitarian intervention needs to be read as part of a larger and older problem.

16  Michela Borzaga

Indigeneity and the rhetoric of urgency: The ambiguous legacy of humanitarian law in Africa I see an affiliation between 19th century abolitionist rhetoric and the current rhetoric of humanitarianism. In the current theatre of redemption, Africa still offers a site of action to those who give themselves the duty to save the wretched of the earth, the excluded, the victims. (Vergès 2001b: 4)

African indigenous human rights movements are hardly the product of grassroots initiatives. Instead they are often the fruit of external, Western interventions. The main actor in this development is the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), which, as Felix Ndahinda rightly remarks, has been ‘at the fore-­ front of what it euphemistically calls ‘indigenous self-­organisation’ (2014: 31). Ndahinda argues that IWGIA constantly emphasizes ‘the grassroots character of indigenous identification on the continent by publicly downplaying their own determinant role in shaping that particular dynamic’ (2014: 34). IWGIA is a body financed by the Danish Foreign Ministry and since the 1970s it has passionately imported the movement for indigenous human rights in Africa. ‘Should we celebrate the emancipatory possibilities of transnational activism and advocacy, or does it have its limits?’ Hodgson asks (2011: 2). This is a delicate and complex question, but it allows us to address some of the silences and complicities which usually remain obscured by mainstream literature about indigenous human rights. I believe that there is a complex network of actors – semiotic, economic, discursive, political  – which have an interest in foregrounding Africa as a privileged site of humanitarian intervention. This is certainly nothing new. As Françoise Vergès reminds us in the earlier quotation, the rhetoric of urgency and humanitarian law was first introduced by abolitionist activists in the second half of the 19th century, at a time when European powers were at the apex of their imperial expansion. In her important study Abolir l’esclavage: une utopie coloniale (2001), she detects an uncanny and disquieting parallelism between current humanitarian discourses and the images and rhetoric of abolitionist politics in the 19th century. Both, she says, use and exploit a ‘rhetoric of urgency’ according to which ‘Africa needs to be saved from herself, from the predators who, throughout history, have depleted her resources’ (Vergès 2001a: 9, 2001b: 3). It was abolitionism that first introduced the figure of the humanitarian militant, the well-­meaning benefactor, and as its opposite, the African victim. This kind of rhetoric works by way of denouncing ‘crimes’ against very abstract and universal notions of ‘humanity’: crimes which require prompt intervention, even if it means undermining national sovereignty. The priority is not to analyze the causes of the suffering; it is to intervene, to rescue, to save. Vergès certainly does not deny that slavery or deporting and decimating subaltern communities are grave violations of human rights. The point she is trying to make is a different one: NGOs, external actors, constantly appeal to the piety and indignation of people, justifying interventions which can

Indigenous human rights in Africa  17

subtly morph into new forms of governance. We do not analyze the causes of these sufferings and plights since ‘indignation allows us to consider evil as an exterior entity’ (Vergès 2001b: 19). What does this have to do with current indigenous human rights in Africa? Abolitionist movements shifted the responsibility of colonialist practices and slavery onto settlers, Arab traders and Africans; in other words, they hardly questioned the policy of colonialism and the British Empire. In fact, even when slavery was finally abolished, colonialism was not a crime and continued undisturbed until the mid-­ 1940s. Today we see something similar happening: external actors, often financed by big donor institutions, constantly convey the message that ‘indigenous’ populations need to be ‘saved’ and ‘risk extinction’, while finance capitalism continues undisturbed. As Rob Nixon remarks, we see mega-­transnational corporations make strategic donations to NGOs; ‘meanwhile they persist with their profitable devastation of relatively impoverished, less regulated societies’ (2011: 37). But, as Vergès rightly points out, urgency and humanitarian interventions cannot become new ways of making politics or new modes of governing the world. What is the potential and the limit of this politics? According to Arundhati Roy, who is very critical of NGO interventions in India, such politics tends to ‘defuse political anger’ rather than ‘helping people channel their sense of oppression into collective actions for social change’ (qtd. in Hodgson 2011: 11). Eventually Roy says, ‘on a smaller scale, but more insidiously – the capital available to NGOs plays the same role in alternative politics as the speculative capital that flows in and out of the economies of poor countries. It begins to dictate the agenda. It turns confrontation into negotiation’ (qtd. in Hodgson 2011: 11). On the other hand, both Dorothy Hodgson and Steven Robins, who have done fieldwork in Tanzania and South Africa, respectively, suggest that it would be wrong to demonize all NGOs and to see local activists merely as servants of global capital. For Robins, NGOs are neither simply ‘benevolent’ nor simply ‘ideological conduits of neo-­liberal capital’ (Robins 2008: 24). If it is true that NGOs’ missions are dependent on Western donors, at the same time they always have ‘to ‘indigenise’ their projects (Robins 2008: 24). In other words, even if they cannot fight militant and revolutionary struggles as in previous decades, they do mobilize collectivities and, in the long run, their outcome remains unpredictable.

Southern Africa Popular images still like to portray the San as egalitarian hunter-­gatherers; usually it is men they depict, in leather loincloths, bows and arrows on their backs, treading the vastness of the Kalahari semi-­desert. These iconographic colonialist vestiges have very little to do with the real life circumstances of the few San5 men and women who have miraculously survived centuries of invasion and land dislocation. Indeed, there are very few hunter-­gatherers left today. The small numbers6 of San who live scattered across Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa do not live freely and in harmony with nature; with the exception of a few areas in

18  Michela Borzaga

South Africa, where the San seem to be better off, the majority of these groups live in very dire and precarious conditions, mostly on the margins of society, and almost totally dependent on benefactors. When they are not poorly paid or exploited as farm labourers, they rely on welfare pensions and food aid or live in squatter areas and resettlement camps. San women, in particular, count as the most vulnerable and silenced. No matter whether in the refugee camps of Angola, on the white-­owned farms of Namibia, in the urban areas of Botswana or in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, San women are largely unemployed or live as domestic servants, likely to fall prey to multiple forms of oppression and intersectional violence. Certainly, then, such homogenizing and romanticized pictures do not do justice to the heterogeneity of the San, their fluid identities, their inner hierarchies and divisions, their divergent histories, as well as the different struggles they have fought and are still fighting as indigenous rights claimants in countries that have their own constitutional, political and cultural agendas. In southern Africa, San groups have to face extreme stigmatization, land and resource alienation, unemployment, weak political representation, illiteracy and language extinction. The aim of the following section is to provide an overview of indigenous rights movements in southern Africa. Unfortunately, we know very little about the real conditions of San groups living in Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe.7 Of all the regional groups, they are certainly the ones who struggle the most to organize themselves as members of advocacy groups or to become part of transregional and transnational rights networks. As we will see in the following section, which will present case studies from South Africa and Botswana, the trajectory of San activism in southern Africa is anything but linear or homogenous.

South Africa8 Within the larger southern African region, South Africa stands out as a major exception for the remarkably supportive and sensitive way in which it has endorsed indigenous causes over the past 20 years. In contrast to Namibia and Botswana, post-­apartheid South Africa boasts a number of successful land claims, land restitutions and, more recently, very lucrative property claims concerning the recognition of indigenous intellectual rights. This is notable if we consider that two of the largest San groups – the !Xun and Khwe –arrived in South Africa as migrants only in 1990, after fearing retribution in Angola and Namibia. It is even more remarkable considering the fact that the South African Constitution, said to be one of the most progressive in the world, while acknowledging indigenous languages and cultures, does not ascribe ‘indigenous status’ or indigenous rights to any ethnic group; this, for fear of reviving old apartheid divisions based on ethnicist discourses. At this point it is worth remembering that, besides the two San communities (the ‡Khomani in the Kalahari and the !Xun and Khwe near Kimberley), other groups have started to reclaim indigenous rights in South Africa since the early 1990s, including the Nama-­speaking people (in the Northern Cape), the Griqua (residing in the Cape provinces, Free State and KwaZulu-­Natal) and the !Koranna (living mainly in Kimberley and the Free State).9 As Steven Robins explains, even if resistance

Indigenous human rights in Africa  19

movements already existed before and during the apartheid period, indigenous groups in South Africa started to gain true public visibility only in the 1990s (2008). During the apartheid period, in fact, indigenous populations were largely thought to be extinct; officially they all fell victim to the apartheid system’s racist policies. Nama, San, Griqua and !Koranna communities were assimilated into the ‘Colored’ group. As a result they repressed their own cultures, being forced to embrace a hegemonic white identity and an Afrikaans-­speaking, Christian way of life. In the mid-­1990s, following the democratic transition, South Africa started to engage in a complex process of land redistribution. In 1998 and 1999, various San groups were granted land rights and became the successful actors of important land claim restitutions. As John and Jean Comaroff remark, land restitution, together with the ‘heady climate of policulturalism’ (2009: 89) that was flourishing at the time, gave way to a new indigenous cultural revival and San pride. Significantly, these are also the years when the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) began and important public figures such as Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu came to embody the newly celebrated ‘Rainbow Nation’. Around this time, a bewildering number of associations and institutions developed around San groups to protect and promote their heritage (Comaroff 2009: 89). Within this context, the Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA) and the South African San Institute (SASI) deserve to be singled out as the most important ‘indigenous’ organizations. WIMSA was established in 1996, born as a regional non-­governmental umbrella network with the aim of representing the interests of San communities living in Angola, Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. Significantly, WIMSA is directed by an all-­San board of trustees, which consist of San leaders mainly from Namibia, Botswana and South Africa. James Suzman explains that, while at the beginning its agenda was more oriented towards networking and advisory work, recently, it has taken up a larger advocacy role, trying to facilitate negotiations between San communities and regional and national governments. SASI, the most successful and influential NGO working with San groups in South Africa, was mandated by WIMSA and established to implement development projects, ranging from education to land and culture management, as well as to support legal battles for the protection of linguistic rights, the restitution of land and resources, and, more recently, for the reclaiming of commercial rights in connection with indigenous knowledge. In addition, in 2001, the Khoi-­San National Council was established by the South African government. Its aim is to ‘provide an official, all inclusive consultative mechanism through which constitutional accommodation of the Khoi-­San can be negotiated’ (Mountain 2003: 83).

The ‡Khomani San San people have been living as nomadic hunter-­gatherers scattered between the southern parts of the Zambian basin and the Cape of Good Hope for thousands of years. Very broadly put, in South Africa, San populations were squeezed between Bantu populations that had entered South Africa migrating from the north and,

20  Michela Borzaga

starting in the 18th century, by colonialist white settlers arriving from the south. It is a well-­known fact that by the early 20th century, the number of San people had decreased significantly; the few survivors were mostly living as hunter-­gatherers and pastoralists in the Kalahari region of the Northern Cape. In the 20th century, the San suffered two major evictions, first in the early 1930s when the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park (KGNP) was established and, later, in the early 1970s when they lost their hunting rights and were brutally evicted from the park. James Suzman estimates that by the mid-­1970s, ‘close to nine-­tenths of the region’s San population had been dispossessed of their traditional territories and their source of economic and political economy’ (2001: 2). As a result, San people ended up working as disempowered labourers on white-­owned farms, and were either preyed on by a cruel paternalistic system of control and surveillance or assimilated into coloured communities squatting in rural and semi-­urban areas. In the early 1990s, supported by the South African lawyer Roger Chennels, who is now SASI’s legal advisor, 300 ‡Khomani San launched a land claim. At the time Rogers immediately foresaw how, according to the new Restitution of Land Rights Act (22) which was promulgated as part of the new Constitution, San communities stood a good chance of winning the claim. The date 21 March 1999 is a historic one for San communities. On this day, President Thabo Mbeki signed an unprecedented land deal in the presence of San leaders Dawid Kruiper and Petrus Vaalboi. With this deal, the San were granted about 40,000 hectares south of the Gemsbok National Park and about 25,000 hectares inside the park. This restitution was part of a larger agreement according to which the San would have the right to set up a cultural village, develop stock-­farming projects (in the six farms bought by the government outside the park) and engage in tourism activities. As Robins rightly reminds us, this land claim was won not because the San had been awarded ‘indigenous’ or ‘First People’ status (2001a, 2001b, 2008). The land claim was won as part of the restitution land programme according to which those who suffered land dispossession in the aftermath of the 1913 Land Act10 were entitled to fair compensation. However, as the speech given by Thabo Mbeki in March 1999 clarifies, the image of the San as an ancient and ancestral people who had been almost decimated by centuries of colonialist invasions assumed a further symbolic weight. The ‡Khomani land claim, thus, was more than a technical and legal affair. It inscribed itself within two favourable discourses of the time: ‘rainbow nationalism’ on the one hand, and building a common future by addressing past wrongs on the other. The fact that the new South African coat of arms, introduced in 2000, features a motto written in the ancient !Xam language – ‘ǃke e: ǀxarra ǁke’ (Unity in Diversity) – testifies to the cultural, symbolic and also political weight that the San people have come to represent in post-­apartheid South Africa.

The !Xun and Khwe Those who still think of San as inhabitants of ancestral lands untouched by modernity will find it hard to reconcile in their mind pictures of San armed with automatic

Indigenous human rights in Africa  21

weapons and mortars or of San as trained parachutists. The !Xun and Khwe form the second largest San community in South Africa and originated in the south and south-­east of Angola respectively. The !Xun and Khwe number approximately 4,500 people and arrived in South Africa in 1990 as anomalous refugees. They were granted immediate citizenship and lived in tent camps for more than a decade at the base of Schmidtsdrift (Northern Cape), a military camp bought by the South African Defence Force (SADF) in 1974. In the 1960s they had been recruited by the Portuguese army to fight in counter-­insurgency campaigns and earned the reputation of being resilient soldiers with special tracking abilities. When Angola achieved independence in the mid-­1970s, the !Xun and Khwe left for fear of retaliation and moved to the Caprivi region, in Namibia. Here, once again, they became part of the so-­called Bushmen battalion, fighting on the side of the South African army against the South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO). In 1990 Namibia gained independence. The !Xun and Khwe once again decided to leave the country for fear of retaliation. Steven Robins describes the !Xun and Khwe as traumatized communities marked by deep historical divisions which date back to the Angolan war of independence, when !Xun and Khwe were recruited for very different functions  – guards and offence units, respectively (Robins 2001a). When they arrived in South Africa in 1990, they were largely dependent on the South African Defence Force (SADF) and the support of the South African government authorities. In comparison to other rural or other San communities, the !Xun and Khwe were relatively better off. Although they had to endure the difficult conditions of living in tent camps for longer than a decade, a small percentage worked for the SADF and others as guards on white-­owned farms, with facilities and resources being provided by the SADF. Things started to change when in 1997 the South African government bought the farm of Platfontein to relocate them, and announced retrenching measures within the South African National Defence Force (SANDF; in 1994 the SADF was renamed the South African National Defence Force). On 18 May 1999 the !Xun and Khwe were granted title deeds by the government to the farms of Platfontein, Wildebeeskuil and Droogfontein but could not relocate there until 2003. Divisions were so deep within the community that the two groups asked for two separate areas at Platfontein with a one-­kilometre ‘buffer strip’ in between. For both groups it was clear that, once relocated, they would no longer be able to rely on the support of the SADF and would have to start collaborating with NGOs, donor aid agencies and indigenous rights groups. The !Xun and Khwe Vereeniging/Association was established as a result of these developments. Robins explains how ‘all land granted to the community in terms of Department of Land Affairs programmes had to be registered in the name of the CPA, this being a communal trust comprising all members of the community’ (2001a: 13). In the South African indigenous landscape, the !Xun and Khwe are an anomaly. They cannot be considered ‘indigenous’ to South African soil; neither did they suffer land dispossessions or evictions at the hands of the South African state. Robins explains that their land restitution is to be understood as a form of

22  Michela Borzaga

reparation for forced removal. Members of the !Xun and Khwe also testified at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where they told excruciating stories about the abuse, violence and racism suffered while working in the Portuguese and South African armies (Robins 2001a, 2008).

The San Hoodia trust The San call it xhoba. For those who are not familiar with Khoi-­San languages, it is called Hoodia gardonii. Very recently, it has become, without doubt, the most famous and remunerative cactus on the planet. San people have made extensive use of it from time immemorial, mostly to stay appetites as they used to travel widely amidst the vastness of the Kalahari desert. The ‘Bushmen battalion’ has also documented its endurance-­fostering qualities. In 1996 the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in South Africa patented its most important chemical ingredient and labeled it P57. The idea was to put it on the market as a diet drug. Subsequently, the CSIR licensed it to Phytofarm, a British pharmaceutical company. P57 drew the attention of San groups and their lawyer, Roger Chennels, when the head of Phytofarm – who had been convinced that the San would die out a long time before  – was planning to sell the rights to Pfizer in a deal worth US$21 million. In 2003, another historic deal was signed, the first ever that assigned royalties to indigenous knowledge. The deal stipulated that ‘6 percent of all royalty income was to be paid to the San Hoodia Trust’ (Comaroff 2009: 90), which, in turn, would redistribute it to San living in South Africa, Namibia and Botswana.

The Nama (Khoi) Namaqualand is a semi-­arid region; it borders on Namibia and is part of the Northern Cape. In December 1998 the Nama group of the Richtersveld launched a land claim which lasted five years and was resolved in their favor after several stages of appeal right up to the Constitutional Court. This case is of paramount importance for indigenous rights activists since it established a principle of aboriginal title in relation to mineral and land rights. The Nama are descendants of the indigenous Khoikhoi people who have lived in the Northern Cape for thousands of years. The history of land alienation in Namaqualand dates back to the arrival of Dutch settlers in the mid-­17th century. When minerals were discovered in the early 20th century, the Nama group suffered dislocations and land dispossession, losing their rights for good between 1989 and 1994 as land ownership was transferred to Alexkor, a state-­owned diamond-­mining corporation. Initially the Nama claim was dismissed because the Land Claims Court found that the Richtersveld community did not fulfil the criteria of a land restitution case. With the help of other historic NGOs, such as the Legal Resources Centre and the Surplus Peoples Project, SASI appealed in a court of second instance, emphasizing the Nama’s indigenous status as a central legal argument. The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) concluded that the

Indigenous human rights in Africa  23

Nama had been historical inhabitants of the region and thus had rights to the land based on a ‘customary law interest’. In turn, Alexcor re-­appealed but, eventually, the Constitutional Court ratified the SCA’s judgement (Sylvain 2017). In the case of the ‡Khomani San, as Robins has pointed out, it was fundamental to convey the idea that they were a cohesive community, with the judges not deciding in favour of a land restitution on the basis of their indigenous status. On the contrary, in the case of the Nama, both the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court emphasized indigeneity as a principle for rights entitlement. In fact, the Nama were granted both land and mineral rights as well as millions of rand in compensation for the loss of land.

Concluding remarks The successful land claims and the land restitutions to indigenous groups in South Africa, which happened in the late 1990s, represent a dramatic change for Khoi-­San populations. Deeply fragmented and divided groups could suddenly start to conceive of themselves as communities and start to work on a common, if tenuous and uncertain, identity. The land restitution process unleashed an unprecedented number of institutions and organizations interested in protecting and promoting indigenous rights and cultures. James Suzman is right when he argues that South African interventions have ‘provided a solid platform from which to effectively address San concerns’ (2001: 1). A lot remains to be done, of course. San groups still face many challenges. Robins and Comaroff suggest that land restitution is a major step but one that amounts to little if San communities cannot create or rely on viable and sustainable livelihoods, diversified economies and a strong leadership. Also, San people still remain vulnerable to alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence and poverty. Yet, within the southern African region, South Africa remains a positive exception. It is to be hoped that neighbouring countries such as Botswana, to which the next section is dedicated, will follow its example.

Botswana11 Since it gained independence in 1966, Botswana has been heralded by outside observers as the ‘African miracle’. Formerly one of the poorest countries in the world, it has developed into one of the world’s fastest growing economies, over the last few decades. Only one year after independence, a huge diamond mine was discovered in the vicinity of Orapa. As a result, an economic boom brought major investments in the fields of infrastructure, health care and education, as well as tourism. Moreover, Botswana is said to have an impeccable human rights record and one of the lowest corruption indices in Africa. According to Alex Thomson, this is the only African state ‘to have retained an unbroken record of liberal democracy since decolonisation’ (2010: 102). Given this remarkable track record of success, it comes as a surprise that the San of Botswana – numbering approximately 50,000

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and living in the central and western parts of the country – have hardly been able to profit from this phenomenal, diamond-­driven economic growth. In contrast to South Africa, ‘postcolonial’ Botswana opted for a strongly assimilationist agenda and was not attracted to the idea of forging a multi-­cultural ‘Rainbow Nation’. Indeed, the government has been extraordinarily slow at acknowledging cultural and linguistic diversity in the country, and at translating it into a truly pluralist democratic project. Lydia Nyati-­ Ramahobo, describes Botswana as a ‘mono-­ethnic state’ (2008: 1), in which eight Tswana tribes12 form a hegemonic minority that enjoys its privileges at the expense of 38 other ethnic groups, which, paradoxically, constitute the population’s majority. Jacqueline Solway argues that minorities have a secondary status in Botswana, live in poorer conditions, mostly in non-­urban areas, and are unable to enjoy the same job opportunities and service facilities as the Tswana elite (Solway 2002).13 There are, of course, historical reasons why the Tswana minority has come to acquire such a privileged status. After migrating into Botswana in the 13th century, the Tswana became a cattle-­owning elite. After 1885, during the British Protectorate, Tswana leaders started to work as colonial intermediaries who functioned as ‘indirect colonial rulers’. Members of the other ethnic groups were either farm labourers or became part of a vast migrant labour reserve – mainly for the South African mining sector. After independence, the Tswana elite became, almost automatically, Botswana’s new ruling class. As Olmsted argues, ‘the problems confronted by San in Botswana today in many respects derive from, and resonate with, their relationship with the dominant Tswana tribes and the latter’s customary legal and political structures’ (2004: 812). It is impossible to summarize the history of these unjust relationships and structures within a few paragraphs. Suffice it to say that the denial of land and resource rights towards the San dates back to pre-­colonial times when they started to be recruited by the Tswana as hunters or cattle herders and to work as ‘serfs’. During the colonial period (1885–1966), further land dispossession and marginalization occurred when the Protectorate Administration allocated three different types of land – ‘Native Reserves’ (for Tswana tribes), Crown lands (for the English Crown) and freehold estates (for white settlers) – while ascribing virtually no land rights to the San. Olmsted remarks how the protectorate ‘provided protection for San land rights only through a London-­conceived conservation framework that provided insecure tenure’ (2004: 800). The Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) was created in 1961. At 52,347 square kilometres, it is Africa’s second largest, after the Selous Game Reserve in Tanzania. In 1956 George Silberbauer, the Bushman Survey Officer at the time, conducted a report about the conditions of San inhabitants in and around the Ghanzi district. His survey made clear how San had become an impoverished and destitute class, working mainly as underpaid farm labourers. Silberbauer suggested creating a protected zone and securing land rights for the San but, eventually, the Protectorate Administration did not follow his recommendations and largely focused on wildlife conservation with the Fauna Conservation

Indigenous human rights in Africa  25

Proclamation. All this did was to allow the San free access to the CKGR, while limiting their hunting rights and withholding real autonomy. As Olmsted rightly points out, this emphasis on wildlife conservation had fatal ramifications in post-­ independence Botswana, as it ‘foreshadowed the government’s later rationalization of policies that further limited the rights of CKGR residents but purported to protect wildlife’ (2004: 830). After 1966 Botswana began to introduce an arsenal of land reforms and development programs which, according to Olmsted, ‘dramatically failed San groups’ (2004: 833).14 Instead of granting land and resource rights to the San, the government initiated an aggressive assimilationist programme with the aim of integrating the San into the mainstream Tswana economic and cultural model. The Remote Area Dweller Development Programme was started in the early 1970s. It foresaw the building of new settlements capable of providing poor rural communities with basic services and health facilities. Thus, for the sake of fostering ‘development’ and of providing services to poor people, during the 1970s and 1980s, the San were systematically moved out of ‘national parks and conservation areas, farms, trek routes and mining areas’ (Hitchcock 2002: 798). San were bureaucratically re-­named ‘rural area dwellers’ and, as some observers have rightly pointed out, this ‘ethnicity-­blind’ nomenclature aimed to mask the San’s cultural identity and the historical-­economic legacy attached to it. In the 1990s dozens of new settlements and villages were set up in central and western Botswana. Solway explains that those willing to relocate were offered rather generous packages.15 When she visited the country in 1998, many San had relocated voluntarily, and although she concedes that the settlements are not without their problems, she also observes ‘they are not without benefits either’ (Solway 2011: 228). Significantly, many San felt that, for the first time, they were given the means to become more autonomous, to sever patron-­client relations and to be less dependent on the state. It is within this assimilationist climate that minority-­r ights movements started to emerge in Botswana. Gradually, San communities decided to organize themselves, as they saw the need to invest in empowering programmes in order to avoid further cultural loss and to be able to cope with a fast-­g rowing capitalist economy.

The Kuru Family of Organisations (KFO) and the First People of the Kalahari (FPK) The Kuru trust was created in 1986 as a small organization in D’kar (in western Botswana). In the 1990s it gradually expanded to support other San groups in the Ghanzi district and Ngamiland (northwestern Botswana). In the early 2000s, the organization split up into smaller units in order to facilitate management and to have a more effective capillary impact on the territory. It now calls itself the Kuru Family of Organisations. The KFO currently consists of seven San-­owned NGOs: Bokamoso, Gantsi Craft, Komku, D’kar Trust, Tocadi, Letloa and South African San Institute. The mission of this NGO is to approach San development and San

26  Michela Borzaga

empowerment through a holistic framework, including a wide array of interconnected development programmes ranging from education, agriculture and tourism to micro-­credit finance and cultural organizations. Bokamoso, for instance, develops teacher training programmes for adults but also pre-­school programmes which facilitate San children’s entrance into formal education. The D’kar Trust and Gantsi Craft have contributed to the revival of San culture. Today D’kar has a Kuru cultural centre, a library and a museum, as well as an annual Kuru festival. These cultural development initiatives have been particularly meaningful and empowering for San women, one of the most vulnerable and suppressed groups. Komku and Tocadi, in turn, have helped agricultural communities through innovative micro-­finance programmes. Letloa means ‘net’ and the group plays a leading role in the Kuru Family. Besides doing promotion work and providing news coverage, Letloa is a capacity-­building organization, which tries to train San for management positions, while providing strategic financial and technical support. The First People of the Kalahari (FPK), founded by John Hardbattle, Roy Sesana and Aron Johannes, was officially registered as a trust with the government on 11 October 1993. This NGO can be considered an anti-­eviction movement after a small number of San (approximately 2,000) were forcibly put on trucks and relocated from the CKGR between 1997 and 2005. As the movement’s name suggests, it made an effort to distinguish itself from other minority advocacy groups from the very beginning, placing the stress on the ‘first’ status and ‘indigenous’ identity of the San. After the last group was deported to new settlements outside the CKGR, the FPK filed a legal land claim in the High Court of Botswana. In 2006 the High Court ruled that the San had been removed involuntarily from their ancestral lands and had the right to return to the CKGR. Yet, this land claim turned out to be only a partial success. From its early activities, the FPK relied on the financial and institutional support of international NGOs such as Survival International. Together they adopted particularly confrontational tactics against Botswana’s government. On the one hand, Survival International launched a scathing media campaign trying to compromise Botswana’s image, unjustly accusing the government of genocide and of trading ‘blood diamonds’. On the other hand, in order to secure land rights, they constructed an essentialized false and romanticized image of the San as the last hunter-­gatherer tribe of the Kalahari, which painted them as able to sustain themselves through a pristine bond with their ancestral lands. In truth, in the second half of the 20th century, San communities in the CKGR had become semi-­sedentary, had begun to rely on mixed strategies for subsistence, and had become heavily dependent on the state for their water supply, pensions and other welfare services. Eventually, when the court ruled that the government was not obliged to provide water and other facilities to the San, the government seized the opportunity to take revenge; almost punitively it cut all water supplies and other basic services, making life virtually impossible for the San after their return. The CKGR is as an interesting case, since it shows how interference from insensitive and cynical foreign NGOs can often end up damaging groups claiming ‘indigenous’ status.

Indigenous human rights in Africa  27

Eastern Africa Most of our planet’s people face more immediate terrors than a terrorist attack: creeping deserts that reduce farms to sand; the incremental assaults of climate change compounded by deforestation; not knowing where tonight’s meal will come from; unsafe drinking water; having to walk five or ten miles to collect firewood to keep one’s children warm and fed. (Nixon 2011: 148–149)

There is hardly anything spectacular about soil erosion, overgrazing or land grabbing. Over the last few decades, our minds have been trained to associate violence primarily with sensationalist occurrences, explosive accidents and sudden disasters. According to Rob Nixon, these immediate events, which regularly flood our TV and mobile screens, strategically obscure, in a hegemonic fashion, the insidious environmental destructiveness so powerfully evoked in the epigraph. Rob Nixon calls it slow violence. ‘[It] occurs gradually and out of sight’, he writes; it is a form of ‘delayed destruction that is dispersed across time and space’ (2011: 2). The price of such environmental violence is high; in the long run it will have fatal effects for our planet and already affects large numbers of impoverished rural populations in Africa who, for geo-­political and historical reasons, remain cut off from state apparatuses and administrative foci of power. Eastern Africa has one of the highest concentrations of pastoral and agro-­pastoral peoples on the continent, numbering between 20 and 25 million (Galaty 1985: 5). The list of pastoralist communities includes, amongst others, the Ik, Dodoth and Karamoiong of Uganda, the Maasai of Kenya and Tanzania, the Boran and Oma in Ethiopia, alongside other camel-­keeping pastoralists in northern Kenya and Somalia.16 Those communities, which in the early 1990s started to plead ‘indigenous’ status in Eastern Africa, do not claim to be ‘first people’ like the Khoe-­San in Southern Africa. Although there are hunter-­gatherer minorities, such as the Hadza in Tanzania or the Ogiek and Aweer in Kenya, the majority are semi-­nomadic pastoralists whose traditional modes of subsistence and livelihoods were repeatedly assaulted by colonialist interventions and, more recently, have continued to be attacked by market-­driven neo-­colonialist regimes. The Maasai – the focus of this section – arrived in Southern Kenya and Northern Tanzania fairly recently, having migrated from Sudan in the 18th century. By the mid-­19th century they had emerged as a militarily and economically dominant cattle trader group (Igoe 2006).17 Pushed from their position as the ‘Lords of the East’, they started to lose the fertile and lush lands of the Rift Valley plains after the arrival of white colonialist settlers in the late 19th century. In Kenya, for example, they relinquished 50% of their land after signing two treaties – one in 1904 and one in 1911 – as a consequence of which they were relocated to a reserve in Southern Kenya, an area broadly coinciding with the Kojiado and Narok districts. In Tanzania, the Maasai were relocated by force on the arrival of the Germans to a reserve south of what is the Arusha-­Moshi Road today. In 1922, soon after the

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end of World War I, when the British took control of the German colonies, they were once again relocated, this time to the Masai Reserve (Hodgson and Schroeder 2002: 84). Their seasonal migrations and their access to land and water were further impaired as soon as the first conservation and wildlife policies were introduced.18 When Kenya and Tanganyika were granted independence in the early 1960s,19 the Maasai fell victim to development and assimilationist programmes. In the belief that, unless pastoralists learned to settle down and engage in commercial agriculture, Africa would not be able to develop, many African countries made sedentarization their policies’ main objective (Galaty 1985). This was done, for the most part, with the support of Western institutions like the World Bank and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In Tanzania the visionary socialist president Julius Nyerere introduced the so-­called villagisation programme – ujamaa (familyhood) in Swahili – while Kenya established so-­called group ranches. In the former case, millions of rural people were relocated into clearly demarcated ‘villages’ with basic health and education facilities. Hodgson and Schroeder suggest that even if the borders of these villages were not fixed and largely ignored by the Maasai, they did disrupt ‘customary mechanisms for managing access to natural resources’ (2002: 85). It is not possible in a few paragraphs to do justice to the losses and wounds left behind by such assimilationist, market-­driven policies. What is important to note, for the sake of this chapter, is that they drastically disrupted the holistic and eco-­ dynamic approach that structured the Maasai’s land cultivation and resource management. It is a well-­known fact that the Maasai have a meticulous knowledge of their environment; their seasonal migrations were meant to avoid soil erosion, and they conceived of arid and fertile lands as inter-­dependent territories, that were part of a web of biodiversity. What is more, before white settlers introduced forms of taxation, pastures and land (but not cattle) were seen as common goods to be shared and administered in a communitarian way. Compounded by privatization policies and, progressively, by registrations of individual titles and deeds, the development programmes gradually led to traumatic, intersectional divisions between and within Maasai communities, across gender, age and class alike (Péron 1994). Over the last two decades, pastoralists have been facing a new enemy, the appropriation of large tracts of land by a whole arsenal of actors: entrepreneurs, commercial farmers, speculators, conservationists, tour operators and miners (Galaty 2011). John Galaty distinguishes between three types of land grabbing. Firstly, he refers to ‘legal thefts’, when the state or foreign states privatize parts of the country in non-­transparent ways, depriving local people of fertile land (2011: 5). Secondly, he mentions ‘agrarian colonialism’, when lands are leased or sold to big commercial businesses (usually Asian or European) which cavalierly promise to use them in more ‘productive’ and ‘efficient’ ways (2011: 6). In Ethiopia, for example, huge tracts of land have been placed at the disposal of foreign companies in return for profitable investment. IWGIA has drawn attention to the fact that few of these enterprises aim to alleviate food crises or improve pastoralists’ livelihoods. Large swaths of land are seemingly used for growing flowers or food which will never reach Ethiopian households. It is telling that, in 2004, the Saudi Star Agricultural

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Development announced that it would invest millions of US dollars in the Gambela Region on a rice-­g rowing project, the produce of which would then be sold to foreign markets.20 Thirdly, Galaty mentions ‘environmental imperialism’ as a form of land grabbing in which rich wildlife areas are sold or leased to conservation and tourist entrepreneurs on the pretext of ‘protecting’ wildlife (2011: 2). In reality, they are often part of highly lucrative tourist ventures which permanently deprive residents of important resources. In Tanzania, the most famous case in point is the so-­called Loliondogate, which attracted considerable media attention and is referred to by Hodgson as one of the most ‘scandalous state-­endorsed “land grabs” ’ (2011: 69): in 1993 the Tanzanian Minister of Tourism leased the Loliondo Controlled Area (part of the Ngorongoro) to an army brigadier from the United Arab Emirates ‘just’ for private hunting. In the early 1990s, in the face of such authoritarian and kleptocratic states wholly indifferent to their plight, the Maasai, as well as other agro-­pastoralist and hunter-­ gathering minorities, set aside their cultural and linguistic differences in order to join forces under the unifying category of ‘indigenous people’. In Eastern Africa, indigenous rights movements have, as their main goal, the preservation of vernacular landscapes, as well as the aspiration to foster a more participatory and inclusive form of politics, which includes new pluralistic ways of conceiving land rights and livelihoods. In the following I  discuss various grassroots movements in Tanzania and Kenya. Yet, instead of focusing on national policies or on single legal cases as in the previous section, my intention is to dig deeper into the inner morphology of indigenous rights movements and ponder the limits and possibilities of such a framework, after three decades of existence. As Dorothy Hodgson has argued in a seminal study (a landmark for every student of indigenous studies), indigenous rights movements, while taking their departure from legal conventions or ratifications, remain the ‘historical product of complex local-­global interactions of culture, power, and history’ (2002: 1092). Given this, we need to scrutinize their dynamics, their inner structures, and their achievements but also the limits, the exclusions, and the silences they might create. Hodgson thus asks: ‘What were the achievements, challenges, and costs of using the category of indigenous as a platform for localised economic and political action? What kinds of gender and class politics has it not only entailed but produced?’ (2011: 3). These are crucial questions that anthropologists but also lawyers as well as UN representatives and activists should be ready to investigate.

From ‘Indigenous’ to ‘Livelihoods’: The case of Tanzania I was struck by the similarities of our problems. I looked at Windrock, the poor state of the roads and reservations, it was just like the cattle trails in Maasailand. (Parkipuny qtd. in Hodgson 2011: 28)

The date 3 August 1989 is a historic one for indigenous rights activism in Africa. On this day, Moringe ole Parkipuny, a visionary Maasai activist who had also been

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a member of the Tanzanian Parliament representing the Ngorongoro District, addressed for the first time the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva.21 Parkipuny was born in Nayobi, in the Arusha Region’s Ngorongoro District. After studying at the University of Dar es Salaam, he traveled to the United States in the late 1970s, where he cultivated contacts with the Hopi and Navajo communities. Dorothy Hodgson writes that in the US, Parkipuny experienced an epiphany which would turn out to be crucial for Africa’s involvement in the global indigenous rights movement. Parkipuny recognized how poverty, the lack of self-­determination, and threats of land and resource alienation, compounded by cultural intolerance and aggressive policies of assimilation in the name of ‘nation building’, were not plights unique to the Native Americans or, for that matter, to the Maasai and the Hadza in Tanzania. They were part of a globally entangled pattern of structural inequality, itself the result of Western imperialist projects which had been lately exacerbated by neo-­liberal and neo-­ colonial hegemonic relations. Significantly, Parkipuny was seeing a world increasingly divided between mainstream capitalist classes and traditional minorities who had remained politically and culturally marginalized and whose livelihoods and modes of subsistence had once again been put under pressure by a new African kleptocratic elite. The effect of Parkipuny’s historic speech was that other indigenous African groups were able to talk at the UN and bring forward a wide range of diverse political agendas within only two decades, due to the support of transnational advocacy groups such as IWGIA, Survival International, and Cultural Survival. In Northern Africa, for example, representatives of the Amazigh (Berber) minorities – like Hassan Id Balkassm in Morocco – began to lay claim to cultural and linguistic recognition and pushed for a more democratic sustainable administration of resources. Indigenous leaders from Burundi, Rwanda and Congo started to fight for the rights of their rainforest peoples and the political representation for the Batwa and other minority groups whose livelihoods very much depend on land and resources. Also, the Tuareg, a larger population, implicated in tortuous civil wars in Mali and Niger, started working on complicated negotiations concerning territorial integrity, mobility throughout the Sahara desert and the administration of resources. In 1990, Parkipuny founded the first Maasai NGO in Tanzania, namely KIPOC (Korongoro Integrated People Oriented to Conservation). KIPOC’s original agenda stated as its main goals the prevention of further land grabbing, the securing of land rights, the mobilization of Maasai communities, the setting up of school facilities and leadership training, including the empowerment of youth and women. Hodgson explains how Parkipuny faced severe opposition and hostility from the Tanzanian government. Like other indigenous NGOs, KIPOC was subjected to ‘continual harassment, surveillance, and mistrust’ (78). Daniel Murumbi, for example, who had started to lead a branch of KIPOC in order to represent the Barabaig in Tanzania, was accused of running a political party. As a consequence, the authorities closed his offices. In the early 1990s, Parkipuny’s KIPOC fought vehemently against two famous land grab cases, the Canadian Wheat Project and

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the Breweries’ land grab. On 2 May 1993 he was shot by a policeman but luckily survived the assassination attempt. Within this hostile environment, the strategies and positionings of various organizations varied considerably. In contrast to KIPOC, Inyuat e Maa, for example, another influential NGO, founded by Saruni ole Ngulay to advocate passionately for the cultural survival of the Maasai, clearly opted for a more conciliatory strategy. Hodgson explains that Ngulay advocated for the revival and protection of Maasai culture almost as an ‘apolitical concern’ (2011: 100); he was careful to frame his advocacy without undermining the state’s sovereignty, blaming the alienation of Maasai communities on larger modernizing forces rather than on the state as such. Hodgson maintains that Ngulay’s NGO was so cooperative with the government that ‘it produced constant accusations of cooptation from other Maasai leaders’ (2011: 101). Hodgson reports how in 1994 there were only ten registered NGOs in Tanzania; by 2000 they had grown exponentially, to more than 100 (2011: 63). She explains that all these international non-­governmental organizations (INGOs) varied in form and function, some being more legitimate than others. The Pastoralist Indigenous Non-­Governmental Organisation (PINGO) was established in 1994 as an umbrella network, similar to WIMSA for Southern Africa, in order to coordinate the representation of local INGOs on a national and international level. The exponential growth of NGOs since the 1990s is not a phenomenon unique to Tanzania. We see a similar development in Kenya or Ethiopia – that is, in all those African countries that in the 1990s decided to open up to democratization, adjustment and decentralization programmes. Suddenly, with the advent of multi-­party politics and the draft of new constitutions, a new space opened up for civic and resistance movements that were the result of an attempt to challenge and oppose authoritarian states. It would go beyond the scope of this chapter to retrace every step of these two important NGOs. In her magisterial study, Hodgson offers a detailed account of their genealogy and complex dynamics. What interests me at this point is the analysis she provides of the gains and limits of PINGO and the new directions this movement was forced to take in the early 2000s as a result of inner and outer stresses. By the late 1990s, Hodgson explains, a combination of circumstances had plunged PINGO into a ‘state of disarray’ (2002a: 1087). On the one hand, Parkipuny and other leaders were accused of corruption and mismanagement and, as a consequence, many donors decided to cut funds; on the other hand, after facing a series of legal failures with regard to evictions and land grabbing, PINGO had to admit that claiming ‘indigenous’ status did not convince the state officials but that, on the contrary, their hostility had even grown. Like Botswana and other African states, Tanzania did not acknowledge indigenous status and interpreted PINGO’s claims, at best, as forms of tribalism and, at worst, as potential attempts at separatism and irredentism. Particularly menacing was the idea of claiming cultural difference in connection with collective rights. Hodgson maintains that, although becoming involved in the international indigenous movement had brought PINGO visibility and enabled NGOs to collect funding while strengthening transnational

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connections, locally it failed to engage the government efficiently. In the face of severe fractures, a workshop was organized in Arusha in 2000 entitled ‘The Future of Pastoralist NGOs in Tanzania’. Hodgson participated and provides a detailed account of its results. One of the main issues that emerged concerned the question of representation and leadership. Many non-­Maasai groups did not feel represented and thought that PINGO was a top-­down organization monopolised by Maasai leaders, who had neglected other pastoralist or hunter-­gatherer groups (such as the Barabaig, Parakuyo and Ndorobo). Hundreds of NGOs scattered across the country meant a fragmentation of objectives, agendas and resources. A strong coalition with a unified agenda was needed to engage the government on a local level. What is more, PINGO turned out to be dominated by young, educated men, while women and the elderly were excluded from the circuit of management. Similarly, impoverished communities remained excluded that did not fit into the category of ‘indigenous people’ but which had similar fate, including relocation and a shortage of facilities and resources. Yet for Hodgson, Parkipuny, Saruni and other leaders cannot be considered naïve pawns in the hands of humanitarian entrepreneurs. When Parkipuny started his fierce struggle against land grabbing in his country in the early 1980s, there was virtually no space for opposition in the one-­party socialist system that Julius Nyerere had envisioned in his realm. The involvement of many young men and women in transnational groups represented the only avenues for advancing their political action. ‘These African activists’, Hodgson argues, ‘have creatively positioned themselves to take advantage of the opportunities for political agency and collective action provided by the indigenous rights movement’ (2011: 61). Their involvement provided many communities with important resources, better welfare services, secure title deeds in certain areas, advanced schooling and education, and was able to gain mediatic and international visibility. Thus, engaging in the global indigenous movement was an important interim stage to move from a position of subjects to becoming ‘citizens’. As a result of the Arusha workshop, Maasai agro-­pastoralists and hunter-­gatherers decided in 2003 to abandon the indigenous framework and to shift from ethnic identification to the urgent question of shared interests. They decided to call themselves ‘civil society organisations’ (CSOs) and put ‘pastoralist livelihoods’ at the core of their agenda. PINGO was restructured and another umbrella organization was founded: the Tanzania Pastoralists and Hunter Gatherers Organisation (TPHGO). From 2005 on they became actively involved in the reform of livestock policy and directed their efforts to creating alliances within the national arena.

Re-­writing human rights in Africa: Wangari Maathai’s Green Belt movement There are a whole set of areas where Africa’s contribution to the world of ideas and praxis can be highlighted for the benefit of the world with implications of all sorts of things: theories of exchange, theories of democracy, theories of human

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rights and the rights of other species, including natural species, in this age of ecological crisis. (Mbembe qtd. in Blaser 2013) There, the tree became a symbol for the democratic struggle in Kenya. Citizens were mobilised to challenge widespread abuses of power, corruption and environmental mismanagement. In Nairobi’s Uhuru Park, at Freedom Corner, as in many parts of the country, trees of peace were planted to demand the release of prisoners of conscience and a peaceful transition to democracy. (Maathai 2004a)

On Earth Day in 1977, Wangari Maathai, together with a small group of women, planted seven trees in honour of other Kenyan women activists. This quiet and humble gesture can be seen as the foundation of the Green Belt Movement. Retrospectively, it has become clear that its birth was anything but accidental; it was a consciously brought about act. An astute woman, who had studied biological sciences in the United States at the height of the civil rights movement, orchestrated it. Once back in Nairobi after earning a PhD in zoology, she forged important links with local feminist organizations. During her time as a member of the National Council of Women, Maathai listened to dozens, if not hundreds, of rural women, who were complaining about how a firewood shortage – caused by deregulated logging, state-­led deforestation, land desiccation and resource mismanagement – increasingly deprived them of their most basic needs: cooked food, clean water, and a warm household. They were forced to walk for longer distances, up to five kilometres per day, since wood was the main source of energy for rural Kenyan communities, and Maathai saw how, in the long run, this situation would lead to an ecological and economic crisis. Within a short span of time, she mobilized hundreds of women and created tree-­planter groups; she paid them a small amount of money for growing seedlings, which would then be grouped into tree nurseries that prepared transplantation to entire ‘belts of trees’. By the time Maathai was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2004, she had established more than 6,000 tree nurseries, employed 900,000 women, and replanted 30 million trees, thereby reforesting large swathes of Kenyan land. Maathai did not choose to reforest her country merely out of a romantic or unconditional love of nature. It was a political act, meant to denounce and expose a specific pattern of Kenyan power. It is no coincidence that the seeds of the Green Belt Movement were planted at the time when Daniel arap Moi’s one-­party authoritarian regime was also just about to put down roots. In a country led by a male elite that does not mind plundering natural resources for the sake of private gain, planting trees ceases to be a merely symbolic or harmless act and becomes, as Nixon says, a powerful act of ‘civic disobedience’ (2011: 135). In 1989, Maathai discovered that Moi had planned to destroy parts of Uhuru Park in Nairobi in order to build a 62-­storey tower block. She started a fierce campaign that ultimately led to multiple imprisonments and violent collisions between Green Belt women activists

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and the Kenyan police. A few years later, in 1998, she opposed the illegal deforestation of the Karura Forest, which is considered to be the ‘green lung’ of the Nairobi region and a vital water catchment in the area. Thus, gradually, Maathai’s environmental activism became part of a larger pro-­democracy movement, embracing larger human and civic rights causes – the release of political prisoners, feminist campaigns, as well as peace and debt relief programmes for African countries. In the course of the 1980s and 1990s, writes Nixon, Maathai’s grassroots movement ‘gave thousands of Kenyans a revived sense of civic agency and national possibility’ (2011: 133), eventually contributing to the transition to democracy in 2002. In his perceptive reading, Nixon suggests that the effectiveness of Maathai’s movement lies in its ‘intersectional environmental strategy’ (2011: 133). By fighting soil erosion, an environmental cause, Maathai was simultaneously battling a larger civic ailment, ‘the erosion of civil rights’ (Nixon 2011: 133). In an important piece entitled ‘Trees of Democracy’, Maathai explains how reforesting Kenya could break cycles of poverty and empower women, who had been silenced and dispossessed by colonialist patriarchy first and, later, by those men who, once independence had been gained, did not mind inheriting and profiting from the same structures. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, she saw how Moi’s nepotism allowed the selling off or logging of large tracts of forest and parkland to foreign developers or was used to maintain and ‘buy’ political alliances. ‘Moi’s government’, Maathai explains, ‘encouraged ethnic communities to attack one another over land. Supporters of the ruling party got the land, while those in the pro-­democracy movement were displaced’ (Maathai 2004b). Clearly, her environmental struggle was part of a larger struggle against dictatorship. Maathai’s astute approach shows how in order to attack those in power, one first has to know how power works; one has to attack it ‘from within’, at its very roots. A strong human rights agenda can only be written out of the historical soil of a country, supported by knowledge of the culture of power it has created. Interestingly, Maathai’s movement, which also aimed at preventing land grabbing and preserving communal resources, was able to circumvent many of the impasses faced by indigenous-­r ights NGOs. Although Maathai too was dependent on foreign aid, she was the one who set the agenda. It could be argued that donors were convinced by her programme, ready to buy into it and lend their support. The movement never suffered from the hemorrhagic Balkanization I  illustrated in the previous section. Maathai was the leader, the agenda was a clear and unified one; in cases of mismanagement, which did happen, anti-­corruption measures were taken, and the inner dynamics never excluded women from management and leading positions. Moreover, ‘identity’ and ‘ethnicity’ were never points of departure in Maathai’s movement. It was rather ‘gendered subalternity’ in connection with the preservation of life and land resources. In a seminal article, Renée Sylvain has amply demonstrated how many human rights declarations, paradoxically, have failed to protect the rights of women. In her crucial fieldwork in the Omaheke region of Namibia, she shows how the Indigenous Human Rights Declaration, for instance, by fostering cultural preservation,

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burdened and compromised San women who, on the one hand, were meant to function as custodians of culture (2011: 91) and, on the other, became victims of those very cultures. Silenced and relegated to a domestic sphere, and thus kept doubly dependent, on white male farmers and on their own husbands, they fell prey to different forms of intersectional violence and discrimination – from sexualized racism and sexist stigmatization, to class exploitation and physical violence. Aware of how power in Africa is maintained across both ‘ethnic’ and ‘gender’ lines, Maathai tried to attack the root of the problem by mobilizing subaltern, disenfranchised women in the name of a common cause. She did so in the belief that African countries, because of their ethnic diversity, can prevent ethnic favoritisms and ethnic competitions only by opting for intersectional solidarities across ethnicity, class and gender. In an age of ecological crisis, identity can no longer be dictated by spatial geography alone. New definitions of citizenship, new democratic projects are required that go beyond abstract, individualistic definitions of human rights. There is not much point in talking about human rights if life resources are not preserved and eco-­systems are allowed to be destroyed by oil or gas spills. Human rights cannot be written only in the aftermath of disastrous violations or genocide. More than ever, it has become urgent to rethink human rights in connection with life, the preservation of life and life resources (Mbembe 2013). “[T]he environment is man’s first right”, Ken Saro-­Wiwa famously stated while he was fighting for the Ogoni people in Nigeria (qtd. in Nixon 2011: 109). We hope this chapter has managed to show how Africa is a vibrant laboratory in which a dynamic civil society negotiates and reclaims human rights through multiple positionings and re-­positionings. Yet, Africa – the continent we keep pathologizing; the continent that is far from being a passive consumer of humanitarian aid, and which is challenged by necropolitical forces and violent erasures – has its own visionary activists, who refuse to comply passively with imported international agendas. Instead, in this difficult age of ours, they re-­write and re-­imagine human rights for us all, for the benefit of the world.

Notes 1 In her book Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous, Hodgson has made a constructive contribution to the debate concerning the manipulating and homogenizing images indigenous groups have to produce of themselves in order to obtain financial support for their demands. She argues that we should move beyond a constructivist framework. She quotes Tania Li’s work, making the point that the identification of indigenous groups ‘is not natural or inevitable, but neither is it simply invented, adopted or imposed’ (2011: 5). She agrees with Li, according to whom we should read indigenous groups’ identification as a strategic ‘positioning’ (Hodgson 2011: 5). By suggesting how Maasai in Tanzania have ‘become’ indigenous, Hodgson shares Li’s opinion; the idea is that in the face of repressive states, oppressed groups have to actively align and re-­align themselves through the ‘cultural and political work of articulation’ (Li qtd. in Hodgson 2011: 5). 2 The history of the negotiations, of the various resolutions, drafts and amendments of the declaration, has been amply documented by Hodgson and Sylvain. See, in particular, the

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first chapter of Hodgson’s book Becoming Indigenous in Africa and Renée Sylvain’s Oxford entry on Indigenous Human Rights in Africa. 3 Eventually the declaration (2007) avoided formulating a clear definition; instead it listed the following criteria: prior occupancy, historical continuity, a strong connection to territory, sense of distinct cultural identity, marginal position, and self-­identification. For an excellent and detailed account of the negotiation process, see the first chapter of Dorothy Hodgson’s Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous (2011) or Renée Sylvain’s entry in the Oxford Encyclopedia (2017). 4 See, in particular, Alice Bellagamba and Georg Klute’s introduction to their illuminating book Beside the State: Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa (2008) which contains a detailed discussion of contemporary Mali and of the new actors who have taken control over the zone. 5 As James Suzman explains, ‘[A]lmost all labels referring to San collectively were coined by non-­San and are etymologically pejorative’ (2001: 3). In this piece I will use the term ‘San’ because at the Botswana conference on indigenous populations held in 1993, San delegates made the strategic decision to stick to this term. 6 The San in southern Africa number approximately 100,000 people: 48,000 in Botswana, 38,000 in Namibia, 7,000 in Angola, 6,000 in South Africa and a few hundred in Zambia and Zimbabwe. 7 For more information on the linguistic and historical contexts of these communities, see the excellent account by Matthias Brenzinger. 8 For this section I am particularly indebted to Steven Robins’s magisterial assessment of the San situation in South Africa (2001a) and his book on South African indigenous rights activism (2008), and to John and Jean Comaroff’s detailed discussion of the Hoodia in their book Ethnicity, Inc. (2009). 9 Khoi-­San is a unifying name for the non-­Bantu indigenous peoples of southern Africa. The San are foraging and the Khoi are a pastoral people. The Nama are the only Khoi-­ speaking people to have survived in South Africa. I use the term Khoi-­San to refer to both the San and the Nama groups. In the region of Mpumalanga there are two other small groups – the //Xegwi and /Xam San – but we know very little about them. See, Nigel Crawhall 1999; Steven Robins 2001a). 10 With this Land Act, the South African Union allocated about 10% of arable land to black Africans (80% of the population) and left the rest of fertile lands to whites (20% of the population). 11 For this section I am particularly indebted to the essays by Renée Sylvain and Jacqueline Solway, and Robert Hitchcock, as well as their important fieldwork and research (see references). 12 In 1933 the British colonial authorities recognized eight tribes in the Chieftainship Act: the Barolong, Bakwena, Bangwaketse, Balete, Bakgatla, Batlokwa, Bangwato and Batawana. These are the same tribes that, in comparison to other ethnic groups, enjoy substantial privileges and control important administrative positions. 13 Minorities are not recognized by the Constitution of Botswana and minority leaders have hardly been able to access the Ntlo Ya Kgosi, the House of Chiefs, which can be compared to the House of Parliament. Recently, slow improvements have been registered. Minority advocacy groups have organized themselves and in 2008 a Wayeyi representative, Shikati Fish Matepe Ozoo, was elected to the House of Chiefs for the first time. 14 The Tribal Land Act introduced so-­called land boards meant to function as ‘neutral boards’ with the task of allocating land grants and land rights without the intermediary function of chiefs. Yet, these turned out to be Tswana-­dominated boards which did not include San and other minorities. The Tribal Grazing Land Policy (1975) aimed at maximizing the profits from the vast areas of grazing land and veld by zoning communal lands and building more profitable commercial leasehold ranches. 15 The packages included, among other services, ‘livestock, agricultural implements, money, and other perks to relocate to the new villages where they were provided with homesteads and much more’ (227–8).

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16 For a more detailed list of pastoralists, see the annual IWGIA reports on indigenous human rights (available online) or Renée Sylvain’s entry ‘Indigenous Peoples in Africa’ in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History (also online). 17 Hodgson and Schroerder explain that the term ‘Maasai’ initially referred to a specific territory (2002: 83). The Maasai were never a monolithic or homogenous group. Only in the 19th century, after forging trans-­ethnic alliances during the Iloikop Wars, did they emerge as a ‘single ethnic bloc’ (Igoe 2006: 408). Towards the end of the 19th century, the term was used to differentiate pastoralists from other Maa speakers who were engaging in other productive strategies (cf. Hodgson and Schroeder 2002: 83). 18 National Reserves and National Parks were established, to name but a few: the Serengeti Park and Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, followed, more recently, by the Mkomazi Game Reserve; and the Nairobi, Amboseli, Masai Mara and Samburu National Parks in Kenya. 19 Kenya gained independence in December  1963; Tanganyika became independent in 1961 and united with Zanzibar to become Tanzania in 1964. 20 It is well known that Ethiopians eat teff; rice is not part of their diet. 21 The UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations had been established in 1982 with the aim of promoting and reviewing the development of the human rights of indigenous peoples.

References Bales, Kevin. 2012. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, 3rd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bayart, Jean-­François. 2009. The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Polity. Bellagamba, Alice and Georg Klute, eds. 2008. Beside the State: Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa. Topics in Interdisciplinary African Studies 10. Cologne: Rüdiger Köppe.Blaser, Thomas M. 2013. ‘Africa and the Future: An Interview with Achille Mbembe’, Africa Is a Country, https://africasacountry.com/2013/11/africa-­and-­the-­future-­an-­interview-­ with-­achille-­mbembe/ (accessed on 12 July 2018). Brenzinger, Matthias. ‘Angola and Zambia’, in An Assessment of the Status of the San in South Africa, Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe, pp. 55–62. Windhoek: Legal Assistance Centre. Comaroff, Jean and John L. Comaroff. 2001. ‘Naturing the Nation: Aliens, Apocalypse and the Postcolonial State’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 27 (3): 627–651. Comaroff, John and Jean Comaroff. 2009. Ethnicity, Inc. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Crawhall, Nigel. 1999. Needs Assessment Study: Indigenous Peoples in South Africa. Cape Town: Sasi. Crawhall, Nigel. 2011. ‘L’organisation des peuples autochtones en Afrique’, Écologie & Politique, 42: 1711–1786. Cutolo, Armando. 2008. ‘Populations, citoyennetés et territoires: autochtonie et gouvernementalité en Afrique’, Politique Africaine, 112 (4): 5–17. Galaty, John G. 1985. ‘The Sedentarization of Pastoral Nomads: Development or Involution?’ Unpublished Paper, McGill University, Canada, pp. 1–29. ———. 2011. ‘The Modern Motility of Pastoral Land Rights: Tenure Transitions and Land-­Grabbing In East Africa’, Unpublished Paper Presented at the International Conference on Global Land Grabbing, Brighton, UK, March 21–23, pp. 1–28, www.future-­ agricultures.org/wp-­content/uploads/pdf-­archive/John%20G.%20Galaty.pdf (accessed on 12 July 2018). Gallino, Luciano. 2011. Finanzcapitalismo: la civiltà del denaro in crisi. Torino: Einaudi.

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Geschiere, Peter. 2011. ‘Autochthony, Citizenship, and Exclusion – Paradoxes in the Politics of Belonging in Africa and Europe’, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 18 (1): 321–339. Geschiere, Peter and Francis Nyamnjoh. 2000. ‘Capitalism and Autochthony: The Seesaw of Mobility and Belonging’, Public Culture, 12 (2): 423–452. Hitchcock, Robert K. 2002. ‘ “We are the First People”: Land, Natural Resources and Identity in the Central Kalahari, Botswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 28 (4): 797–824. Hodgson, Dorothy L. 2002a. ‘Introduction: Comparative Perspectives on the Indigenous Rights Movement in Africa and the Americas’, American Anthropologist, 104 (4): 1037–1049. ———. 2002b. ‘Precarious Alliances: The Cultural Politics and Structural Predicaments of the Indigenous Rights Movement in Tanzania’, American Anthropologist, 104 (4): 1086–1097. ———. 2011. Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous in Africa: Postcolonial Politics in a Neoliberal World. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Hodgson, Dorothy L. and Richard A. Schroeder. 2002. ‘Dilemmas of Counter-­Mapping Community Resources in Tanzania’, Development & Change, 33: 79–100. Hughes, Lotte. 2006. ‘Malice in Maasailand: The Historical Roots of Current Political Struggles’, Unpublished Paper, Open University, UK. Igoe, Jim. 2006. ‘Becoming Indigenous Peoples: Difference, Identity, and the Globalization of East African Identity Politics’, African Affairs, 105 (420): 399–420. Maathai, Wangari. 2004a. ‘Nobel Lecture’, The Official Web Site of the Nobel Prize, www. nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2004/maathai-­lecture-­text.html (accessed on 12 July 2018). ———. 2004b. ‘Trees for Democracy’, The New York Times, 10 December  2004, www. nytimes.com/2004/12/10/opinion/trees-­for-­democracy.html (accessed on 12 July 2018). Mbembe, Achille. 2000. ‘At the Edge of the World: Boundaries, Territoriality, and Sovereignty in Africa’, Public Culture, 12 (1): 259–284. ———. 2001. ‘Ways of Seeing: Beyond Nativism’, Africa Studies Review, 44 (2): 1–14. ———. 2002. ‘African Modes of Self-­Writing’, Public Culture, 14 (1): 239–273. ———. 2003. ‘Necropolitics’, Public Culture, 15 (1): 11–40. ———. 2013. Critique of Black Reason. Durham: Duke University Press. Mountain, Alan. 2003. The First People of the Cape: A Look at the History and the Impact of Colonialism on the Cape Indigenous People. Claremont: David Philip. Ndahinda, Felix. 2014. ‘Historical Development of Indigenous Identification and Rights in Africa’, in Ridwan Laher and Korir Sing ’Oei (eds), Indigenous People in Africa: Contestations, Empowerment and Group Rights, pp. 24–44. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa. Nixon, Rob. 2011. Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nyati-­Ramahobo, Lydia. 2008. ‘Minority Tribes in Botswana: The Politics of Recognition’, Minority Rights Group International, pp.  1–16, www.refworld.org/pdfid/496dc0c82.pdf (accessed on 12 July 2018). Olmsted, Nicholas. 2004. ‘Indigenous Rights in Botswana: Development, Democracy and Dispossession’, Washington University Global Studies Law Review, 3 (3): 799–866. Pelican, Michaela. 2009. ‘Complexities of Indigeneity and Autochthony: An African Example’, American Ethnologist, 36 (1): 52–65. Péron, Xavier. 1994. ‘Flamands roses, éléphants blancs, et idées noires: conservation en pays maasaï’, Politique Africaine, 53: 37–51. Povinelli, Elizabeth A. 1999. ‘Settler Modernity and the Quest for an Indigenous Tradition’, Public Culture, 11 (1): 19–48.

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Robins, Steven. 2001a. ‘South Africa’, in An Assessment of the Status of the San in South Africa, Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe, pp. 2–53. Windhoek: Legal Assistance Centre. ———. 2001b. ‘NGOs, “Bushmen” and Double Vision: The ≠khomani San Land Claim and the Cultural Politics of “Community” and ‘Development’ in the Kalahari’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 27 (4): 833–853. ———. 2008. From Revolution to Rights in South Africa: Social Movements, NGOs & Popular Politics after Apartheid. Woodbridge and Suffolk: James Currey. ———. 2017. ‘Indigenous Peoples in Africa’, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, http://africanhistory.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/ acrefore-­9780190277734-­e-­263 (accessed on 5 April 2018). Solway, Jacqueline. 2002. ‘Navigating the “Neutral” State: “Minority” Rights in Botswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 28 (4): 711–729. ———. 2011. ‘ “Cultural Fatigue”: The State and Minority Rights in Botswana’, Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 18 (1): 211–261. Suzman, James. 2001. An Introduction to the Regional Assessment of the Status of the San in Southern Africa. Windhoek: Legal Assistance Centre. Sylvain, Renée. 2011. ‘At the Intersections: San Women and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in Africa’, The International Journal of Human Rights, 15 (1): 89–110. Thomson, Alex. 2010. An Introduction to African Politics, 3rd ed. New York: Routledge. Vergès, Françoise. 2001a. Abolir l’esclavage: une utopie coloniale. Les ambiguïtés d’une politique humanitaire. Paris: Albin Michel. ———. 2001b. ‘The Age of Love’, Transformation, 47: 1–17.

Bibliography Bayart, Jean-­ François, Peter Geschiere and Francis Nyamnjoh. 2001. ‘Autochtonie, démocratie et citoyenneté en Afrique’, Critique Internationale, 177–194. Hays, Jennifer and Megan Biesele. 2011. ‘Indigenous Rights in Southern Africa: International Mechanisms and Local Contexts’, The International Journal of Human Rights, 15 (1): 1–10. Hitchcock, Robert K., Maria Sapignoli and Wayne A. Babchuk. 2011. ‘What about Our Rights? Settlements, Subsistence and Livelihood Security among Central Kalahari San and Bakgalagadi’, The International Journal of Human Rights, 15 (1): 62–88. ———. 2015. ‘Settler Colonialism, Conflicts, and Genocide: Interactions Between Hunter-­ Gatherers and Settlers in Kenya, and Zimbabwe and Northern Botswana’, Settler Colonial Studies, 5 (1): 40–65. Hodgson, Dorothy. 2009. ‘Becoming Indigenous in Africa’, African Studies Review, 59 (3): 1–32. James, Deborah. 2000a. ‘Hill of Thorns: Custom, Knowledge and the Reclaiming of a Lost Land in the New South Africa’, Development and Change, 31: 629–649. ———. 2000b. ‘ “After Years in the Wilderness”: The Discourse of Land Claims in the New South Africa’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 27 (3): 142–161. Laher, Ridwan and Korir Sing’Oei (eds). 2014. Indigenous People in Africa: Contestations, Empowerment and Group Rights. Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa. Lennox, Corinne and Damien Short (eds). 2017. Handbook of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights. London and New York: Routledge. Morinville, Cynthia and Lucy Rodina. 2013. ‘Rethinking the Human Right to Water: Water Access and Dispossession in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve’, Geoforum, 49: 150–159.

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Sapignoli, Maria. 2017. ‘Indigenous Mobilization and Activism: The San, the Botswana State and the International Community’, in Corinne Lennox and Damien Short (eds), Handbook of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, pp. 268–281. London and New York: Routledge. Saugestad, Sidsel. 2011. ‘Impact of International Mechanisms on Indigenous Rights in Botswana’, The International Journal of Human Rights, 15 (1): 37–61. Solway, Jacqueline. 2009. ‘Human Rights and NGO “Wrongs”: Conflict Diamonds, Culture Wars and the “Bushman Question” ’, Africa: The Journal of the International African Institute, 79 (3): 321–346. Sylvain, Renée. 2002. ‘ “Land, Water, and Truth”: San Identity and Global Indigenism’, American Ethnologist, 104 (4): 1074–1085. ———. 2005. ‘Disorderly Development: Globalization and the Idea of “Culture” in the Kalahari’, American Ethnologist, 32 (3): 354–370. ———. 2006. ‘Drinking, Fighting, and Healing: San Struggles for Survival and Solidarity in the Omaheke Region, Namibia’, Senri Ethnological Studies, 70: 131–150. ———. 2015. ‘Forages and Fictions in the Kalahari: Indigenous Identities and the Politics of Deconstruction’, Anthropological Theory, 15 (2): 158–178. Wachira, George Mukundi and Tuuli Karjala. 2017. ‘The Struggles for Protection of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in Africa’, in Corinne Lennox and Damien Short (eds), Handbook of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights, pp. 394–413. London and New York: Routledge. Wilmsen, Edwin N. 2002. ‘Mutable Identities: Moving Beyond Ethnicity in Botswana’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 28 (4): 825–841.

2 INDIGENOUS RIGHTS IN LATIN AMERICA Repression, resistance, resurgence Rebecca K. Root

The Spanish and Portuguese conquest of Latin America in the years after 1492 decimated the indigenous population. Some 65 million people died in the conquest itself, and population numbers continued to plummet throughout the colonial era. The early colonialists found major empires like the Aztec and Inca, but also much smaller non-­sedentary and semi-­sedentary groups. The vast majority of indigenous peoples in Latin America today are descendants of the major pre-­colonial empires, as many smaller groups were wiped out. The Aztec empire, based in what is today Mexico and Central America, and the Inca empire, in what is today Peru, became the foci of Spanish colonialism. These vast empires, with armies of tens of thousands, fell due to the massive advantages the Spanish brought with them, especially in terms of weaponry (guns and swords of steel), transport (ships and horses) and disease (smallpox, measles, cholera). The Spanish invasion also benefited from divide-­and-­conquer tactics, using indigenous allies to weaken the empires, only to betray these allies in the end. But disease did the greatest harm. Some scholars believe that the indigenous population fell by as much as 90–95% in the 150 years after the arrival of Europeans (Lovell 2005). For these early invaders, success in conquest was rewarded with encomiendas, huge estates of productive land with indigenous workers forced to give much of their agricultural output to the estate holder. In exchange, the estate holder undertook the Christianization of his workers. Elsewhere, indigenous workers toiled in mines to extract wealth to be sent back to Spain. Colonialism transformed the religion, agricultural practices, culture, economy, and nearly every other aspect of existence in the region. By the 1820s, when most of Latin America broke from colonial power and solidified into sovereign states, the region was radically different than its precolonial form. Land was held by a small settler minority, with indigenous and African labourers forced to toil for the benefit of those landholders.

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The Catholic Church was a major force in the colonization of the Americas, with leaders of the church participating in some of the worst crimes of this period. A very few, most notably the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas (widely considered one of the world’s first human rights activists), became critics of the abuse of indigenous peoples of the “New World” and lobbied the Spanish Crown to protect rather than destroy them. Most indigenous people converted to Christianity, yet practised a syncretic Catholicism that liberally mixed indigenous customs and animism with reverence for Christ and the saints. Until the mid-­20th century, the very low numbers of Catholic priests in indigenous communities allowed local indigenous men to oversee the spiritual life of their communities in ways that were only nominally Catholic. By independence, more than a quarter of the population was of mixed indigenous and European descent (mestizo), and this part of the population was growing faster than any other group. But it was the white minority at the top that benefited most from independence, while indigenous and Afro-­Latin populations continued to face great hardship. During the colonial period, whether you were considered “Indian” depended on language; if a person spoke Spanish, they were considered mestizo, but if a person spoke an indigenous language, they were considered indigenous. Today, whether someone is considered indigenous is shaped by language and dress, though scholarship on indigenous people relies upon self-­identification as the best determinant of indigeneity. In practice, the social construct of indigeneity functions differently from community to community across Latin America, and for much of recent history, indigenous Latin Americans were more likely to identify as peasants than in ethnic terms. This has changed dramatically since the 1980s. The 19th and 20th centuries saw swings back and forth between dictatorship and democracy, but little change in terms of the dominance of people of European descent over others economically, socially, and politically. Governments adopted assimilationist strategies to address “the Indian problem”. Increasingly, indigenous people lost indigenous languages and some aspects of culture as they were subjected to dominant-­language-­only education models, social stigmatization of indigenous identity, and economic pressures to integrate. The United States became the hegemonic power in the hemisphere, investing heavily, intervening militarily or covertly, and working to ensure pro-­American, often anti-­democratic regimes in power. During the Cold War, as the case of Guatemala demonstrates (see what follows), the United States sometimes empowered brutal regimes that saw indigenous people as part of a broader threat to the status quo, which meant a form of capitalism that further widened the gap between elites and marginalized groups. While governments bore the greatest responsibility for trampling indigenous human rights, in Colombia and especially Peru, armed Leftist rebel groups also brutalized indigenous populations in the context of the Cold War. By the late 20th century, Latin America had become the most unequal region of the world, with people of colour at the bottom of the socio-­economic spectrum. A wave of democratization in the 1970s and 1980s raised hopes that a more inclusive political system might at last address centuries of injustice.

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Since the 1980s, Latin America has experienced a surge of indigenous activism, often with collaboration and financial support from international NGOs and the Catholic Church. A  major catalyst was the 1992 quincentennial of Columbus’s “discovery” of the Americas. Indigenous groups worked hard to recast this as a period to reflect on 500 years of resistance by indigenous peoples to various forms of oppression. Nearly all the countries of the region were now democracies, and indigenous groups took advantage of the lower levels of repression to voice their concerns to an unprecedented degree (Brysk 2000). This activism should also be understood as a response to the neoliberal economic orthodoxy that took hold across the region during this period, and that indigenous groups often saw as a threat to the territorial claims and environmental well-­being of their members (Postero and Zamosc 2004). According to the World Bank, in 2010, there were approximately 42 million indigenous people in Latin America, or roughly 8% of the region’s total population. More than 80% of that indigenous population was concentrated in Mexico, Peru, Guatemala, and Bolivia, with smaller populations scattered throughout the rest of the region (World Bank 10). Though numbers vary depending on methodology and definitions, the World Bank estimates that there are 780 indigenous groups speaking 560 languages in Latin America. In Guatemala and Bolivia, the majority of the population is indigenous, though there is disagreement about the numbers, particularly in Guatemala. The issues confronted by indigenous peoples in 21st-­century Latin America vary, but a few major recurring themes are noted here. Indigenous Latin Americans are 2.7 times more likely to live in extreme poverty than their non-­indigenous counterparts. Though the numbers of Latin Americans, both indigenous and non-­indigenous, living in poverty fell in the first decade of the 21st century, poverty continued to afflict 43% of indigenous Latin Americans, compared to 24% of all Latin Americans (World Bank 6). Indigenous women face multiple forms of social exclusion and so are even more dramatically affected by poverty and other indicators of marginalization. By 2010, approximately half of indigenous Latin Americans lived in urban areas, compared to 76% of the overall population. Migration to urban areas has been fueled by many factors, but above all the desire for greater access to employment and public services. Indigenous Latin Americans living in cities are much more likely to have access to education, electricity, and piped water (World Bank 10, 30). However, they experience inequality in new ways. For example, they live in housing that is less secure and less sanitary, more disaster prone, and more often located in slums, than the housing of non-­indigenous urban residents (World Bank 6, 11). It is harder to measure urban migration’s impact on indigenous identity and social cohesion. It undoubtedly creates new challenges in most cases, though in Bolivia is has fueled growing indigenous activism. Some real improvements in the lives of indigenous peoples in Latin America occurred in recent years. The World Bank writes that “the expansion of education, especially primary education, has been one of the most significant gains

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of the last decade, closing or minimizing the gap that for decades had excluded indigenous children.” However, “despite widespread laws and regulations protecting indigenous languages and cultures, along with recognition of the importance of providing intercultural bilingual education (IBE) to indigenous children, education attainment is still strongly associated with the loss of indigenous languages and cultures” (World Bank 11–12). Language extinction is already a reality in the region: one-­fifth of Latin American indigenous citizens do not speak their native language, and three-­quarters of indigenous languages in the region are spoken by fewer than 10,000 people (World Bank 27). Resource extraction and environmental vulnerability dominate indigenous people’s concerns in many Latin American countries, as the case studies that follow indicate. This is despite the fact that 15 of the 22 countries that have ratified the International Labor Organization’s Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (ILO No. 169, 1989) are Latin American (World Bank 8). The ILO convention stipulates that indigenous peoples must be consulted before development or resource extraction affecting them may proceed. Over time, the principle that indigenous communities have a right to “free, prior, and informed consent” has gained traction internationally, evolving through the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Inter-­American Court and domestic court decisions, and the work of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. Nevertheless, indigenous land and peoples have been dramatically affected by deforestation, mining, and large-­scale infrastructure projects across the region, generally without consultation or consent. Indigenous peoples across the region are fighting back through protests and legal battles. And despite changes to political rhetoric and laws prohibiting discrimination, half of the indigenous citizens of Bolivia, Mexico, Guatemala, and Peru report that discrimination is a reality in their lives (World Bank 75). In most of the region, indigenous demands have received some degree of support from political parties of the Left, but little action to deliver on those demands has materialized. In Ecuador and Bolivia, powerful indigenous political parties have emerged in recent years; elsewhere, relatively few indigenous leaders have gained national office or had the opportunity to fundamentally change national public policy.

Guatemala Somewhere between 40% and 60% of Guatemala’s total population of 16  million citizens self-­identify as indigenous. There are at least 24 indigenous groups in Guatemala, and most indigenous people are monolingual speakers of one of 23 different languages. Twenty-­one of these groups are Maya, who also reside in southern Mexico, most notably in the state of Chiapas. The non-­Maya groups in Guatemala are the Xinca and the Garifuna. This case study will focus on the Maya in Guatemala. In the 20th century, this population was subjected to human rights violations on a scale and to a degree more extreme than anywhere else in Latin America, but

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most of the social structures that shaped that violence originated in the colonial period. The Maya civilization, which once covered parts of what today are Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras, had already fragmented into smaller groups and fallen to Aztec control by 1524, the year Pedro de Alvarado arrived in Guatemala with 250 Spanish soldiers, an unknown number of Nahua warriors from Mexico and enslaved and free Africans. He temporarily allied with the local Kaqchikels against their rivals the K’iche’, only to turn against the Kaqchikels in brutal fashion. But it was the diseases the Spaniards had brought, and which preceded them into Guatemala by at least four years, that secured their triumph. The first of these, smallpox, alone killed as many as one-­third to one-­half of the highland populations it reached. The brutality of the conquest was followed by an equally punishing regime in which indigenous people were expected to pay “tribute” and engage in forced labour for their new rulers. In the Cuchumatan mountains in the northwest of Guatemala, the invasion and early colonial period wiped out 90% of the population (Lovell 2005). During the colonial era, perhaps half the indigenous population fled Spanish settlements to live more freely in the mountains and other wilder spaces, while those who remained frequently rioted or rebelled against Spanish control, particularly as the Spanish monarchy weakened in the early 1800s. Guatemala gained its independence from Spain in 1821, but its economy, politics, and social system remained dominated by people of European descent and identity. The population was divided between indigenous and non-­indigenous: the Ladinos, non-­indigenous people, generally of mixed indigenous and European descent (elsewhere in Latin America called mestizos), and a small elite of criollos, people of purely European descent born in Latin America. Whether the government was controlled by Liberals or Conservatives, criollos or Ladinos, it was always non-­indigenous. And, as Grandin, Levenson and Olglesby write, forced labour was far from eliminated. After some decline in the early 1800s, it was restored by the end of the century, most notoriously through the 1877 mandamiento decree, which “obligated communities to send work gangs to work on plantations during the harvest, as did assorted vagrancy and debt peonage laws”. Meanwhile, government and elites advocated assimilation of indigenous populations while maintaining “apartheid-­like conditions”: Legal mechanisms  .  .  . institutionalized inequalities between Indians and Ladinos. The system of segregation was reinforced by a highly exploitative, militarized plantation economy dependent on the ongoing existence of indigenous communities, which served both as a ready, easily controllable source of cheap labor and a way to produce a seasonal workforce that planters only needed for part of the year. In other words, republican Guatemala was a society founded on apartheid-­like institutions lacquered with a Liberal glaze. (109)

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Maya could “become” Ladino by giving up traditional dress and customs and speaking Spanish, and there were strong incentives to do so: Ladinos were not subject to laws banning indigenous people from working in artisan trades, nor were they included in the system of forced labour, and they dominated positions of power in the military, police, civil service, and so on (Martínez Paláez 2009; Grandin et al. 2011). Though20th-­century Guatemalan elites sometimes paid homage to a romanticized image of the Maya empire for nation-­ building purposes, the country remained deeply unequal and segregated, with the indigenous population largely rural, poor, and without access to power or land. This changed somewhat in the decade between 1944 and 1954, when democratic socialists Juan José Arévalo and Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán were elected to the presidency and brought sweeping changes to the country, including enfranchising women and indigenous peasants, building the first meaningful social services in the country, and ending forced labour. Árbenz implemented an agrarian reform law that redistributed land and power to newly formed peasant committees, where many Maya found avenues for recognized political and local engagement for the first time since the arrival of the Spanish. The backlash from Guatemala’s landed elites and factions of the military came to a head in a US-­backed coup in 1954. Military dictators then oversaw a right-­wing regime of repression and corruption that lasted into the 1980s. Despite the reversal of reforms benefitting the Maya, increased organization among these communities continued in the 1960s and 70s through several different social movements that sometimes overlapped and sometimes split apart. Most Maya were at least nominally Catholic during this period, though indigenous customs and practices dominated Catholic practice at the local level. During this period, liberation theology reshaped Catholic philosophy, prioritizing the needs of the poor and elevating thousands of indigenous (and other) community members through their role as catechists. The Catholic Church and community became a locus of organizing in favour of cooperatives and social programs, making it suspect in the eyes of the state. At the same time, some indigenous Guatemalans were drawn to one of several Marxist armed guerrilla groups that emerged to oppose the regime, eventually joining together as the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG). Others organized in various forms in what today we think of as the roots of an indigenous-­pride movement. Indigenous beauty pageants and Mayan-­language radio programs spread across the country, and for the first time more than 20 indigenous mayors were elected. Many joined popular organizations such as the Committee of Campesino Unity (CUC) or labour unions; indigenous Guatemalans were far more likely to identify by class, as peasants, than as Maya during this period. The United States continued to provide weapons and funds to the government to fight what they now saw as a full-­fledged communist insurgency, though in fact the rebel groups remained small and grossly outmatched. Beginning in 1978, the government led a scorched-­earth campaign that left millions of people displaced and approximately 200,000 dead. CUC members, indigenous mayors,

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priests and catechists, and many others who supported indigenous and peasant calls to address poverty and inequality were assassinated. The 1980s witnessed the worst of this violence, as dictator Efraín Ríos Montt sought to “drain the water from the fish” – in other words, eliminate the rebels’ natural base of support: the indigenous population. The traumatic period of 1978–84 is known simply as la violencia. From the vantage point of indigenous rights, another label rings equally true: the Mayan holocaust. Rigoberta Menchú Tum brought international attention to the plight of indigenous Guatemalans with her 1983 book I, Rigoberta Menchúu and through the 1986 documentary When the Mountains Tremble, which she narrated. By then, her parents and brother had been killed and, because she was targeted for her political activism, she had fled to Mexico. In 1992, Menchú won the Nobel Peace Prize – the first indigenous person to do so. The year 1992 also marked the 500th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus in the Western Hemisphere and, as indigenous activists increasingly noted, “500 years of resistance”. As the Cold War ended, so too did a number of armed conflicts across Latin America. As part of the 1996 negotiated peace agreement that ended Guatemala’s civil war, the United Nations created the Commission for Historical Clarification (Comision para el Esclarecimiento Historico, or CEH), one of many truth commissions organized across Latin America beginning in the 1980s, including those in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru, and Colombia. This commission found that 93% of the violence during the war was committed by government forces and it attributed 3% to the rebels. It also found that the government of Guatemala had committed “acts of genocide” against certain Maya groups, including more than 600 massacres of civilians in mainly indigenous towns and villages between 1981 and 1983. Of all identified victims of the war, 83% were indigenous. Many indigenous communities were destroyed, their villages burned to the ground. Those who fled the violence sometimes spent years as internally displaced people, while others fled to Mexico as refugees. Those who remained were often forced into government-­controlled “model villages” where humiliation, abuse, and sexual assault against indigenous residents was commonplace (Sanford 2003). Throughout the armed conflict, many indigenous men were forced to take up arms, either through forced recruitment into the military or via civil patrols. In civil patrols, the military would force teenagers and adult men in conflict zones to patrol their communities, looking for rebels and rebel sympathizers. Civil patrollers who were insufficiently enthusiastic in this work, or who failed to find, capture, and/or kill alleged rebels were assumed to be on the side of the rebels, and sometimes killed or harshly punished. Hence, across much of Guatemala, indigenous men were forced to take up arms against other indigenous people on behalf of a regime perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity – against primarily indigenous communities (Sanford 2003). It would be difficult to overstate the decimation of human rights faced by indigenous Guatemalans during this period. Human rights reports from this period and two Guatemalan truth commissions in the 1990s are filled with accounts of torture,

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forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, rape, and massacres. The targeting of indigenous identity and existence extended to purposeful desecration of corn crops, as the Maya revere the sacred milpa. It is a great testament to the strength of the Maya that out of this crucible emerged, as Fischer writes, “a vibrant social movement working to revitalize Maya cultural forms, to promote Maya ethnic pride, and to create new spaces for Maya peoples in Guatemalan political, economic, and social networks” (83). In 1985, democratic elections were restored and violence declined. This window of opportunity was seized by a surge of pan-­Mayanists promoting the preservation of Maya languages and customs. Carefully avoiding overtly political initiatives, these groups found international donor support that helped them grow and organize. By the 1990s, they were taking on more controversial roles, like directly participating in the peace process through COPMAGUA (Coalition of Organizations of the Maya People of Guatemala), which brought together 200 indigenous organizations from across the country. By the turn of the 21st century, the hundreds of Maya NGOs in Guatemala covered a wide array of groups, issues, and strategies. Perhaps the greatest evidence of the success of this movement is that most indigenous Guatemalans began to think of themselves as Maya instead of, or in addition to, identifying as peasants. The ability to identify Maya interests and voice, though inherently fraught, has been key to effectively advancing human rights claims. The issue dominating the indigenous NGOs’ agendas during the 1980s was language. Much of the early leadership of this new social movement was educated, urban, and trained in anthropology or linguistics, and they found eager allies among foreign linguistic experts. The Academia de las Lenguas Mayas de Guatemala (ALMG, Academy of Mayan Languages) became the leading advocate of a unified Mayan alphabet and efforts to conserve Mayan languages. In 1988, legislation championed by ALMG was approved, making its alphabet the legal orthography of the language. This provided an early and important example of a more united Maya community and its ability to effect political change. When the ALMG was incorporated as a policy-­recommending body of the state in 1990, more independent groups emerged outside the state with more ambitious and diverse agendas. Coordinating these new groups was the Council of Maya Organizations of Guatemala (COMG). Its proposals “called for, among other things, official recognitions and protection of Maya sacred sites (modern altars as well as archaeological sites); a recognition of indigenous legal traditions, and their incorporation into the national system; and, most radically, some sort of political autonomy for ethno-­linguistic regions and proportionate national representation” (Fischer 91). Meanwhile, many NGOs that were not explicitly Maya in identity also relied on bases of support that were overwhelmingly Maya and sometimes led by Maya. The CUC peasant league remained important, and new groups like the National Coordination of Widows of Guatemala (CONAVIGUA), Mutual Support Group for Families of the Disappeared (GAM), and Families of the Disappeared of Guatemala (FAMDEGUA) emerged.

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In the early 1990s, this new Maya community was able to gain a voice in the process of negotiating a settlement via the Coalition of Organizations of the Maya People of Guatemala (COPMAGUA), sometimes considered the first true indigenous “movement” in the country. This body drafted the Accord on the Identity and Rights of the Maya People, which was incorporated directly into the final peace accords. However, the Guatemalan government decided to hold a referendum on whether to implement the constitutional reforms laid out by the peace accords, many of which had been advocated by indigenous groups. The 1999 referendum failed, in part due to low voter turnout, particularly in rural Maya communities. The government did not entirely abandon its commitment to constitutional reform, but the clout of the pan-­Maya movement and organizations was significantly diminished and COPMAGUA was dissolved. Fischer argues that a major reason why Guatemala’s indigenous movement has not been able to affect political change in the way its Bolivian counterpart has (see next section) is that the movement of the leadership is too urban, too reliant on international support, and ultimately unable to activate grassroots support across the countryside (91–2). The year 1999 also was the year the Commission for Historical Clarification released its final report, Memory of Silence, and invoked that powerful word “genocide”  – even though qualified as “acts of genocide.” As McAllister and Nelson write, “Naming these as crimes against humanity lifted them out of the reach of national immunity laws, raising hopes for their prosecution, perhaps even internationally, and giving Mayan claims of suffering and demands for restitution a powerful symbolic boost” (6). The commission also recommended that the Guatemalan government pay for extensive exhumations of unmarked and mass graves as a means to gather evidence of crimes and restore remains to surviving family members and communities. Its final report also called for reparations, public memorialization, and reforms to the judiciary and military. Across Latin America, issues of transitional justice were central human rights concerns at this time. Dismantling the impunity that had allowed the state to violate the rights of so many Guatemalans for so long was a top priority for many activists. The Commission for Historical Clarification had attributed responsibility for human rights violations to institutions, like the military, police, rebels, and civil patrols. But it was not empowered to name individuals responsible for these crimes. A parallel truth commission, the Recovery of Historical Memory Project, sponsored by the Catholic Church rather than the Guatemalan state, worked on attributing individual responsibility. The leader of this project, Bishop Juan José Gerardi, was beaten to death two days after the release of its final report in 1998. In 2001, three members of the military were convicted of his murder. That trial would prove to be unusual, as the work of prosecuting those responsible has been slow and painstaking and continues today. The highest-­profile legal battle has been the struggle to hold accountable Efraín Ríos Montt, military dictator from 1982 to 1983 and member of Congress from 2007 to 2012. Finding it impossible to prosecute Ríos Montt in Guatemalan courts, Rigoberta Menchú and others brought charges against him and four others in the Spanish court system,

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under the logic of universal jurisdiction (the principle that crimes against humanity can be prosecuted by any court system without normal restrictions on jurisdiction). Back in Guatemala, Ríos Montt’s departure from Congress meant losing legal immunity, and in May 2013 he was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity and sentenced to 80 years in prison. But ten days later, the Constitutional Court overturned the conviction. A closed-­door retrial began in 2016. Efraín Ríos Montt died before the trail could conclude. He was 91 years old. The failure to advance prosecutions within the Guatemalan justice system has led some victims to seek redress through the Inter-­American Court of Human Rights. In 2004, the Inter-­American Court found the Guatemalan government responsible for the 1982 Plan de Sánchez massacre, in which 250 people (nearly all women and children from the Achi Maya community) were killed. The government did comply with demands to pay individual reparations to the victims named in the case and for the first time acknowledged responsibility for the massacre. The Inter-­American Court had also mandated a ceremony in Plan de Sánchez; at it, the vice president of Guatemala admitted to the genocidal nature of the war and apologized on behalf of the state. In 2012, five civil defense patrollers were convicted of carrying out the massacre. This reflects a pattern of civil defense patrollers  – civilians forced into patrols by the military – facing accountability, while the military and political leadership who were the intellectual authors of these crimes and have much more blood on their hands continue to enjoy relative impunity. Hundreds of court-­ordered exhumations have taken place across Guatemala, recovering thousands of remains. Forensic anthropologists like the members of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Team routinely face death threats, a testament to the crucial evidence to be found in the mass graves. Often these exhumations are accompanied by Mayan ceremonies and provide an opportunity, albeit deeply painful, to learn the truth about what happened to loved ones and bury them in accordance with Maya and/or Christian customs. The reparations recommended by the Commission for Historical Clarification in 1999 began to take shape in 2005 with the creation of the National Reparations Program. Though activists and victims had called for holistic reparations, “including material restitution, psychosocial rehabilitation and therapy, memorials, communal health projects, scholarships, and government support for exhumations of clandestine cemeteries and for punishing perpetrators”, what has in fact been offered has been lump sum payments of approximately $3,200 per killed family member per household – with a limit of two payments, no matter the actual number killed in that family (Nelson 1999: 295). Smaller payments are made to survivors of torture or rape in the context of the war. To receive the funds, petitioners file paperwork and provide testimony; only when the state verifies their claim are the funds released. This has proven a slow, bureaucratic, and frustrating process, in which petitioners often have to hire translators because the municipal administrators do not speak indigenous languages. Decades after these crimes occurred, tens of thousands of individuals have received monetary reparations, but many more continue to await them. Furthermore, calls for land titles, financial compensation

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for destroyed property, communal reparations, and opportunities for psychological and spiritual recovery have been largely ignored (Viaene 2010). Today, the motto “Our resistance is our culture” resonates in Guatemala. There has been a “Mayanization of everyday life” (Bastos and Cumes 2007), in which the use of the Mayan calendar and Mayan dress, names, hieroglyphs, and practices have become more common, more cherished, and more likely to be seen in spaces previously closed to them – though incidents of women in traditional Mayan dress being denied entry to public spaces still occur, among other day-­to-­day indignities (Velásquez Nimatuj 2013). Some warn that the Guatemalan state supports cultural rights as a means to domesticate indigenous activism and commodify indigenous identity for tourist consumption – what Hale refers to as the creation of the “authorized Indian” (2006). Guatemala reflects the regional trend of embracing laws, both domestic and international, in favour of indigenous rights. Often these laws do not translate into dramatic changes in practice. Intercultural bilingual education (IBE) is an area where we see advances in indigenous rights in Guatemala in the postwar period, though the first pilot project began in 1980. The 1985 constitution recognized Guatemala as multiethnic and multicultural and embraced the principles of indigenous rights and the rights of all to education in their native language. This is particularly important because nearly 44% of indigenous Guatemalans are monolingual speakers of an indigenous language, whereas most indigenous Latin Americans speak both an indigenous language and Spanish or Portuguese  – or just Spanish or Portuguese and no indigenous language. In 2003, the legislature passed the National Languages Law, giving legal, national, and protected status to indigenous languages. The Vice Ministry for Bilingual Intercultural Education was created within the Ministry of Education with the mission of generalizing IBE nationwide, a goal that remains a distant prospect. As of 2010, official IBE programmes existed only through third grade and in a minority of schools (López 2014). Inclusion of indigenous languages and children in the classroom is growing: from 2000 to 2010, there was a 36% improvement in the probability of an indigenous child completing primary education. But primary school completion rates are still low and lag behind those of the non-­indigenous by 13% (World Bank 61–3). Completion rates are especially low for indigenous girls, who currently have an average of 2.6  years of formal education, according to Guatemala’s National Institute of Statistics (2015). Another area of significant change has been in religious practice. While most Maya are Catholic, more than a third are now Protestant. In both communities, but especially among Catholic Maya, there has been a powerful movement to grapple with the tensions between religion as a force of colonization and cultural destruction, and as part of the social fabric that helps hold indigenous communities together and has created opportunities for organizing and indigenous leadership. By the 1990s, the Catholic Church in Guatemala explicitly apologized for its role in suppressing indigenous culture and committed itself to an agenda of human rights, championing refugees and other victims of the war, and playing a

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constructive role in the peace process. In terms of religious practice, Guatemalan Catholicism has embraced inculturation, a process that seeks “to decontextualize Christian narratives from their Western cultural references and reposition them within a Mayan telos, or cosmovision” (Garrard-­Burnett 125). A minority of Maya Catholics have been moved to reject Catholicism, but most continue to navigate the syncretic religious experience. Increasingly, priests and other church personnel are expected to learn and use indigenous languages, to incorporate the Popul Vuh (the most important Mayan sacred text) and other indigenous symbols and myths in Catholic services, and to respect the cultural self-­determination of indigenous communities. But the most powerful reality of indigenous life in Guatemala today is one unchanged since the beginning of colonization: poverty. The rest of Latin America enjoyed a “golden decade” of economic development between 2000 and 2010, with indigenous Latin Americans sharing in the overall socio-­economic benefits, though to varying degrees. But Guatemala saw almost no improvement in GDP per capita during this period, and Guatemala’s indigenous people were no better off in 2010 than in 2000. During that decade, moderate poverty (living on less than $4 per day) fell among indigenous Peruvians by 45%, among indigenous Bolivians by 32%, and among indigenous Ecuadorians by 23%. But it increased among indigenous Guatemalans by 14%. Extreme poverty (living on less than $2.50 per day) fell dramatically among indigenous citizens of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador – and rose by nearly 21% in Guatemala (World Bank 59). In what the World Bank identifies as “persistently poor rural areas” of Guatemala, three out of four residents are indigenous. Indigenous residents of both rural and urban areas are more likely to face malnutrition, less likely to complete primary or secondary education, and more likely to work in the informal sector of the economy. Indigenous women often face dire economic challenges, often heading households without a male partner and while confronting the twin realities of ethnic and gender discrimination. They are more likely than indigenous men to lack education, be monolingual, and live in poverty – and far more likely than non-­indigenous women and men. Unequal access to land remains a key source of indigenous poverty and disempowerment. Guatemala’s indigenous population is more rural than those of most Latin American countries, and most still rely on agriculture for part or all of their income. The displacement caused by the war only reinforced the concentration of land in the hand of a small, light-­skinned minority, and the peace accords did nothing to address this issue. Indigenous communities have fought many legal battles to regain control of ancestral lands or lands lost during the war, or at least to gain new tracts of land. Despite notable examples like that of Nuevo Cajola (Velásquez Nimatuj 2013), little progress has been made. Indigenous Guatemalans also frequently mobilize in opposition to large-­scale extractive industrial projects, such as gold mining, that threaten their lands and community well-­being. Often they cite the Maya cosmovision, or understanding of the cosmos and humanity’s place within it, as grounded in a harmonious relationship with Mother Earth. Since 1996, they also cite provisions in the ILO

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Convention on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples of 1989 (Convention 169), which Guatemala ratified as part of the peace process. This binding international law states that resource extraction affecting indigenous peoples must be preceded by consultations with those peoples. Rarely does this happen. Instead, throughout rural Guatemala, communities hold consultas (consultations), locally organized referenda in which a community indicates whether it supports the introduction of an extractive industry in nearby lands. These referenda nearly always result in a resounding rejection of the project. While the courts have sometimes invalidated licenses granted to companies engaged in mining without prior consultation of the local communities, the government has rejected the argument that such consultation is in any way binding, arguing that consultation is not the same as consent. In the 1980s, indigenous resistance to the Chixoy dam, which flooded indigenous territory, resulted in opposed communities being labeled as communist subversives and targeted for elimination. Today, indigenous activism is more frequent and the response less violent, but indigenous stewardship of the land and environment remains a flashpoint for conflict. In 2004 and 2005, thousands of Maya organized roadblocks to stop drilling materials from reaching mining sites controlled by Canadian gold companies. The ensuing confrontations with police left a few protestors dead and many more injured or arrested on charges of terrorism, including an indigenous mayor. Indigenous activists and NGOs often find ready partners in environmental NGOs, both domestic and international. Their critiques often go beyond questions of specific projects and their impact on the environment and communities nearby to include an analysis of neoliberal economics and the “race to the bottom” effect. They point out that the government has weakened regulations meant to protect the Guatemalan people and environment, and that the multinational corporations that invest in these projects are the ones that benefit, while a mere pittance stays in Guatemala (Mash-­Mash and Gomez 2014). The issue remains contentious and unresolved in Guatemala, in part due to the legislature’s failure to pass legislation clarifying and providing a legal framework to uphold the principles of prior consultation and indigenous land rights (Elías and Sánchez 2014). In short, while indigenous identity is resurgent, this has not translated into effective national movements bringing substantive political or economic change. The coronavirus crisis of 2020 threatened to exacerbate inequalities further, as indigenous Guatemalans had less access to healthcare than non-­indigenous Guatemalans. The 21st century saw greater but still low numbers of indigenous legislators (usually about 10% of the total) and no significant political party explicitly tied to indigenous politics. This contrasts with Bolivia, to which we now turn.

Bolivia Bolivia is the most indigenous country in the Americas, with 63% of the population of approximately 16 million identifying as indigenous in recent years. Most are Aymara or Quechua, but several hundred thousand identify as Chiquitanos or

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Guarani, followed by 30 smaller groups across the country. Aymara and Quechua peoples are concentrated in the highlands, while the other groups are largely lowlands communities. Half of those who self-­identify as indigenous speak an indigenous language, and only 12.4% are monolingual speakers of an indigenous language (compared to 43.6% in Guatemala) (López 2014: 22). About half are urban. The territory that is today Bolivia was under the control of the massive Inca empire when the Spanish colonized in the 1500s. Like Guatemala, Bolivia would be dominated by criollos (whites) and mestizos (those of mixed indigenous and European descent) for the next 500 years, though today criollos make up only 10% of the population and mestizos another 25%. Also like Guatemala, Bolivia remained one of the poorest and most unequal countries in the Americas, with land, power, and wealth highly concentrated and inaccessible to the indigenous majority. Though the 1952 national revolution incorporated indigenous citizens by giving them the right to vote, it institutionalized their place in politics and society through peasant unions, recognizing them as workers rather than as indigenous peoples. This was very much in line with the trend of suppressing or ignoring indigenous identity across the region in favour of assimilation, and the tendency of 20th-­century left-­ wing movements to favour class over ethnic identity. Yet Bolivia provides a striking contrast to Guatemala and much of the Americas in terms of indigenous rights in the21st century. Bolivia was spared the civil war and acts of genocide that decimated Guatemala’s Maya, and indigenous Bolivians have been the backbone of powerful social movements which have changed the country in profound ways over the past half-­century. Those social movements and indigenous mobilizations were largely regional and mostly in the highlands until the 1990s (Yashar 2005), at which point they coalesced into a powerful national movement with both highland and lowland support (Postero 2004). These changes have accelerated since the emergence of a powerful indigenous political party, MAS (Movimiento al Socialismo), in 2002 (Farthing and Kohl 2014). MAS has dominated Bolivian politics ever since. The incorporation of peasant unions since the 1950s failed to placate indigenous demands for government redress of poverty and marginalization. Peasant unions and unions representing key sectors of the working class (like miners) were overwhelmingly indigenous in make-­up, and were staunch critics of the state in the 1970s and 80s. At the same time, many indigenous intellectuals and leaders drew more attention to indigenous identity through the indigenista and katarista movements. In the early 1980s, lowland groups organized the Confederation of Indigenous People of Eastern Bolivia (CIDOB). In the 1990s, they led a massive and dramatic March for Territory and Dignity. As they marched westward and into the highlands, they were met by highland indigenous groups. Together, they arrived in La Paz, the administrative capital of the country. This widely publicized march captured the public’s attention and “changed the face of Bolivia forever” (Postero 2004: 195). After negotiation with the march leaders, presidential decrees were issued creating seven indigenous territories. It was the beginning of a greatly empowered, nationwide indigenous movement.

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In the 1990s, the agenda of this movement was focused on resistance to neoliberal economic programs and the control of natural resources. Even more than elsewhere in the Americas, there was a powerful sense of injustice around the exploitation of Bolivia’s resources, which created great wealth for colonial powers, multinational corporations, and a tiny Bolivian elite, but left the indigenous majority in extreme poverty. In the late 1500s, the mines of Potosí made the Viceroyalty of Peru (from which Bolivia later emerged) famous around the world, the source of half the silver and gold mined worldwide and the site of the Spanish colonial mint. While this bankrolled Spanish luxury, imperialism, and profligacy, between 1 million and 4 million Bolivian miners lost their lives from mining-­related injuries, illnesses, and accidents. Indigenous peoples who evaded forced labour fled from Spanish control and/or joined periodic rebellions that stretched into the early 20th century. At the end of the 20th century, the natural resources that became flashpoints for conflict between indigenous groups and the state included coca, hydrocarbons, and water. Two broader contexts shaped these conflicts. First was the imposition of structural adjustment programs by the governments in the 1980s and 1990s under the direction of the International Monetary Fund. Though inflation fell and international aid rose, the shock of economic austerity – including slashing public spending and laying off tens of thousands of public sector workers – infuriated the public and united the labour and indigenous movements in opposition to neoliberalism. The second was the US-­led “war on drugs”. Bolivia and neighboring Peru and Colombia are the sources of the world’s supply of coca, a leaf that can be chewed for mild stimulant effect and to suppress hunger, fatigue, and altitude sickness and that has been grown throughout the Andes for thousands of years. Coca is deeply entwined with indigenous Andean medicinal and religious practice, and the day-­ to-­day life and economy of Bolivia, where hundreds of thousands depend on the cash crop for their subsistence. It is also the source of cocaine, a powerful narcotic illegal in much of the world and primarily consumed in the US. In the late 1980s, the US government successfully pressured the Bolivian government into escalating its eradication of coca. Indigenous Bolivians saw this as an existential threat to their culture and economic survival and organized massive protests in response. The cocalero (coca growers) movement expanded rapidly, staging roadblocks and protests frequently over the next 15 years, confronting increasingly aggressive police and military responses. Evo Morales, an Aymara, emerged as the charismatic leader and highly effective organizer of the cocaleros (Durand Ochoa 2014). Opposition to neoliberalism and the war on drugs had brought public mobilization, especially among the indigenous, to a fever pitch. In 1999, the World Bank encouraged the Bolivian government to privatize the public water company in Cochabamba, the country’s third largest city. The joint venture that took over involved Bechtel, a powerful American construction firm. Alarming rises in water prices to finance construction of new water infrastructure drove tens of thousands of (overwhelmingly indigenous) people into the streets and into confrontations with tear-­gas-­firing police in what is today known as the Water War of 2000 (Olivera 2004). The privatization was reversed.

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Among the leaders of the resistance were Evo Morales and the cocaleros. They would be front and center again in the Gas Wars of 2003 and 2005, major mobilizations in opposition to the export of Bolivia’s natural gas deposits to the international market through a Chilean pipeline, and in major protests against other development and resource-­extraction projects. Again and again, it was in the streets that the power of the indigenous majority in opposition to the elites proved itself, and the sense of a paradigm shift grew. In 2001, the political party MAS was formalized, and the next year Evo Morales came in second in the presidential election. MAS took 35 seats in the legislature, most of them filled by highland or lowland indigenous representatives. In December 2005, Morales was elected president. He remained president until 2019. Though he was not the first indigenous president elected in Latin America, his government went arguably farther than any other to advance an indigenous rights agenda. In 2006 and 2007, a Constituent Assembly oversaw the writing of a new constitution, shaped by a highly participatory model of citizen input and approved by referendum in 2009. Of the delegates in the Constituent Assembly, 56% identified as indigenous and 50% were women. This was an extraordinary moment: as Farthing and Kohl write, “For the first time, women in polleras, traditional broad pleated skirts, and long braids sat as equals beside white men in business suits, and an indigenous woman, Silvia Lazarte, was elected Assembly President” (40). The new constitution goes farther than perhaps any other in the world in embracing indigenous rights. It declares Bolivia a plurinational state, requires redistribution of land, enshrines the right to multiple legal systems and autonomy for multiple nations/ peoples, mandates intercultural bilingual education for all, states that indigenous peoples must be consulted about resource extraction effecting their land, protects coca as part of the national culture, and requires that 25% of legislative seats be held by indigenous representatives. At the core of the constitution are the principles of indigeneity and decolonization, a promise to overturn the racist foundations of the state and society (Postero 2013). In the years since, these rights have materialized to varying, but unprecedented, degrees. Take land rights, for example, When Bolivia gained its independence in 1825, the criollo elites outlawed any form of landholding other than private property, thereby negating indigenous communal property and easing the takeover of those lands by the elite. By the time of Morales’ election, a small minority controlled 70% of land. But in the decade between 2006 and 2016, small landholders came to own a majority of land in Bolivia, and the majority of uncertain or informal land ownership of the past was replaced with legal titles. The question of regional autonomy has been more complicated and difficult to resolve, with few territories seeking autonomy and great uncertainty about what such autonomy will mean in practice (Farthing and Kohl 2014). In terms of other economic and social rights, indigenous Bolivians have benefited greatly from expansions in public spending that have driven reductions in poverty and the wage gap between indigenous and non-­indigenous in urban areas

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(World Bank 8). Access to sewerage among the indigenous increased by 60% in the 2000s (70). In 2008, the US Drug Enforcement Agency was kicked out of Bolivia, and coca growing is protected. Access to and quality of IBE has grown in recent years, particularly after its inclusion as a right in the 2009 constitution and the passage of an education reform law in 2010 which promised decolonization of the educational system. A new curriculum was implemented in 2013–4, grounded in the principle of complementarity of Western and indigenous knowledge, and it is continually revised through collaboration with indigenous people’s education councils. New cohorts of teachers trained in IBE entered the school system, as did new IBE educational materials. Three indigenous universities were opened, covering a range of disciplines and with an emphasis on cultural studies and traditions and environmental stewardship. As López notes, however, it would be wrong to think of educational reform primarily as a positive effect of Morales’ election; rather, indigenous demands for and participation in the development of IBE preceded that election and were part of the broader struggle for indigenous rights that swept Morales to power. And overall educational attainment by indigenous children remains low. For example, while 80% of non-­indigenous Bolivians completed primary school as of 2012, only 66% of Aymara and 54% of Quechua Bolivians did. The numbers are much starker when we account for gender: for instance, while half of Aymara men finish secondary school, only a third of Aymara women do. The effects of such disparities – and of widespread discrimination – persist throughout life. One World Bank study found that indigenous women earn 60% less than non-­indigenous women for similar work, much greater than the overall wage gap between indigenous and non-­indigenous citizens of about 11% (López 2014: 68). Morales faced opposition from some of the highly mobilized base that helped bring him to office, and he struggled to reconcile the interests of the various groups within it. Despite his renegotiation of most international contracts for hydrocarbon extraction, for example, he did not fully nationalize that sector. And the public sometimes mobilised in opposition to projects the government backed, like the building of a road through the Isiboro-­Secure Indigenous Territory and National Park, which proceeded without the prior consultation required by the Constitution and with police violence against protestors reminiscent of the 1990s. Morales’ desire to protect natural resources coexisted with a desire to raise profits from resource extraction so as to address poverty and underdevelopment, and indeed indigenous communities themselves are often more divided about the benefits and threats of such projects than was outwardly apparent in the 1990s (McNeish 2013). Supporters of indigenous rights also noted the gradual decline in representation of indigenous people in the cabinet and legislature after the early years of the Morales government, which started with a cabinet half-­full of indigenous leaders and by the end had none. There was a general slowing of progress on indigenous rights as MAS moved into its second decade of power. Morales’s unwillingness to groom other leaders within MAS proved to be his undoing. He served three consecutive term as president (2006–2009, 2009–2014, 2014–2019). When the

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Supreme Court ruled that term limits were a “violation of human rights”, Morales ran for a fourth term in the October 2019 election. However, evidence of electoral fraud led to weeks of street protests and prompted the military to call for his resignation, at which point he fled the country. In conclusion, Bolivia has changed radically in terms of realizing the human rights of the indigenous majority over the past dozen years. Concerns that MAS has not been able to mature and institutionalize, that it remained entirely dependent upon Morales’ leadership, and that too much power has become concentrated in the presidency have dampened public enthusiasm somewhat, but most Bolivians remain committed to the “refoundation” of the country that MAS and Morales have brought.

Conclusions As these case studies illustrate, indigenous peoples across Latin America share a history of repression, resistance, and resurgence. The activism that has accelerated in the last few decades has had varying degrees of impact on government, from marginal in Guatemala to transformative in Bolivia. Translating power in the streets or even legal and judicial victories into improvements in the economic and social well-­being of their people remains an enormous challenge. Activism and networking across the region remain crucial as indigenous peoples struggle with how to balance concerns about environmental, social, and economic harm of infrastructure and extractive projects with the need for formal employment and state revenues; how to increase education without sacrificing indigenous languages and culture; how to simultaneously question capitalist accumulation while addressing the reality of poverty and underdevelopment; how to honor and seek justice for the history of oppression of indigenous rights; and how to close the gaps between men and women.

References Bastos, Santiago and Aura Cumes (eds). 2007. Mayanizacion y vida cotidiana, 3 vol. Guatemala City: FLACSCO CIRMA Cholsamaj. Brysk, Alison. 2000. From Tribal Village to Global Village: Indian Rights and International Relations in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Durand Ochoa, Ursula. 2014. The Political Empowerment of the Cocaleros of Bolivia and Peru. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Elías, Silvel and Gaisselle Sánchez. 2014. ‘Country Study: Guatemala’, Americas Quarterly, Spring, www.americasquarterly.org/content/country-­study-­guatemala. Farthing, Linda C. and Benjamin H. Kohl. 2014. Evo’s Bolivia. Austin: University of Texas Press. Grandin, Greg, Deborah T. Levenson and Elizabeth Oglesby (eds). 2011. The Guatemala Reader: History, Culture, Politics. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Hale, Charles. 2006. Mas que un indio, More than an Indian: Racial Ambivalence and Neoliberal Multiculturalism in Guatemala. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press.

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López, Luis Enrique. 2014. ‘Indigenous Intercultural Bilingual Education in Latin America: Widening Gaps Between Policy and Practice’, in Regina Cortina (ed), The Education of Indigenous Citizens in Latin America. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Lovell, W. George. 2005. Conquest and Survival in Colonial Guatemala: A Historical Geography of the Cuchumatán Highlands, 1500–1821 (3rd ed.). Montreal, Canada: McGill-­Queen's University Press. Martínez Paláez, Severo. 2009. La Patria del Criollo: An Interpretation of Colonial Guatemala. Translated by Susan M. Neve and W. George Lovell. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Mash-­Mash and Jose Guadalupe Gomez. 2014. ‘Two Views of Consulta Previa in Guatemala: An View from Indigenous Peoples’, Americas Quarterly (Spring), http://americasquarterly. org/content/two-­views-­consulta-­previa-­guatemala-­view-­indigenous-­peoples. McNeish, John-­Andrew. 2013. ‘Extraction, Protest and Indigeneity in Bolivia: The TIPNIS Effect’, Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, 8 (2): 221–242. Nelson, Diane M. 1999. A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in Quincentennial Guatemala. Berkeley: University of California Press. Olivera, Oscar. 2004. Cochabamba! Water Water in Bolivia. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Postero, Nancy Grey. 2004. ‘Articulation and Fragmentation: Indigenous Politics in Bolivia’, in Nancy Grey Postero and Leon Zamosc (eds), The Struggle for Indigenous Rights in Latin America. Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press. ———. 2013. ‘Introduction: Negotiating Indigeneity’, Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, 8 (2): 107–121. Postero, Nancy Grey and Leon Zamosc (eds). 2004. The Struggle for Indigenous Rights in Latin America. Brighton and Portland: Sussex Academic Press. Sanford, Victoria. 2003. Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Velásquez Nimatuj, Irmalicia. 2013. ‘ “A  Dignified Community Where We Can Live”: Violence, Law, and Debt in Nueva Cajola’s Struggle for Land’, in Carlota McAllister and Diane Nelson (eds), War by Other Means: Aftermath in Post-­Genocide Guatemala. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press. Viaene, Lieselotte. 2010. ‘Life is Priceless: Mayan Q’eqchi’ Voices on the Guatemalan National Reparations Program’, International Journal of Transitional Justice, 4: 4–25. World Bank Group. 2015. Indigenous Latin America in the Twenty-­First Century: The First Decade. Washington, DC: World Bank. Yashar, Deborah. 2005. Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

3 GENDER JUSTICE AND INDIGENOUS WOMEN IN LATIN AMERICA Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo Translated by Rodrigo Alvarez Hernández

In this chapter I analyze the emergence of a heterogeneous indigenous women’s movement for gender justice in Latin America. From the Río Bravo to Patagonia, we have seen in the past decade a proliferation of indigenous women’s organizations from different political genealogies that struggle for gender justice. Some of these women have appropriated the discourses of women’s rights that have been globalized through international cooperation, non-­governmental organizations or the Catholic Church (See Blackwell 2009, 2012; Hernández Castillo 2016; Sieder 2017). Other organized indigenous women, in countries such as Guatemala, Mexico, Ecuador and Bolivia, are creating their own theorizations, reinventing practices and rituals to make them more inclusive and laying the foundations to rethink culture from a gender perspective, and gender from a cultural perspective (Arteaga 2017; FIMI 2006; Macleod 2011)

The new agenda of indigenous women Historiography shows that indigenous women have been involved in the resistance struggles of their people since colonial times (see Kellogs 2005; Powers 2005). However, it was not until the 1990s that indigenous women began creating spaces across Latin America to organize themselves and recover the cultural demands of their people, while at the same time developing specific demands that question women’s exclusion and gender inequality. These spaces have as an immediate precedent the emergence in the 1970s of a Latin American indigenous movement that began to question the official discourses of homogenous mestizo nations.1 Along with the demands for land came the cultural and political demands that anticipated what would become in some nations the struggle for the autonomy of indigenous peoples. During this time the domestic economy was also changing in significant ways, which in turn

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led to the creation of new spaces for the collective organization of indigenous women. Although the academic work of the time does not mention the participation of women in indigenous movements of the 1970s, we know from the testimony of participants that they were in charge of the “logistics” of many of the marches, demonstrations and meetings that are documented in such works (Jackson and Warren 2005; Sarmiento 1987). Although the role of “acompañantes” (partners) still excluded women from decision-­making and active participation in their organizations, it did allow them to come together and share their experiences as indigenous women across different regions. Women were participating actively in the peasant movement when the changes in the household economy of many families pushed a greater number of them into the informal trade of agricultural or handcrafted products in the local markets. There are some authors who consider that this process of monetization of the indigenous economy was detrimental to women’s power within the family, since their housework became less essential for the reproduction of the work force (see Collier 1994; Flood 1994). However, for many women this was an ambiguous process: while it restructured their position within the household, it also put them in touch with other indigenous and mestizo women who, like them, were involved in informal commerce. These encounters sparked organizing processes in the form of production cooperatives, which eventually became spaces for collective thought (Nash 1993). During the 1990s these experiences were an important precedent for the organization of a group of indigenous women with varied backgrounds from different parts of Latin America. They began to articulate their struggles in a political agenda that combined their specific gender demands with the autonomic demands of their people. Since 1995, these women have chosen to construct their own independent spaces apart from those of the national indigenous movements and from the feminist movements of their respective nations. The first Continental Encounter of Indigenous Women took place in Quito, Ecuador (1995), the second in Mexico (1997), the third in Panama (2000), the fourth in Peru (2004), the fifth in Canada (2007), the sixth was again in Mexico, in Hueyapan, Morelos (2014) and the seventh in Guatemala (2015). Additionally, the Summit of Indigenous Women of the Americas took place in Oaxaca, Mexico, in 2002. The participation of indigenous women from other continents has grown. From these events there has emerged the Continental Network of Indigenous Women (Enlace Continental de Mujeres Indígenas), an organization formed by indigenous activists from Latin America, the United States and Canada (see www.ecmia.org). These transnational organizing spaces have become important for women’s struggles on many fronts. Organized indigenous women have joined the Latin American indigenous movement to denounce the economic oppression and racism that marks the insertion of indigenous peoples in national projects. At the same time, these women are developing their own political practice and discourse based on a culturally situated gender perspective that questions both the sexism and the

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essentialism of indigenous organizations, as well as the ethnocentrism of hegemonic feminism.2 In some contexts this struggle for the social justice of indigenous peoples and women’s equality has happened through the appropriation of transnational discourses on human rights; in others, however, these discourses have combined with the argument that reclaims the indigenous worldview or cosmovision as a more holistic way of relating to nature and society. In many cases the discourses have been dismissed as essentialist by academics and non-­indigenous activists who fail to consider that a strategic essentialism might offer a potential for peoples whose culture and identity have been rejected by the colonization process. Some feminist academics have been particularly critical of this discourse, pointing out that some factions of the Latin American indigenous movement have used the concept of complementarity between men and women to make an idealized representation of their cultures and societies, thus denying the power relations that exist in patriarchal societies. However, from another perspective, indigenous women are reclaiming the concept of complementarity to question and contest the way in which indigenous men are reproducing the power relations of the colonizer and abandoning the principle of duality of the Mesoamerican cultures. The different political ideologies and personal histories of organized women have changed the way in which they and their organizations prioritize (or not) the gender demands and/or collective demands of their people. The great internal diversity is the strength and weakness of the continental movement of indigenous women. To reach consensus or to set up general demands has implied negotiating political perspectives into how they live their culture and conceptualized their rights and relationships between men and women. Given the diversity of voices that come out of indigenous women’s organizations, it is tempting to legitimize some and silence others, representing as “authentic” those who claim the indigenous cosmovision as a space of resistance and disqualifying as “acculturated” those who appropriate the discourses on women’s rights and propose the existence of an indigenous feminism. At the other extreme, there is also a tendency to label as “conservative and essentialist” those who reject feminism from ethno-­political movements and to legitimize or open spaces in political and academic debates only for those who are closer to the agenda of urban and occidental feminism. Both perspectives can result in new strategies of discursive colonialism (see Mohanty (1991 [1986]) that deny the complexity and richness of these new political identities.

Between collective rights and gender rights The tension between gender rights and indigenous rights has been a central question for indigenous organized women in Latin America who have decided to participate in the political struggles for indigenous autonomy and for the recognition of collective rights. This tension has generated quite some debate in the United States and in Europe and it is a matter of concern in the United Nations organization when attempts are made to reconcile international legislation on indigenous

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rights with international legislation on women’s rights. Political scientist Susan Moller Okin brought together a group of social scientists with different views on multiculturalism to debate the potential implications for women of the recognition of the collective rights of “minorities.” Moller Okin argues that there is a strong tension between multiculturalism and feminism because the former is based on the vindication of ethnic minority cultures whereas the latter is based on a critique of patriarchy regardless of culture. In the position paper Moller Okin wrote to provoke the debate, she concludes that the women of such ethnic minorities (which in many cases in fact are majorities in their countries) “may be better off if the culture into which they were born is extinguished (through the integration of its members into a less sexist national culture)” (Moller Okin 1999: 23). Such ethnocentric feminism fails to scrutinize the problematic relation between liberalism and feminism because it starts from the simple assumption that liberalism has brought greater equity to women than these “minority” cultures in which women continue to be subjected to forced marriages, polygamy, genital mutilation, segregation, the veil and political exclusion, to mention a few of the “backward” practices the author lists as mechanisms of control over and oppression of women. Feminists from the Indian diaspora such as Chandra Mohanty (1991) have responded to representations like Moller Okin’s and the Latin American critics of indigenous rights by pointing out that representing “Third World” women (in our case indigenous women) as simple victims of patriarchy is a form of discursive colonialism that fails to appreciate how these women have created spaces of their own according to their own cultural dynamics.3 The liberal feminist critique of multiculturalism assumes ingenuously that a “minority” culture is the culture vindicated by the hegemonic sectors within that culture and fails to see that the practices and discourses of contestation developed by women are also part of the cultures for which respect is demanded. Also, without bothering themselves with specific contexts or histories, they assume that they know how gender inequality functions in any society, and then they think that on the basis of such knowledge they possess the key to the liberation of their “sisters” from the so-­called Third World. In Mexico, the indigenous women’s movement that arose under the influence of Zapatism has set itself the task of reframing demands for recognition of the nation’s multicultural character in the context of a broadened definition of culture that does not stop at its hegemonic representations and voices, but instead reveals the diversity within, and the contradictory processes that give meaning to the life of, a human collectivity. Instead of rejecting cultural diversity because it might give rise to practices that oppress and exclude them, indigenous women decided to engage in a struggle over the very meaning of difference (see Speed et al. 2006). Their aim is to give it an emancipatory and non-­exclusionary charge. Their demands for recognition of a culture that itself is in the process of changing thus converge with the ideas put forward by some critical feminists regarding a politics of difference that means, not exclusionary alterity or opposition, but rather specificity and heterogeneity, and where differences between groups are conceived in relational terms instead of defined by essential categories or attributes.

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At the same time that we are witnessing a rejection of the cultural rights of ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples by some sectors of liberal feminism, we are also witnessing the imposition of a women’s rights agenda that does not consider the specific cultural context in which indigenous women are developing their own political strategies.

Gender seen from the perspective of indigenous epistemologies Partly as a reaction to the appropriation of the gender agendas by neoliberal governments and in response to the ethnocentric liberal feminisms, we have been witness to the emergence of new discourses within the indigenous women’s movements of Latin America, which vindicate their own concepts and theorizations surrounding good living (buen vivir) or communality, as more holistic conceptions that can be used to struggle for a better life for all men and women. In many cases, these women have appropriated new multicultural spaces as spaces to debate and reformulate the ways in which culture and tradition are understood. On the other hand, the new context of recognition of the “multicultural character of Latin American nations” has increasingly influenced indigenous peoples, most importantly the organic intellectuals of their movements, pushing them to reflect about their cultural practices – which were previously conceived of simply as life itself  – to systematize, theorize, and philosophize about them. In the process of “naming” the culture, negotiations have arisen between the two genders concerning the definition of the genders themselves. These processes of “political creativity” seem to confront the criticisms that have been made by feminists towards the politics of cultural recognition. There exists a wide range of theoretical feminist literature that has pointed to the fact that both official and ethnic nationalisms have had a tendency to utilize the bodies of women as raw material in the construction of political projects (Yuval Davis 1997; Gutiérrez Chong 2004). These perspectives have remarked that the emphasis on the politics of recognition has led to a strengthening of cultural essentialisms, which themselves often serve the patriarchal interests inside identity-­based collectives. The ahistoric representations of cultures as entities of homogeneous values and shared customs, completely clean of power relations, opens the path for cultural fundamentalisms that see a threat to collective identity in any attempt by women to transform the practices which affect their lives. In the face of these essentialist stances, there emerges a need to historicize cultural practices, to demonstrate that many of the “traditional” practices that affect and are violent towards women’s lives have changed through time. Similarly, it is important to demonstrate that many of these practices have their origin in the colonial context, and that their amendment or disappearance does not affect the continuity of the collective identity (Hernández Castillo 2003). Indigenous women have had to face numerous challenges in their struggles to “name” the culture and to assert their specific rights as women in the frame of

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collective rights; that is, to assert their rights as women members of indigenous communities. They have had to confront the “ethnocentric silencing” of hegemonic feminisms, as well as the essentialist dismissals of some sectors within the indigenous movements of their countries. As part of a collective project made up of activists and academicians who work for gender justice in contexts of legal pluralism,4 the Kichwa activist and intellectual Cristina Cucuri has analyzed the challenges faced by the Provincial Network of Rural and Kichwa Women’s Organizations of Chimborazo (REDMUJCH) in their work of integrating their perspectives as indigenous women on the concept of “good living” into the Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008. Departing from her experience as a member of the Directive Council of the REDMUJCH, Cucuri has analyzed the ethnic and gender tensions implicated in the inclusion of their voices and analysis through the document “Nosotras en la Constituyente” (“We women in the Constituent Assembly”) in the new Magna Carta (Constitution). Twelve parochial, cantonal and provincial, indigenous women leaders elaborated the previously-­cited document. Based on proposals put forward in the different workshops in communities of the Chimborazo region, they advanced an agenda that included the concept of “good living” as a critical epistemology in the face of gender violence. In this proposal, they set themselves off from the thought of “Good Living as the harmony and peace with nature, and the peace with our ancestors and ourselves as women; as a path towards the rights of women.” Departing from these formulations, they define the actions taken in the following terms: “We want to build the Constitution. We achieved a lot: [we integrated] the priority groups, the rights of nature and the Intercultural and Pluricultural State, which we still have to design [as an answer to the question]: What kind of State do we, women, want?”5 In this struggle they confronted the orthodox perspectives of law, as well as the challenge of transforming their demands into legal language, in order for them to be taken into account in the legislative space: At this phase, the challenge was to figure out how to proceed in the practice of drafting our new proposal in legal-­juridical language, so that it could enter the Constituent Assembly. With the support of the Center for Development, Dissemination and Social Research (CEDIS for its name in Spanish), we hired a prominent jurist from the capital, Dr. Ximena Endara O., who had wide experience with indigenous matters and who had been a colleague and collaborator in various investigative works with Dr Julio César Trujillo, an expert in indigenous and collective rights. We delivered the document containing the constitutional demands of indigenous women from the Chimborazo to her, so that she could transform our proposal into a document made up of legal-­juridical language, suitable for the constitutional level, while also placing as central themes gender, women’s individual rights, and indigenous peoples’ collective rights. Once more the REDMUJCH’s proposal was put in doubt and questioned. Days later, while maintaining a conversation with the jurist concerning the progress of our proposal, she pointed out to us that

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it was not possible to integrate gender demands with those of the indigenous peoples’ due to the fact that the first were conceived as individual rights and the second as collective rights. (Cervone y Cucuri 2017: 139) We can encounter this dichotomous view of gender and collective rights amongst both the discourses of hegemonic feminisms, which perceive any indigenous demand for autonomy as a regression for women’s rights, and amongst the indigenous movements that see the rights of women as claims that “divide the movement” and that can threaten the mistakenly called “uses and customs”. In this polarized environment, it has been some of the very indigenous women who, from non-­essentialist perspectives on indigenous identities, have demonstrated how to re-­think gender from culture and culture from gender. On this issue, Cristina Cucuri points out: “We [women] also want to create new rights to live with dignity and without discrimination nor violence, so that the Good Living of women, of indigenous peoples, and collective rights have the eyes, body, life and face of the other half of the indigenous population”.6 Thanks to the struggles of the REDMUJCH and of many other allied men and women, the Ecuadorian Constitution of 2008 establishes in its 57th article, numeral 10: “To create, develop, apply and practise their own legal system or common law, which cannot infringe constitutional rights, especially those of women, children and adolescents.” Numeral 21, third paragraph: “The State shall guarantee the enforcement of these collective rights without any discrimination, in conditions of equality and equity between men and women.” Article 171: “The authorities of the indigenous communities, peoples, and nations shall perform jurisdictional duties, on the basis of their ancestral traditions and their own system of law, within their own territories, with a guarantee for the participation of, and decision-­making by, women” (Constitution of the Republic of Ecuador 2008). It is obvious that the constitutional change is but the tip of the iceberg in the long-­term processes to turn “good living” into a reality of everyday life for indigenous men and women, but the organizing spaces created to reflect upon the sentir-­pensar (“feeling and thought”) of women and the struggle for their voices to be heard represented in itself a rupture with the strategies of “erasing” of other epistemologies, which characterize our Latin American societies marked by racism, classism and gender exclusion. In the Mexican context, the concept of communality has also been upheld by organized indigenous women in order to confront both the individualism and mercantilism of neoliberal states, as well as the gender violence and exclusion that exists within their own communities. This concept was theorized at the end of the decade of the 1980s by the Ayuuk intellectual Floriberto Díaz to refer to the importance of internalized communal values and of how these values were converted into internalized cultural structures, or habitus, which prioritized the “common good”. Through both his academic and non-­academic writing, Floriberto Díaz (2007) popularized the concept of communality, which later became

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the foundation for the political struggles of an important sector of the indigenous movement in Mexico. Díaz promoted values of collective solidarity, respect for Mother Earth and promotion and defense of communitarian democracy in diverse spaces of political struggle, from the community level to the level of national and international forums. While it is true that in his writings Díaz did not theorize about the specific rights of indigenous women, his proposals have been taken up by a new generation of activists and intellectuals that have theorized from what they call their senti-­pensar (“feeling and thought”) as women and indigenous people (Díaz 2007, Vargas Vianey 2011, 2012, 2015; Vásquez 2012, 2015; Osorio 2015; Robles 2015). In their theorizations and through their political struggles, these young intellectuals strive for the principle of harmony, central to communality, to become fundamental in the struggle against gender violence. In Díaz’s original writings, compiled and published by his wife, Sofía Robles, a women’s rights and indigenous people’s rights activist, we read his words on a principle of fundamental authority in communality, the dual principle of “father-­mother” that precedes the concept of the patriarchal power of the “father-­dominant male”, which Díaz denounces as colonial heritage. These pioneer theorizations about communality and “good living” from the perspective of indigenous cultures have been fundamental in a whole new current of critical thought within the feminist movements, which questions many of the liberal principles of rights that are central to the hegemonic feminisms of the global North (See Méndez 2013, Millán et al. 2014). The liberal conception of the free individual, inherited from the European Enlightenment, had been the starting point for many feminist perspectives for which collective rights were not significant. By saying this, I  certainly do not mean to deny the genealogy of socialist feminisms that have theorized and struggled from other conceptions of rights and from other collective imaginations, but which, unfortunately, have not been the ones to occupy the present-­day hegemonic position in the national and international arenas, where public policies towards women are discussed and decided upon. It may not sound innovatory to say that the social and cultural context determine the way in which we construe our sense of being “a person” and the way in which we imagine a life with dignity; yet the truth is that the monoculture of Western knowledge has successfully universalized certain local conceptions founded upon liberal individualism. This monoculture has also successfully universalized a lineal conception of time in which “progress” is determined by specific forms of consumption, which are in turn determined by the dynamics of the capitalist market (see Hernández Castillo 2014a) Voices such as those of Floriberto Díaz, Sofía Robles, Liliana Vianey Vargas, Carolina Vázquez, Carmen Osorio, and Cristina Cucuri, which emerge from spaces erased by the silencing strategies of mainstream Western knowledge, come to destabilize the perspectives of “progress” and “liberal democracy” that have been universalized as the sole channel to understand social justice. The theorizations surrounding communality have questioned perspectives of progress and of well-­being

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that have been universalized together with the conceptions of liberal rights that sustain many of the contemporary democratic struggles. Epistemic colonialism is being denounced by the organized indigenous women who, since the beginning of the 1990s, have reasserted the need to recognize their collective rights as members of their communities as a condition for the full exercise of their rights as women.7 It is also they who have reasserted the principles of communality and “good living” as fundamental perspectives in the questioning of the civilizing project of the West.8 In the quest for different ways of imagining the world and of thinking about other possible futures, the temptation to idealize indigenous cultures is always present. As a reaction to racism and ethnocentrism, indigenous intellectuals or sympathetic scholars have many times tended to present an ahistoric view of the indigenous peoples, denying their internal contradictions, the power relations that constitute their communities, and the impact that colonialism has had on their contemporary cultural practices. These representations can be turned into new shapes of “discursive colonialism” that allow for neither an appreciation of the permanent actualization of cultural practices nor the dynamics of domination and resistance that develop inside indigenous communities. More than to take up the concepts of communality and “good living” as the new dogma for decolonial feminisms, what I would like to hereby put forward is how some of the principles of communality and “good living”, which have been asserted by indigenous intellectuals of both genders, can become central for the struggles of a feminism that establishes the anti-­capitalist and decolonial struggles at the center of its political agenda. To put forth some other examples of how these theorizations can help us to conceptualize different political horizons, I would like to take up some of the elements that were characterized as fundamental to the life of indigenous peoples by the theoretical promoters of the concept of communality (Vargas 2012, 2015; Vásquez 2012, 2015; Osorio 2015; Robles 2015).

1  The Earth as mother and territory The principle of respect for the Earth is here not limited to the esteem of a resource provider that is helpful for survival or commercialization, but extends to esteeming the Earth as a symbolic mother whom one owes respect to, and as a territory that is not owned by human beings, but of which humans are an integral part. This view becomes fundamental at a time when capitalist growth is characterized by accumulation through dispossession (Harvey 2003). Violence and dispossession have been configured by the racial and gender hierarchies that prevail in our contemporary societies. Peasants and indigenous peoples have resisted the privatization and commercialization of their resources. In many Latin American contexts, this resistance has been fueled by epistemologies and visions of the world that confront the utilitarian and individualist perspective of capital. Hegemonic discourses have responded to this resistance by construing the people behind it as “regressive and anti-­progress” and, in the worst of cases, as

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violent individuals or terrorists. The transnational mining companies, the energetic mega-­projects, the war against drug trafficking, and the hydroelectric projects are violating the territories of these people, and all often result in displacements, which in turn leave those lands “free” for capital appropriation. In this ambush of violence and dispossession, the bodies of women have also been turned into territories to be invaded and violated. Sexual violence against the women participating in movements of resistance is not only a punishment for transgressing their gender roles but is also a message in the semantics of patriarchal violence. Paraphrasing Rita Laura Segato (2008), it could be said that the language of sexual violence against women utilizes the symbolism of the feminine body to indicate the possession of what can be sacrificed in the strife for territorial control. Control over the bodies of women through sexual violence is an instrument to manifest control over the territory of the “colonized”. Native American authors like Andrea Smith (2005) show us how the construction of the indigenous woman’s body as territory has been part of the etymology of the language of colonization. It is a message that repeats itself once more in this stage of accumulation through dispossession. In the Mexican case, the State and its security agents have met the increasingly visible participation of women in social movements of resistance and defense of the Earth and the territory, particularly evident in the Zapatista movement and the farmer and teacher union movements, such as Atenco, Guerrero and Oaxaca, with the punishment of sexual violence (Hernández Castillo 2014b). The defense of the Earth as Mother and as Territory, central amongst the principles of communality, has been assumed by many organized indigenous women as a central part of their political agenda.

2 Consensus at the assembly, community service and communitarian work Another three principles that are reasserted as central inside communality are the space of the Assembly for the creation of consensus in communitarian affairs, unpaid community service (called tequio) and communitarian work. Some political scientists have qualified these forms of participation in and contribution to the common life as “direct democracy”, but the proposal of communality goes beyond this categorization, because it refers particularly to the kind of citizen participation that places pursuit of the common good above the pursuit of individual interests. This assertion of authoritative communal spaces, which include spaces of indigenous justice and of communitarian work as a path for re-­education, become particularly significant in this historical moment of crisis for electoral democracy and state justice. The massacre of Ayotzinapa in Mexico highlighted the decomposition of the system of political parties and revealed the existence of a narco-­state that acts with complete impunity and with the complicity of the security and justice institutions.9 The so-­called crisis of political parties is not a recent discovery for the indigenous peoples. The link between the indigenous peoples and party politics has

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been a weak one, which in the best of cases has served to make alliances in context-­ specific struggles and, in the worst, has helped to legitimize indigenous cacicazgos (“chiefdoms”), which consolidate their economic and political power through the support of political parties. In many indigenous regions of Latin America the “free and secret vote” is still perceived as an imposition that clashes with the traditional forms of electing authorities through processes of discussion at community assemblies, which are characterized for their tendency to build consensus. The space of assembly and of consensus building, described as a central part of communality in the works of Floriberto Díaz, is a fundamental space in the political life of these communities. The appropriation or rejection of electoral democracy by indigenous peoples varies a lot from region to region and depends on the political and organizational history of the communities. The communitarian practices of conflict resolution and electing authorities, stigmatized under the term “uses and customs”, have been presented by many analysts as atavisms which impede the democratization of indigenous peoples (Viqueira and William Sonnleitner 2000; Viqueira 2001). Although it is true that the communitarian assembly, with its long discussions aiming at building consensus, can be both excluding and meritocratic, other, less ethnocentric perspectives have shown us that, in many cases, these practices have allowed for the maintenance of communitary cohesion. Communality implies building and mantaining spaces of collective dialogue through which the community can aspire to find the common good. Indigenous women inside the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), the Zapatista autonomous regions in Mexico and the Maya women in many indigenous regions of Guatemala, have all struggled to democratize the communitarian and regional assemblies so that women’s participation is considered in the decision-­making processes, and thereby are able to achieve the true integrality which is vindicated by the principle of communality. In the case of Mexico, the naming in May 2016 of the Nahuatl traditional healer María de Jesús Patricio as an independent candidate for the presidential elections of 2018 is another manifestation of the significance of the role played by women in indigenous organizations. Her candidacy, promoted by the National Indigenous Congress (CNI for its name in Spanish), was put forth as a collective candidacy, wherein she should be the spokeswoman of the Indigenous Council of Government. Thereby, this government would govern from the concept of communality, questioning not only the system of political parties but also the dominant perspective of understanding political leaderships. In reference to this, one of the members of the CNI declared on the day of the naming, “We will not make a [normal] campaign, but instead we will seize this opportunity to organize ourselves to dismantle power. It is a collective path, do not get confused, it is not [another] vulgar struggle for power, but a struggle for a civilizatory project” (Sin Embargo 2017). While it is true that indigenous peoples have walked a long path in their construction of communitarian democracy and consensus building, their experiences can be taken up for the construction of a participatory democracy which contemporary urban zones are in such dire need of. Recovering the values of

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free and communal work in service of the collective well-­being becomes urgent in this historical moment where neoliberalism as a hegemonic cultural project is promoting individualism, commercialization and wealth accumulation as the ruling principles for society’s functioning. From the perspective of feminism, the concept of sorority, or sisterhood, aims to recover the solidarity between women as a basic principle in the struggle for social justice. Indigenous women are extending this principle through the concept of communality to integrate the idea of complementarity which must be, not only be between men and women, but between all human beings and the environment that surrounds them. In the voices and experiences of these women, we can perceive how they have incorporated elements of communality as a source of empowerment in their political struggles: using them to recover the discourse of complementarity between men and women, rather than as a lived reality, as an ideal to chase after, and as a fundamental principle to defend Mother Earth, the territory and life itself.

3 The ceremonies and rites as an expression of the “communal gift” Another fundamental element of communality is the assertion of ritual life and spirituality as an expression of what is considered “the communal gift” and as a space for the strengthening of communitarian bonds. Both the liberal and Marxist traditions of Latin American feminisms build up their perspectives from a secular ideology that rejects any kind of religiosity and spirituality as “colonial remnants” or as “false conscience”, yet organized indigenous women have been reaffirming their indigenous ceremonies and religiosity, not only as spaces for strengthening of the collective and spiritual, but also as spaces of healing in the face of patriarchal violence. By recovering the spirituality of their ancestors and reinventing practices and rituals to make them more inclusive, organized indigenous women from the Americas are setting the basis for both a rethinking of culture from the perspective of gender and a rethinking of gender from the perspective of culture. An important issue in anthropology and sociology has been the analysis of religious spaces as spaces of resistance against various types of social domination. Research on these fields has demonstrated the fallacies of the old Marxist premise that “religion is the opium of the people” by addressing how ritual spaces allow for social actors to reject, contest or negotiate with the structures of domination that frame their lives.10 An example of this is the way in which indigenous spirituality has been reaffirmed by members of the Continental Network of Indigenous Women, especially by organized women in Mexico and Guatemala, as a tool to resist the homogenizing impulse of globalization and the politics of acculturation of nation-­states, as well as a tool to confront the ethnocentrism of some feminisms that build their emancipatory projects upon a rhetoric of equality and a liberal conception of the individual. Despite the resistance and rejection of these culturally situated perspectives in some feminist currents, their proposals already have an important place inside the continental movement of indigenous women.

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Indigenous women are developing their own theorizations, emanating from their own organic intellectuals who have participated in the continental events of the last decade. These theorizations are reflected in the resolutions of the First Summit, in which the reaffirmation of the concepts of complementarity and duality were the main threads of the debates at the Board of Work and Education, Spirituality and Culture. The board issued a declaration establishing the following: We recognize that spirituality is the base of indigenous knowledge and education, therefore these two must be strengthened and maintained through respectful management. . . . We aim to construct our own identity by recovering the ancestral knowledge, and by hearing the voice of our ancestors and our own spiritual voices to choose the path and to build the future. We reaffirm the need to cultivate spirituality, by testifying and sharing our own experiences and knowledge, seizing on mutual energies and assuming the concepts and beliefs from our culture. We take up the indigenous worldview or science of the indigenous peoples, recognizing the ancient men and women as bearers of ancestral wisdom, so that they may be the teachers of future generations. We strengthen the spiritual practices of the community, in which adults should teach kids and youngsters through practice. We place value on spirituality as the principal axe of culture through the practice of our principles and the education aimed to strengthen our knowledge. (Memoria de la Primera Cumbre de Mujeres Indígenas de América 2003: 128) These spiritual and epistemological reaffirmations by indigenous women were rejected by both the more conservative sectors of the Catholic Church and the liberal feminists. Departing from such a worldview and concept of spirituality, they proposed a concept of gender that would imply the following: a respectful, sincere, equitable, and balanced relationship – what in the West is called a relationship of equity – of respect and of harmony, in which both men and women have an opportunity, without this supposing another burden for the woman, but instead an enabling element for her. Only thus will it be possible to be well spiritually, well with our own human being, with the earth, the sky and the natural elements that grant us oxygen. . . . Which is why for us women, speaking about the gender perspective supposes referring back to the concept of Duality as treated from the indigenous worldview. On these grounds, everything in the universe is governed in terms of Duality, the sky and the earth, happiness and sadness, day and night, which are all complementary between themselves: the one cannot exist without the other. If there were ten days with only sunlight we would die, we would not manage to stand it. Everything is governed in terms of Duality, undoubtedly so are man and woman. (Estela, indigenous women of the Asociación Política de Mujeres Mayas, Moloj, Mayib´ Ixoquib´, Guatemala. Quoted in Calixta 2004) It becomes evident that these perspectives, built from the concept of complementarity, are not using the concept as an excuse to avoid talking about power and the

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violence in gender relations; on the contrary, they are turning the concept into a critical tool to question the colonizing attitudes of indigenous men and to establish the necessity of rethinking culture from the perspective of gender equity.

Final Considerations Recovering indigenous women’s theorizations surrounding gender justice and recognizing their emancipatory potential must not imply an idealization of contemporary indigenous cultures. Their proposals speak about communality and “good living”, which depart from important values that must be recovered and operationalized. Never do they, in their writings and political approaches, insinuate that there is not a long path to walk in order to truly make these values frame their daily lives. Discrediting these proposals because they do not depart from our perspective of equality and because they do not take up our concern for sexual and reproductive rights, or at least not in the same frames as we do in the urban regions, is reproducing the silencing and excluding mechanisms of political movements characterized by patriarchal perspectives. The buildup of political alliances amongst diverse groups demands a construction of dialogues that de-­normalizes gender, class and race hierarchies, and that break with the logics of erasing other knowledges. In this sense, I find inspiring the proposal of Boaventura de Sousa Santos of conceiving an ecology of knowledges, not as an alternative to Western knowledge that ends up subordinating the “other knowledges”, but as a new and more equitable relationship between Western knowledge and other forms of knowledge (de Sousa Santos 2009). In our case, an ecology of feminist knowledges would not discard all the knowledges accumulated by Western feminism but would attempt to relativize their heuristic capacity, contextualize their origins and space of enunciation. It would also destabilize Western feminism’s hierarchic relationship with the emancipatory knowledges of indigenous, Muslim, peasant and other women. I hope that this chapter is able to contribute, at least in some degree, to the emergence of this ecology of feminist knowledges that is so needed for the construction of a fairer world.

Notes 1 In the myth of the mestizo (mixed race from indigenous and Spanish ancestry), nation has been very important for the Mexican nationalistic discourse. For an analysis of the Mexican Mestizo Nation, see Hernández Castillo 2001a 2 In the Mexican context I  use the term hegemonic feminism to refer to the academic feminism from the center of the nation, for which the struggle for reproductive rights and abortion has been central. I analyze the tension between hegemonic and emerging indigenous feminism in Hernández Castillo 2001b. 3 For other critiques of the ethnocentrism of liberal feminism, see Alarcón (1990) and Trinh (1988). 4 I speak of the project “Women and Rights in Latin America: Justice, Security and Legal Pluralism”, coordinated by Rachel Sieder (CIESAS) and financed by the NORGLOBAL Program of the Norwegian Research Council. See Sieder 2017. 5 Interview with Cristina Cucuri, in www.mujeresindigenasecuador.org.

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6 Interview with Cristina Cucuri, in www.mujeresindigenasecuador.org. 7 An analysis of these perspectives can be found in María Teresa Sierra et al. (2005) 8 See the Summit of America’s Indigenous Women (2003) Memoria de la Primera Cumbre de Mujeres Indígenas de América Rigoberta Menchú Tum Foundation, Mexico, D.F. 9 On 26 September 2014, 43 students from the Escuela Normal de Ayotzinapa (Teacher Training School of Ayotzinapa), in the Mexican state of Guerrero, were detained by police forces and turned over to members of organised crime. To date they remain disappeared, which has led to this event being denounced as a State crime. The complicity between local governments and drug trafficking was exposed once more, marking the political life of the country. For an analysis of the Ayotzinapa case through the lens of political anthropology, see Hernández Castillo y Mora 2015 (https://lasa.international. pitt.edu/forum/files/vol46-­issue1/Debates-­11.pdf). 10 About religious spaces as spaces of resistance, one can consult Comaroff and Comaroff (1991); Hernández Castillo (2004). A collection of works that addresses specifically the topic of religion as a space of resistance for women can be found in Marcos (2000, 2004); a specific analysis of the spirituality of the indigenous women who participated in the Primera Cumbre de Mujeres Indígenas de América (“First Summit of America’s Indigenous Women”) as a channel for decolonisation can be found in Marcos (2011).

References Alarcón, Norma. 1990. ‘The Theoretical Subjects of This Bridge Called My Back and Anglo-­ American Feminism’, in Gloria Anzaldúa (ed), Making Faces/Making Soul: Haciendo caras. San Francisco: Aunt Lute. Arteaga Böhrt, Ana Cecilia. 2017. ‘ “Let Us Walk Together”: Chachawarmi Complementarity and Indigenous Autonomies in Bolivia’, in Rachel Sieder (ed), Demanding Justice and Security. Indigenous Women and Legal Pluralities in Latin America, pp. 150–173. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Blackwell, Maylei. 2009. ‘Weaving in the Spaces: Transnational Indigenous Women’s Organizing and the Politics of Scale’, in Shannon R. Speed, Aída Hernández Castillo and Lynn M. Stephen (eds), Dissident Women: Gender and Cultural Politics in Chiapas, pp. 115–157. Austin: University of Texas Press. ———. 2012. ‘The Practice of Autonomy in the Age of Neoliberalism: Strategies from Indigenous Women’s Organising in Mexico’, Journal of Latin American Studies, 44: 703–732. Cervone, Emma and Cristina Cucuri. 2017. ‘Gender Inequality, Indigenous Justice and the Intercultural State: The Case of Chimborazo Ecuador’, in Rachel Sieder (ed), Demanding Justice and Security. Indigenous Women and Legal Pluralities in Latin America, pp. 120–150. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Collier, George. 1994. Basta! Land and the Zapatista Rebellion in Chiapas. Oakland California: Food First Books. Comaroff, John and Jean Comaroff. 1991. Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in South Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cumbre de Mujeres Indígenas de América. 2003. Memoria de la Primera Cumbre de Mujeres Indígenas de América. Fundación Rigoberta Menchú Tum, Mexico, DF. De Sousa Santos, Boaventura. 2009. Una epistemología del Sur. La reinvención conocimiento y la emancipación social. México: clacso y Siglo xxi. Diaz, Floriberto. 2007. Comunalidad, energía viva del pensamiento. México: UNAM. FIMI. 2006. Mairin Iwanka Raya: Indigenous Women Stand Against Violence. A  Companion Report to the United Nations Secretary. New York: HIVOS-­MADRE. Flood, Merielle. 1994. ‘Changing gender relations in Zinacantán, México’, Reseach in Economic Anthropology, 15: 65–85.

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Gabriel Xiquín, Calixta. 2004. Liderazgo de las Mujeres Mayas en las Leyendas y Mitologías según su Cosmovisión. Guatemala City: (ms). Gutiérrez Chong, Natividad. 2004. Mujeres y nacionalismos en América Latina. De la independencia a la nación del nuevo milenio. México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Harvey, David. 2003. The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hernández Castillo, Rosalva Aída. 2001a. Histories and Stories from Chiapas. Border Identities from Southern Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press. ———. 2001b. Entre el etnocentrismo feminista y el esencialismo étnico. Las Mujeres Indígenas y sus demandas de género’, Debate Feminista, 12 (24): 206–229. ———. 2003. ‘Repensar el Multiculturalismo desde el Género. Las luchas por el reconocimiento cultural y los feminismos de la diversidad’, La Ventana Revista de Estudios de Género, 18: 30–68. ———. 2004. ‘Indígenas y Teología India: Límites y aportaciones a las luchas de las mujeres indígenas’, in Sylvia Marcos (ed), Religión y Género. Enciclopedia Iberoamericana de Religiones, pp. 319–337. Madrid: Editorial Trotta. ———. 2014a. ‘Cuerpos Femeninos, violencia y acumulación por desposesión’, in M. Belausteguigoitia and M. Saldaña-­Portillo (eds), Des-­Posesión: Género, Territorio y Luchas por la Autonomía, pp. 79–101. México: PUEG-­UNAM/Instituto de Liderazgo Simone de Beauvoir and Debate Feminista. ———. 2014b. ‘Algunos aprendizajes en el difícil reto de descolonizar nuestros feminismos’, in Millán Margara (ed), Más Allá del Feminismo Caminos por Andar, pp. 183–213. México: Pez en el Agua-­Red de Feminismos Descoloniales. ———. 2016. Multiple Injustices. Indigenous Women, Law and Political Struggle. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. Hernández, C., Rosalva, A. and Mora Bayo, M. 2015. ‘Ayotzinapa: ¿Fue el Estado? Reflexiones desde la antropología política en Guerrero’, LASA Forum xlvi: 28–33. Jackson, Jean and Kay Warren. 2005. ‘Indigenous Movements in Latin America, 1992–2004: Controversies, Ironies, New Directions’, Annu. Rev. Anthropol, 34: 549–573. Macleod, Morna. 2011. Nietas del fuego, creadoras del alba. Luchas político-­culturales de mujeres mayas. Guatemala: FLACSO Guatemala – Hivos. Marcos, Sylvia. 2000. Gender/Bodies/Religions. Cuernavaca: Aler Publications. ———. 2004. Religión y Género. Enciclopedia Iberoamericana de Religiones. Madrid: Editorial Trotta. ———. 2011. ‘Mesoamerican Women´s Indigenous Spirituality. Decolonizing Religious Beliefs’, Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, 25 (2), Fall: 25–45. Méndez, Georgina. 2013. ‘Mujeres Mayas-­Kichwas en la apuesta por la descolonización de los pensamientos y corazones’, in Georgina Méndez, Juan Itzin, Sylvia Marcos y Carmen Osorio (eds), Senti-­pensar el género. Perspectivas desde los pueblos indígenas, pp. 27–63. México: Editorial Casa del Mago/Red INPIIM A.C./Red de Feminismos Descoloniales. Millán, Márgara et al. 2014. Más allá del Feminismo: Caminos para Andar. México: Pez en el Agua/Red de Feminismos Descoloniales. Mohanty, Chandra. 1991 [1986]. ‘Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses’, in Chandra Mohanty, Ann Russo and Lourdes Torres (eds), Third World Women and the Politics of Feminism, pp. 51–81. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Nash, June. 1993. ‘Mayan Production in the Modern World’, in June Nash (ed), The Impact of Global Exchange on Middle American Artisans, pp. 35–67. Albany: State University of New York Press. Okin, Susan Moller. 1999. Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? Princeton: Princeton University Press. Osorio, Carmen. 2015. ‘Obra y pensamiento de las mujeres Ñuu Savi en su proceso organizativo: una expresión de la comunalidad’, Paper presented in Primer Congreso

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Internacional de Comunalidad Luchas y estrategias comunitarias: Horizontes más allá del capital. Puebla, México. Powers, Karen Vieira. 2005. Women in the Crucible of Conquest: The Gendered Genesis of Spanish American Society, 1500–1600. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Robles, Sofía. 2015. ‘Semblanza sobre la vida y obra de Floriberto Díaz: Sus aportes a la comprensión de la comunalidad’, Paper presented in Primer Congreso Internacional de Comunalidad Luchas y estrategias comunitarias: Horizontes más allá del capital. Puebla, México. Sarmiento, Sergio. 1987. La Lucha Indígena. Un Reto a la Ortodoxia. Mexico: Editorial Siglo XXI-­UNAM, México. Sieder, Rachel. (ed) 2017. Demanding Justice and Security. Indigenous Women and Legal Pluralism in Latin America. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. Sierra, María Teresa Hernández Castillo y Rosalva Aída. 2005. ‘Repensar los derechos colectivos desde el género: Aportes de las mujeres indígenas al debate de la autonomía’, in Martha Sánchez (ed), La Doble Mirada: Luchas y Experiencias de las Mujeres Indígenas de América Latina, pp. 105–120. Mexico: Instituto Simone de Beuvoir. Sin Embaro. 2017. ‘María de Jesús Patricio, una reconocida médico tradicional nahua, es candidata 2018 del EZLN’. Sin Embargo Periodismo Digital, May 28, 2017. https://www. sinembargo.mx/28-­05-­2017/3227204 Smith, Andrea. 2005. Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Speed, Shannon, R. Aída Hernández Castillo and Lynn M. Stephen. 2006. Dissident Women: Gender and Cultural Politics in Chiapas. Austin: University of Texas Press. Trinh, Min-­ha. 1988. Woman, Native, Other: Writing Postcoloniality and Feminism. Indiana: Indiana University Press. Vargas Vianey, Liliana. 2011. Las mujeres de Tlahuitoltepec Mixe, frente a la impartición de justicia y el uso del derecho internacional 2000–2008. México: INMUJERES. ———. 2012. ‘Las mujeres de Tlahuitoltepec Mixe Frente a la impartición de la justicia’, in R. Hernández and A. Canessa (eds), Género, complementariedades y exclusiones en Mesoamérica y los Andes, pp. 331–346. Lima: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA)/Abya Yala Press/The British Academy of Science. ———. 2015. ‘De la filosofía colectiva a la cotidianidad comunal: miradas emergentes femeninas desde la colectividad y la subjetividad’, Paper presented in Primer Congreso Internacional de Comunalidad Luchas y estrategias comunitarias: Horizontes más allá del capital. Puebla, México, September 2015. Vásquez, Carolina. 2012. ‘Miradas de las mujeres ayuujk. Nuestra experiencia de vida comunitaria en la construcción del género’, in R. Hernández and A. Canessa (eds), Género, complementariedades y exclusiones en Mesoamérica y los Andes, pp. 331–346. Lima: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA)/Abya Yala Press/The British Academy of Science. ———. 2015. ‘Los espacios comunitarios en las experiencias de las mujeres Ayuujk’, Ponencia presentada en el Primer Congreso Internacional de Comunalidad Luchas y estrategias comunitarias: Horizontes más allá del capital. Puebla, México. Viqueira, Juan Pablo. 2001. ‘Los usos y costumbres en contra de la autonomía’, Letras Libres, 27: 30–36. Viqueira, Juan Pablo y William Sonnleitner (eds). 2000. Democracia en Tierras Indígenas. Las Elecciones en los Altos de Chiapas 1991–1998. México: CIESAS-­El Colegio de México-­IFE. Yashar, Deborah. 2005. Contesting Citizenship in Latin America: The Rise of Indigenous Movements and the Postliberal Challenge. New York: Cambridge University Press. Yuval Davis, Nira. 1997. Gender and Nation. London: Sage Press.

4 GENDER IN NORTH AMERICA Priscilla Settee

In 2011 I edited a collection of stories from Canadian Indigenous women called The Strength of Women: Âhkêmayamak. Working directly with all of the women featured in the book and hearing their stories served as an impetus to formally honour their stories. Included were stories from young women, as I believe the dreams, voices and actions of young women are imaginative, creative and full of hope for a transformatory future. As a young Indigenous woman, teaching and community activism became a central part of my life. From my work as a community activist I have experienced the impact of years of colonization on the roles of women and men and indigenous families and communities. I was the product of a home shattered by the impact of a war, Canada’s infamous residential schools and the ensuing trauma and fall-­out from such events. These events and the uprootedness of our family and its eventual breakdown made me want to give voice to the forces that had formed me as a young girl, a woman and a community leader. It was my story as well as the stories of other women’s survival and triumph. I wanted all of our stories to provide an analysis and deeper understanding of the process and impact of colonization within the Canadian context. Women’s lives and stories are an essential piece of our unwritten history. These stories of resilience, reciprocity, rebuilding and relations are reflected in Cree values and concepts such as âhkêmayowwak (“resiliency” or “persistence”), wahkotahwin (“we are all family or share relations”) and wichitowin (“we take care of each other”). In North America today, as in other regions of the world, women are rebuilding from a devastating history of colonialism, resuming their traditional positions of influence and power, building on ancient wisdom and sharper analysis that has an identified colonialism (Smith 2005). This chapter will describe some of the historical forces that Indigenous women in North America have overcome and how they are leading the struggle for the liberation of nations. This chapter will examine the concept of “storying” and how it is useful as a time-­honoured

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communication system of maintaining cultural strengths and histories. This chapter is partly my story and partly framed as an academic paper referring to gender literature. The chapter will also include an examination of the role of feminism and women-­centered organizing and its relationship to gender. While the work focuses on female gender in the Indigenous worldview, the concept of multiple genders exists; and, while focusing mostly on issues and some of the writing of Indigenous women-­centered gender, it will also include information on gay, lesbian and transgender issues. The concept of gender has been greatly affected by the colonial process as well, resulting in deep discrimination against those who do not adhere to the male female binary only. Finally, the chapter will end by describing the many ways that women are reclaiming power and transforming communities, including their participation at the United Nations meeting on Women in Beijing, China, in 1995. Indigenous women were foundational in Beijing, demonstrating the importance of international solidarity as a means of creating world-­wide change. In precolonial times, women were the backbone of community from cradle to grave. They were important leaders whose power and influence was also recognized by early colonial powers. The Aboriginal view of co-­existence and universal kinship, wakotawin, allowed the Europeans access to what would become North America as well as the resources of these new territories. Early colonizing forces recognized that the destruction of Indigenous nations could be achieved through the destruction of families and undermining the role of women. The colonizers saw (and rightly) that as long as women held unquestioned power of such magnitude, attempts at total conquest of the continents were bound to fail. In the centuries since the first attempts at colonization in the early 1500s, the invaders have exerted every effort to remove Indian women from every position of authority, to obliterate all records pertaining to gynocratic social systems and to ensure that no American and American Indians would remember that gynocracy was the primary social order of Indian America prior to 1800. (Gunn Allen 1986: 3) Unions between European men and Indigenous women were often ones of convenience and ones that benefited the early colonial process of settlement and commerce. In her groundbreaking work, Sarah Carter describes the contempt that early colonial officials held for Indigenous women. The treatment of Indigenous women was degrading, discriminatory and designed to ultimately put women in a devalued place among their people as well as newcomer populations. Life in early Canada was extremely difficult, food was hard to come by without knowledge of the local sources and the terrain was extreme. The unofficial governmental reports of early events tell about the hardships the government representatives experienced and how life would have been impossible with the local knowledge and assistance of Indigenous peoples, especially the women. The official records in their attempts to undermine Indigenous sovereignty often described Indigenous women as little better than animals, accusing them of being licentious and immoral. This

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attitude was to establish a very dangerous precedent of attitudes and actions against Indigenous women that persist today. Early commercial relationships transformed Indigenous women into subservient and dependent roles. In addition, government and missionary efforts imposed patriarchal Western forms of labour, family, property and production, resulting in women’s further economic dependency on men. Sexual favours were demanded of young women in exchange for food rations (Carter 2006: 154). When Indigenous women attempted to report government officials’ rapes, beatings and other abuses of power, they were accused of blackmail and deceit, and the men were exonerated and the Aboriginal women were blamed for behaving with wanton abandonment (Carter 2006: 155). These attitudes and actions have led to discriminatory and brutal behaviours that persist today and must be understood for their powerful historical impact. Nahanni Fontaine states, “It is imperative that we remember how this collective history has shaped current contexts and I would encourage us to let it guide us in our work” (345). Finally, the epic number of deaths caused by major diseases was a contributing factor in the undermining of strong Indigenous nations. The impact was and continues to be nothing short of genocidal. The control of Indigenous nations was further realized through the collusion of the church and state, which I will discuss later.

Canada’s Indian Act: The legal impact on Indigenous women Early Canadian laws, such as the Indian Act of 1876, furthered the denigration of Indigenous women. The Indian Act is a piece of federal legislation designed by government to control every aspect of First Nations lives. The sections that pertain to women are particularly discriminatory. In her award-­winning book Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States, Simpson (2014) describes how the Indian Act, “the overarching ‘law’ of Indians in Canada, legally ‘made’ and ‘unmade’ Indians and their rights in a Western, specifically Victorian, model of patrilineal descent (and rule) that attempted to order their winnowed territories” (10). The diminishing of women’s legal, Indigenous and Canadian citizenship status resulted in discriminatory practices whose repercussions are felt even today. Before the act was challenged by Indigenous women, many lost Native status by marrying a non-­Indigenous partner reflecting the premise that Indian women were the property of men with no personal rights. Women were portrayed as incapable of running for positions of chief, band councilors or other leadership positions. It was only through women’s challenge to the Indian act that these sections were eventually changed after many scarce resources were expended. Challenging both the patriarchal and colonial aspects of the Indian Act drove wedges of separation between Indigenous women and men as well as other community members. Other issues including Canada’s residential schools are at the root of the systemic violence that persists today against Indigenous women. Violence at the hands of the residential school caregivers became a way of life for as many as 150,000 children.

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From the 19th century until as recently as 1996, Elder Vicki Wilson describes her terrifying experience when she was ripped from the protective home of her parents and grandparents. Vicky was rounded up with other children from her White Bear First Nations community, thrown in the back of a large truck and covered with a tarp. For hours tearful children endured a terrifying experience not knowing where they were being taken or why. In Vicki’s case their final destination was Lebret residential school. In describing her children in residential schools Elder Wilson states: it was to me I lost our childhood. We lost so much. There was no comforting – you couldn’t comfort other kids when they were crying, and I didn’t have my brothers there yet. When they did finally enter the same school, the only times we saw them was when we went to mass in the morning. We couldn’t look, we had to look straight ahead in the chapel, but we always managed to see them when they were there. Once, I didn’t see my little brother for three days and I thought maybe he was dead, maybe they had killed him. (Settee 2011: 5) While violence did not impact female children only in residential schools, the root of the sexual discrimination and abuse can be found in the physical and sexual violence that was meted out to many of the tens of thousands of children. Similarly to the official written history of Canada reported by Carter, police reports on the topic are often incomplete, skewed and incorrect. According to solidarity organizations such as Amnesty International, in Canada alone there are staggering statistics on missing and murdered Indigenous women. 1,017 women and girls identified as Indigenous were murdered between 1980 and 2012 – a homicide rate roughly 4.5 times higher than that of all other women in Canada (Amnesty International 2016). But activists state that the number today is closer to 2000 women who have been reported murdered or missing. Often reporting becomes more like blaming the victim. With the protection of young women in mind, Indigenous lead organizations such as the Native Women’s Association of Canada developed training kits for schools and other organizations, but the federal government of Canada soon discontinued the funding for such important work. Today Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission has uncovered the extent of the past abuse and its continuing repercussions. The entrenched history of violence against Indigenous people in Canada has set the stage for what is a tragic phenomenon among Indigenous women. Today racist and sexist legacies persist, as demonstrated by the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women; Indigenous women being the most rapidly growing prison population; and other factors of marginalization. A huge campaign largely organized by Indigenous women continues to develop, forcing the state to take some action. However, more often than not, that action is little better than window dressing. For example, police in Canada do not consistently record the Indigenous identity of victims of crime. Statistics Canada reports that in 2009, for example,

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police records failed to note whether the victims of crime were Aboriginal or non-­ Aboriginal in 384 out of 610 homicides. Some victims of crime are being inaccurately identified as non-­Aboriginal because police have not had proper training on why accurate identification is important and how it is to be determined (see www.amnesty.ca/sites/amnesty/files/iwfa_submission_amnesty_international_ february_2014_-­_final.pdf). To be sure, murdered Indigenous women cannot be viewed as separate from their social and economic situations. The fact that many were victims of the child welfare system known as the 60s Scoop, the fact that many were homeless, newly released from prison, unemployed and marginalized, a fact facing more and more Canadians, and finally the fact that many were targeted for racial acts (as in the case of the psychopathic Canadian pig farmer on whose farm the DNA of many women was discovered) all reflect circumstances of Indigenous women. Typically men do not see domestic abuse as their terrain to address, but some men are stepping forward. Further to these appalling statistics and somewhat related is the number of Indigenous women who are incarcerated. Canada’s prison system is another source of discrimination and betrayal for Indigenous women. The number of Aboriginal women who were locked behind bars in federal institutions increased by a staggering 97 per cent between 2002 and 2012, a study by the federal Justice Department concluded. Kim Pate, executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, said a number of factors – including mandatory minimum sentences and more limited conditional-­release options – add up to a higher incarceration rate for society’s most marginalized people. The Aboriginal prisoners tend to be slightly younger than non-­Aboriginal women, with less education, and have struggled to find work. Substance abuse is also rife among female Aboriginal prisoners (Rennie. 2014) Sharon Acoose’s (2015) story reflects that of many incarcerated women. In her book called An Arrow in my Heart, Acoose describes the issues that led to her incarceration: childhood sexual abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, street life, prostitution and several near-­death experiences. While the bulk of the book describes tragic events in her life such as alcoholism, drug addiction and the loss of many family members, the last chapter sums up her life today as a formally educated professor working at First Nations University of Canada. I have shared my shared my experience, strength and hope so that another addict can perhaps find solace in what I have written. We all have a story of some kind no matter how long we have suffered. And there is an end. For those who still suffer that simply means there is something in your life that you must dig deep to find and release. I can tell you this once you have figured that out and totally surrendered the rest will follow. And you will be amazed at what you will be able to discover in your life. Yes it will be difficult. You will need to pick the appropriate battle for you. (Acoose, 96)

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Rallies, fundraisers and educational efforts, including the development of materials, are some of the events that women and their allies have focused on. Partly as a result of the Truth and Reconciliation movement, some of Canada’s major churches have rallied around the issues.

What is to be done? As a professor of both Indigenous Studies and Women and Gender Studies, I frame my teaching within a decolonization and gender analysis to help not only Indigenous peoples but other citizens as well make the links between early colonial violence, the present discord and the very public impoverishment and marginalization that exists. In many respects, we need to rewrite history to reflect its impact on our communities. Equally, it is important to look beyond the pathologies to understand the circumstances critically but to also recognize the processes of recovery and endurance despite the systemic violence that took place. Sadly, I find that literature on and by Indigenous women that reflects feminist principles often does not name feminism as a tool for analysis and strategy. Making Space for Indigenous Feminism is one exception. Green (2007) reveals stories from many Indigenous women throughout North America and beyond on their thoughts about Indigenous feminism, politics and women’s realities. Green suggests that the small numbers of Indigenous women who identify as feminists is reflective of the gap that exists in feminist literature as a whole, as well as misunderstanding and resistance by Indigenous women. This is a result of the hostility that feminism attracts, partly as the result of its anti-­and post-­colonial analysis. It too contests the myths and justifications of the economic and political status quo of settler states and demands restitution, self-­determination and participation in political and economic activity. Fundamentally, this struggle challenges the legitimacy of settler states’ claims to sovereignty. (22) Green maintains that the emerging Aboriginal feminist literature must be taken seriously as a critique of colonialism, decolonization and gendered and raced power relations in both settler and Indigenous communities. She further states that Indigenous feminism has the capacity to educate other movements unfamiliar with issues of colonialism and builds critical political consciousness that contributes to citizenship and democratic development (22). Green’s statements are supported by St. Denis and Smith, who claim that utilizing a feminist analysis helps to build class support among women who are similarly affected. Further, putting women at the center of sovereignty issues ensures that Indigenous nationhood will be more egalitarian and supportive of entire communities. All three make convincing arguments for the gains that can be made in developing a feminist analysis in nation-­building. Green’s book is an essential part of my teaching.

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The important voices of young women We elder women come from a mixed history of struggle, strong culture and insight. When I  think back to my own life, it was in my youth that my consciousness was raised and I  was trained, inspired and provoked into action. I  had a dream and belief that life could be better and that women were an essential part of this. I  ran into many roadblocks, perhaps because I  was young, critical of status quo thinking or moving too fast. Whatever the reasoning, I ran into barriers. Today young women and transgendered people are not letting barriers stand in their way. They are getting educated formally and informally. They are articulate, righteous, informed and angered in a good, healthy way. They are challenging the mistakes that their elders have made and designing new ways forward. They are seeing our local issues from a global perspective and making international connections with two feet in the community. Many of these young women I have met in the classes I teach at university. One of my past graduate students, Lindsay Eekwol Knight, has become a leader of national caliber. She has overcome challenges and set the stage for others to follow. Eekwol’s research speaks to the impact of the spoken word, youth voice and music. From the depths of Cree Territory, Eekwol has been capturing ears with her signature raps since 1998. As a part of the Innersoulflow collective crew, she has appeared on countless releases throughout North America. In true fashion to the history of both hip-­hop and Indigenous Cree culture, she represents through compelling and experimental storytelling rhymes. Eekwol, with her brother/producer Mils, won Best Hip Hop/Rap Album at the 2005 Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards for their album Apprentice to the Mystery, and were nominated in the same category at the Indian Summer Music Awards in 2005 and the Aboriginal Peoples’ Choice Music Awards in 2006. Their video for “Too Sick” has also been featured on Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, MTV Canada and Muchmusic and they have been featured in many well-­distributed publications including Planet S, Eagle Feather News, Redwire Magazine, Windspeaker, Sage, SAY Magazine, SPIRIT Magazine and The Province out of Vancouver. They have charted on many community radio stations across North America, including “Top Ten Hip Hop Albums” on Chart Attack and Earshot! Eekwol and Mils have received a Videofact grant for their latest album’s single “The Gauntlet”, which they filmed in February 2008. Eekwol has been enhancing hip-­hop with her own prairie style for more than 15 years. She uses her mastery of words to communicate across Canada, and has performed on countless stages across the country. Her desire to recognize her Indigenous Plains Cree and hip-­hop roots can be fully experienced through her powerful music and performance. Her poem “Iskwewak” describes women’s strength. Iskwewak Iskotew Tapwewin Women’s Heart Fire Within So I gotta let you all in on something

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When I knew she was a girl I started drumming Gathered strength as the stick tapped the hide Felt a little spark from the light inside I knew right there it was time for a take back Conjure ancient knowledge to combat attacks So this little girl would know her story To never stop learning and never be sorry Live the good life like she was meant to Stick to family and those who respect her If we give in to the lies we fall deeper Too many fires put out without enough keepers My girl, those before you lights in the sky Flares in the night the first to survive Feel the heat as it starts to rise The flames are growing kissing the sky1 Eekwol’s words, I believe, come from her work with the missing and murdered indigenous women of Canada. It is every mother’s nightmare to realize her daughter or anyone’s daughter could be the next statistic. Yet that is the fate of more 2,000 Indigenous women in Canada. Her lyrics remind us that Indigenous girls and women have the right to live their lives to their fullest potential.

My own history as an internationalist and the impact of international work In the late 1970s, I was a young teacher working in the far north of my province in several First Nations communities. I  had just graduated from university and was teaching undergraduate classes in several communities. The memory I have is of culturally rich communities in somewhat economically stressed conditions among spectacular natural beauty – land, lakes and trees. As a young woman I was concerned by and perplexed how much economic poverty and social challenges could exist within so much natural beauty. That year I  made arrangements to meet with Indigenous communities in Latin America. My trip included Mexico, Central America (except Nicaragua, which was going through prerevolutionary social, economic and civilian turmoil), Colombia and Ecuador in South America. It was the beginning of my radical politicization and personal transformation and it framed my life’s work. Those travels introduced me to the life-­and-­death struggles of Indigenous peoples from the region and helped me to better understand the politics of underdevelopment in my own homelands. I  became even more politically active in my Cree community, working with our local Native women’s organizations, West Central Native Women as well as the Saskatchewan Native Women’s Association and the Native Women’s Association of Canada. Gender was at the center of all three organizations’ work. At the local level, we established the first women’s and children’s safe shelter, which inspired or was part of other

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centers’ organizing efforts. Our other work centered on women’s empowerment leadership and employment training. We called village and town organizations and we lent support to each other around local issues. Some communities at the time were fighting resource extraction issues involving mining and environmental safety and deforestation, and others were building alternatives to the failure of mainstream schools. Tired of the schools’ failure to serve their children, women were the impetus behind the survival school movement. In Saskatoon, for example, women, elders and other Indigenous educators established Saskatoon Native Survival School, later renamed Joe Duquette School and today called Oskayak (Cree for “youth”) School. This school and other initiatives are part of the reason that Saskatchewan is recognized as the province that took the lead in Canadian Indigenous Education. Another milestone we accomplished was the closure of the Prison for Women (P4W) in Kingston, Ontario, in 1997 that had stockpiled women since 1934. Many young Saskatchewan Indigenous women and girls were sent away from their Canadian prairie homes to serve time in Canada’s only federal maximum security prison. Thousands of miles from relatives and home, with little to no support, more than 13 young women killed themselves in what were described as horrific, dungeon-­ like conditions. Women suffered cruel and unusual punishment, and abuse was rampant and identified as the cause of most suicides. The issue of abuse by male staff on female prisoners was clearly the concern in the recent Arbour Inquiry. This inquiry came as a response to investigate the degrading and inhumane treatment of the women who were strip searched at P4W by a male riot squad. While the Arbour Commission’s recommendations’ focus of concern was with the staffing of male guards in the new women’s prisons, there is an even understandably greater concern about women being housed in men’s prisons. It is important to note that all work was done by women without monetary compensation: women were motivated by the need for social change. At the same time, women were entering teacher training programs and social work programs in order to improve their lives and that of their families.

The long climb forward: Solidarity and connective relations Higher learning and gender studies Today I work in two fields of study that both lead and support the issue of Indigenous issues and gender studies. The Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Saskatchewan was initiated in 1983 after a group of senior Indigenous students recognized the need to address the void within the university. Typical of other similar departments in Canadian universities, this department had many hurdles to overcome in order to earn the distinction of official departmental hood status. Its importance is that it was organized by Indigenous people rather than by the initiative of any particular university body. Today the department is a thriving

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and forward-­thinking one that focuses on four streams of teaching and research and development: gender, community development, governance and culture, history and language. Within the gender stream, the department offers four courses: Gender, Indigenous Women, Survival of the Indigenous Family and Indigenous Masculinities. The emphasis on gender is a recognition that women are indeed the center of the community but also that early government policies very much discriminated against Indigenous women. For the past five years, I have developed and taught the Indigenous Women course. I start with information on how Canada as a country was established. Indigenous women’s roles, although vital, were denigrated to a point where Indigenous women were seen as having very little value. Students are introduced to literature that helps them to deconstruct power relations. They are expected to understand why there is so much poverty, incarceration and violence and how these socially and politically constructed phenomena can be eradicated (Fountaine 2011). I believe it is important to analyze the power relations that were established at that time so as to understand some of the hurdles we have had to overcome (Findlay and Wuttunee 2007). Students are introduced to the concept of solidarity and making links across class, race and gender. They learn about social economies and alternative and gendered provincial and national budgets. Social economies are ones that focus on social aspects of community economic development. This type of economic development has been more prominent in Quebec and in other places of the world but not so much in Indigenous spaces. Interestingly, both Indigenous communities and social enterprises share many of the same principles and values. Alternative budgets are ones that put the needs of communities first and gendered budgets are ones that ensure that women’s and children’s needs are prioritized. Students are required to spend part of their allocated class time in the broader community, away from the university, with agencies that support Indigenous women. Some of those examples are the Central Urban Métis Federation Incorporated, the Elizabeth Fry Society, the Saskatchewan First Nations Women’s Commission, and the Saskatoon Mother’s Centre at Station 20 West. Further, our teaching supports the belief that the concept of gender is inclusive of multiple genders that have often been ignored or discriminated against by society at large and within our cultures as well. Colonialism has confused the issue of multiple genders, largely as a result of the impact of religious doctrine and church teachings. Until recently many churches were intolerant of the idea of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender relationships. Aggressive assimilation activities have attempted to displace our own understandings, practices and teachings around sexuality, gender and relationships, and have replaced them with mainstream, Judeo-­Christian/ Euro-­Canadian ones. Activist scholar Alexandria Wilson has done much to rectify this. The term “two-­spirit” first appeared in the 1990s, in the midst of a movement among LGBT Aboriginal people to organize and develop a collective identity. Two-­spirit is a concept deeply rooted in history and culture and an identity that honours and integrates sexuality, gender, culture, spirituality and all other aspects of two-­ spirit people. Rather than utilizing the concept of “coming out”, often used when

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people reveal their sexuality and gender identity, Wilson uses the term “coming in” to represent oneself as being fully present (Wilson 2008). It is common for LGBT people to face extreme discrimination, but, traditionally, being an LGBT person was an empowered identity that integrated culture, gender, sexuality and other aspects. Women and Gender Studies was organizsed as a department at the University of Saskatchewan in 1992. Since then it has grown significantly, despite being changed from a department to a programme in recent years. Women and Gender Studies focuses on issues such as Indigenous research methodologies, women’s literature and history. Gender and especially feminist methodologies have been receiving more focus, particularly as a qualitative issue. Feminist Research Practice: A Primer (Hesse-­Biber 2014) identifies and tackles many issues, particularly in the field of social justice and social transformation, and how to redress social injustice and inequities that destroy or undermine women’s lives. They are frequently concerned with the intersections of gender with other identity standpoints such as sexual orientation race, ethnicity, class, or nationality. Feminist researchers have unique angles of theoretical perspective that they use to assess women’s status within society and to formulate particular questions that might not otherwise be tackled by the hegemonic ideas that reinforce the existing system of gender inequality. (Hesse-­Biber, 3) A topical development has been an interdisciplinary degree programme on international Indigenous women’s graduate studies. This degree focuses on the impact of neoliberalism on women’s lives and how women are counteracting and organizing systems of survival and creative community development. Such a course puts gender clearly at the center of the discussion of development and well-­being. In 2015 the Department of Indigenous Studies and the Women and Gender Studies programme was awarded a cross-­appointment position to lead the interdisciplinary and complementary work between the two departments. It is said that the place where two sites of discrimination intersect is a very dangerous place. Inversely, the place where two common alliances intersect can be a very powerful place of opportunity and learning. This alliance-­building and networking between two areas of study requires leadership that serves as a model to the larger university community. In the age of neoliberalization of research and development taking place at universities (explained in the next section), this type of work is necessary for our very survival.

International work and expanded solidarity movements through critique of neoliberalism Indigenous women’s groups played a key position in the development of the Beijing Platform at the World Conference of Women held in Beijing, China, in

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September 1995. More than 17,000 people participated in the formal events and another 30,000 took part in parallel events. Hundreds of Indigenous women joined thousands of other women and representatives from 189 governments in what was seen as one of the world’s most important events on gender equality and empowerment. It is apparent that women understood their position in global affairs, and this was clearly spelled out in the Beijing Declaration, which has been referred to as the most progressive blueprint for advancing the rights of women. Issues such as women and the environment, women in power and decision-­making, the girl child, women and the economy, women and poverty, violence against women, human rights of women, education and training of women, institutional mechanisms for the advancement of women, women and the media, women and armed conflict, and women’s solidarity networks were the twelve critical areas that Indigenous women and their allies tackled. Although there has been improvement in women’s lives in general, much work remains to be done, and women committed to regular five-­year reviews of the platform document toward the fulfillment of the goals. Today Indigenous women and our allies are in a race against time to preserve our Mother Earth and our communities. I believe the largest threat that faces us all is what humans and our particular brand of development has done to the natural world. Colonialism and imperialism have a history of treating Indigenous peoples with contempt and ruthlessness. The treatment of our natural world is a metaphor for the treatment of women. The raping and pillaging of our lands is similar to the treatment women have been subjected to the world over. Communities and women in particular have always fought back. They are doing this in a multitude of ways (Verna 2007). Indigenous women are entering universities in greater numbers and succeeding. Women go on to organize women-­centered economic development models whose bottom line is not just money but building entire communities. The women of Lord Selkirk Park (LSP), in Winnipeg, are a good example. In the mid-­1960s, LSP, a low-­income community and housing project, was troubled by gang activity and other negative community issues. A large percentage of people living there are single-­parent mothers and grandmothers whose income is below the low-­income cut-­off. A  Community Advisory Committee that co-­ordinates government work, a Resource Centre and an Adult Learning Centre were established. The Adult Learning Centre provided upgrading classes and day care as supports to women who were attending classes. They organized a positive police presence by informing the police that their experiences with them were negative and suggested ways of improvement. Ultimately, the LSP story describes ways women live their daily lives and resist the ongoing destructive impact of colonization, racism and the poverty of Aboriginal families and how they promote values of sharing and community (not individualism). This resistance constitutes the basis of an effective Indigenous culture community development strategy and can lead to effective community development (Silver 2006). As Findlay and Wuttunee (2007) posit, it is possible for Indigenous people to pursue business objectives while living the values of their culture and assuming their rightful place in their community. Unfortunately, too often women’s work is often left out of the evaluation and policy making and this ignores women’s employment strengths and challenges.

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At the international level, women are rallying at places such as the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Peoples. The Permanent Forum became an annual event at the United Nations, in New York. It serves as an advisory body to the Economic and Social Council of the UN. The mandate is to discuss Indigenous issues such as culture, the environment, education, health and human rights as they relate to economic and social development. In March 2015 the main focus of the session was on the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, and the current challenges that affect its implementation and achievement of gender equality and the empowerment of women. The commission will undertake a review of progress made in the implementation of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action in 2005, 20 years after its adoption at the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995. Similarly, the International Indigenous Women’s Forum (IIWF; FIMI by its Spanish initials) is a network of Indigenous women leaders from Asia, Africa, and the Americas. IIWF/ FIMI’s mission is to bring together Indigenous women activists, leaders, and human rights promoters from different parts of the world to coordinate agendas, build unity, develop leadership and advocacy skills, increase Indigenous women’s roles in international decision-­making processes and advance women’s human rights. Their goals are to make sure women’s voices are heard by strengthening their organizations and working in solidarity with like-­minded women’s organizations. From their website (https://www.channelfoundation.org/grants/fimi/), the FIMI vision is a world in which Indigenous peoples can exercise all their human rights, access economic justice, and participate fully and effectively in all the decision-­making processes that affect their lives at local, national and international levels, free from all forms of discrimination, where all women, independently of their differences, fully enjoy their fundamental human rights, where a new paradigm is established that overcomes racism, social exclusion, and inequality so that Indigenous women can participate fully under equal conditions in the decisions and activities linked to the development of their communities. It is a world in which young women can realize their life’s dreams, ideas, and projects. Finally, as part of their commitment to global organization, FIMI developed a Database of Indigenous Women’s Organizations in Africa and Latin America and funded the work of dozens of Indigenous women’s groups. An example is Chirapaq, whose broad mandate includes issues of climate change, racism and discrimination, reproductive rights, sovereignty and security, and domestic violence. I have shown how, historically and through a process of colonization, Indigenous women were placed in undesirable positions within their communities. The structures that were put in place affected women, men and the entire community. It is a process that we share with Indigenous peoples around the globe. It is said that we are now in the seventh generation, and it is this generation that will gather resources to reclaim what was almost lost. It is a time of healing and visionary actions. In the Mohawk great law of peace, this is the time of reconciliation, rebirth and a return of the ancient values of the ancestors. In the Cree world the concepts of wakotawin, kisahigan and pimatisiwin are values that have persisted despite the

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colonial effort to destroy them. Women are in the center of the valuing and development of their communities. wahkotawin — we are all relatives or related kisahigan — love pimatisiwin — the good life

Note 1 Used with permission of Lindsay Eekwol Knight.

References Acoose, Sharon. 2015. An Arrow in My Heart: A First Nations Woman’s Account of Survival from the Streets to the Height of Academia. Vernon, British Columbia: J Charlton Publishing. Allen, Paula Gunn. 1986. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions. Boston: Beacon Press. Amnesty International. 2016. ‘Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls: Understanding the Numbers’, Amnesty International Canada. Web, 7 January. Carter, Sarah. 2006. ‘Categories and Terrains of Exclusion: Constructing the “Indian Women” in the Early Settlement Era in Western Canada’, in Mary-­Ellen Kelm and Lorna Townsend (eds), In the Days of Our Grandmothers: A Reader in Aboriginal Women’s History in Canada, pp. 146–169. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Findlay, Isobel and Wanda Wuttunee. 2007. ‘Aboriginal Women’s Community Economic Development: Measuring and Promoting Success’, IRPP Choices, 13 (4): 1–26. Fontaine, Nahanni. 2011. ‘Our Cherished Sisters Mothers, Aunties, and Grandmothers: Violence against Aboriginal Women’, in Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair and Warren Cariou (eds), Manitowapow Aboriginal Writings From the Land of Water, pp. 344–347. Winnipeg: Highwater Press. Green, Joyce (ed). 2007. Making Space for Indigenous Feminism. Winnipeg: Fernwood. Hesse-­Biber, Sharlene. 2014. Feminist Research Practice: A Primer. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rennie, Steve. 2014. ‘Huge Increase in Number of Aboriginal Women in Canadian Prisons’, The Star (Toronto), 2 December. Web, www.thestar.com/news/canada/2014/12/02/ huge_increase_in_number_of_aboriginal_women_in_canadian_prisons.html (accessed on 25 June 2016). Settee, Priscilla (ed). 2011. The Strength of Women, Ahkameyimowak. Regina: Coteau. Silver, Jim. 2006. Unearthing Resistance: Aboriginal Women in the Lord Selkirk Park Housing Developments. Ottawa: CCPA. Simpson, Audra. 2014. Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life across the Borders of Settler States. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Smith, Andrea. 2005. ‘Native American Feminism, Sovereignty and Social Change’, Feminist Studies, 31 (1), Spring: 116–132. St  Denis, Verna. 2007. ‘Feminism is for everybody: Aboriginal Women, Feminism and Diversity’, in Joyce Green (ed), Making Space for Indigenous Feminism, pp. 33–52. Winnipeg: Fernwood. Wilson, Alexandria. 2008. ‘N’tacimowin inna nah’ Our Coming in Stories’, Canadian Woman Studies, 26 (3–4): 193–199. www.amnesty.ca/sites/amnesty/files/iwfa_submission_amnesty_international_february_ 2014_-­_final.pdf

5 INDIGENOUS HUMAN RIGHTS IN CANADA Michael Keefer

Today, it is not merely justice itself, but the idea of justice that is under attack.   The assault on vulnerable, fragile sections of society is so complete, so cruel and so clever that its sheer audacity has eroded our definition of justice. It has forced us to lower our sights, and curtail our expectations. Even among the well-­ intentioned, the magnificent concept of justice is gradually being substituted with the reduced, far more fragile discourse of “human rights.”   This is an alarming shift. The difference is that notions of equality, or parity, have been pried loose and eased out of the equation. Arundhati Roy1

1  Awkward preliminaries a  Lowered expectations? Nuance, context and hypocrisy It may seem counter-­intuitive to speak of human rights, in Arundhati Roy’s manner, as a fragile and reduced substitute for declining commitments to equality, parity, and justice. Haven’t we witnessed, rather, since World War II, a burgeoning of human rights discourses that have instantiated a collective thirst for justice in UN institutions like UNESCO and UNICEF (founded in 1945 and 1946, respectively), and in instruments of international law, beginning with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR 1948), and culminating in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP 2007)? There can be no doubt about this burgeoning, and yet some of the core instruments of international human rights were apparently formulated in response to the re-­emergence, since the 1960s and 1970s, of forms of injustice – torture, the effective enslavement of migrants and refugees, the deployment of death squads – previously thought to be close to elimination.2 A further symptom of an erosion

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of justice might be the 2010 publication by Stéphane Hessel, who served in the French resistance to Nazi occupation and in the diplomatic process that settled on the final text of the UDHR, of a manifesto encouraging opposition to the whittling away by political-­economic elites of the social, civil, and political rights for which his generation had struggled. Indignez-­vous! touched a public nerve: within a year more than 950,000 copies were sold in France, and another several million copies were sold in at least 15 other languages.3 Despite widespread support in Canada for human rights at home and abroad, discourses of rights and justice may have been enfeebled here by recent failures to fulfil our commitments under the Fourth Geneva Convention and other instruments of international law. In Afghanistan the Canadian contingent in NATO’s occupation force collaborated with the Afghan police’s systematic torture of detainees; though aware of this by 2006, the Canadian government feigned ignorance and blocked inquiries into what amounted to war crimes.4 In Haiti, the principle of “responsibility to protect” (which Canada had helped to formulate) was used by the US, Canada, and France in 2004 to justify overthrowing a democratically elected government and imposing an occupation under which regime-­sponsored rape, murder, and disappearances became routine.5 And the Canadian government has supported Israeli violations of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza, to the extent of raising the possibility that Canada might follow France in subjecting advocates of boycott, divestment, and sanctions to hate-­crime prosecutions.6 As these considerations suggest, the subject of Indigenous human rights in Canada must be approached with a critical eye to nuance and context. For as with the gap between Canadian human rights rhetoric and actions in Afghanistan, Haiti, and Israel/Palestine, there have been repeated divergences between promise and performance in government statements and actions relating to the Aboriginal, treaty, and human rights of Indigenous people. In 2007 Canada, together with the US, Australia, and New Zealand, voted against the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). In November  2010, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government revised its position, issuing a statement of support for UNDRIP – which described it, however, as an “aspirational” and “non–legally binding document that does not reflect customary international law.” The statement of support was itself more self-­congratulatory than aspirational in tone. It praised Canada as having been “a strong voice for the protection of human rights” and a party to many UN conventions “which give expression to this commitment,” and it credited Harper’s government with a positive shift in Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples, “exemplified by the Prime Minister’s historic apology to former students of Indian Residential Schools, the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the apology for relocation of Inuit families to the High Arctic and the honouring of Métis veterans at Juno Beach.”7 The Truth and Reconciliation Commission was not a government initiative, but was mandated by a court-­approved legal settlement; the other actions are purely

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rhetorical. The statement instantiated the government’s “exemplary progress” in building a “positive relationship with Aboriginal peoples [. . .] based on good faith, partnership and mutual respect,” by referring to “concrete and viable actions in [. . .] education, skills development, economic development, employment, health care, housing and access to safe drinking water.”8 But the government that produced this document might more accurately be credited with a strongly negative shift in Canada’s relationship with Indigenous peoples – beginning in 2006 when, on coming to power, it refused to implement the Kelowna Accord, negotiated by the previous Liberal government, which had promised large-­scale investment (more than CDN$5  billion over five years) in Indigenous education, housing, health services, and economic development.9 Indigenous people’s response to Prime Minister Harper’s apology for the residential schools in June 2008 was guarded. Kevin McKay, chair of the Nisga’a Lisims Government, said that its acceptability “is very much a personal decision of residential school survivors,” and that the Nisga’a would assess its sincerity “on the basis of the policies and actions of the government in the days and years to come.”10 For most people, the question of Harper’s sincerity was answered by his declaration in September 2009 at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh that Canada has “no history of colonialism.”11 That ignorant assertion, Derrick O’Keefe wrote, exposed “the pervasive racism-­fuelled historical amnesia and denial in Canadian society” and showed what the apology “was really worth.”12 No less damaging to the government’s reputation was the fact that in December 2012 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was obliged to go to court to compel the release of documents relating to the residential schools. The commission stated that Ottawa had “ ‘erected a myriad of obstacles’ to avoid fulfilling its obligations,” and was using claims about privacy and cabinet confidentiality to block the release of documents.13 A reading of the report by UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples James Anaya, The Situation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada (July 2014), cannot help but cast doubt on the veracity and integrity of the government’s 2010 statement. Anaya credits the Canadian state with several achievements – among them, the “legislation, policy and processes in place to address historical grievances of indigenous peoples with respect to treaty and aboriginal rights. In this regard, Canada is an example to the world.”14 But he found “high levels of distrust among indigenous peoples” – and good reason for that distrust: “It is difficult to reconcile Canada’s well-­developed legal framework and general prosperity with the human rights problems faced by indigenous peoples in Canada, which have reached crisis proportions in many respects.”15 Anaya noted that most Indigenous people in Canada live in deep poverty: “Of the bottom 100 Canadian communities on the Community Well-­Being Index, 96 are First Nations and only one First Nation community is in the top 100.” Housing on reserves, in the north especially, is in a state of crisis, and “more than half of the water systems pose a medium or high health risk to their users.” Federal education funding is inadequate, and there continue to be large disparities in outcomes between Indigenous and non-­Indigenous students.16

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Injuries inflicted by past government policies have not been healed: “The residential school period continues to cast a long shadow of despair on indigenous communities, and many of the dire social and economic problems faced by aboriginal peoples are linked to that experience.” For example, “among the results of the residential school and ‘sixties scoop’ eras and associated cultural dislocation has been a lack of intergenerational transmission of child-­raising skills and high rates of substance abuse. Aboriginal children continue to be taken into the care of child services at a rate eight times higher than non-­indigenous Canadians.”17 Moreover, “Given these dire social and economic circumstances, it may not come as a surprise that, although indigenous people comprise around 4 per cent of the Canadian population, they make up 25 per cent of the prison population.” The plight of Indigenous women is especially alarming: they comprise one-­third of the female prison population in Canada, and “are also disproportionately victims of violent crime. The Native Women’s Association of Canada has documented over 660 cases of women and girls across Canada who have gone missing or been murdered in the last 20 years.”18 Anaya’s report identified further troubling issues. These include statutory and jurisdictional obstacles to self-­governance, a lack of consultation of Indigenous people in matters ranging from education to land use, procedural delays in land claims cases leading to the de facto denial of Indigenous rights, and a large number of “proposed or implemented development projects” that Indigenous representatives said “posed great risks to their communities and about which they felt their concerns had not been adequately heard, or addressed.”19 In what follows, appropriate historical, legislative and political contexts will be provided for the critical issues mentioned in Anaya’s report – and as will become apparent, the matters he alluded to are part of a dark history that calls most urgently for actions of redress, restoration, and restitution.20 But before moving on to those considerations, another preliminary matter remains to be discussed.

b Indigenous human rights: individual or communal and collective? Human rights have often been construed in individualistic terms – as, for example, when Guy Goodwin-­Gill of All Souls College, University of Oxford, remarked, in relation to Article 14 of the UDHR, which treats of refugees, that “the individual was only then beginning to be seen as the beneficiary of human rights in international law.”21 But as Hannah Arendt, herself a refugee from Nazism, observed in The Origins of Totalitarianism, an individualistic conceptualization of human rights is problematic – for it was not as individuals with particular beliefs and commitments but rather as a consequence of belonging to collectivities excluded from the rights of citizenship that members of persecuted minorities in Europe experienced catastrophic denials of their human rights during the period leading up to and including World War II.22 Arendt noted that during the pre-­war years, the major guardian of human rights, the French-­sponsored Ligue des Droits de l’Homme, “behaved as

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though the question were still merely the saving of individuals persecuted for their political convictions and activities. This assumption, pointless already in the case of millions of Russian refugees, became simply absurd for Jews and Armenians.”23 Shin Imai has observed that a focus on “individual equality rights” has been rejected internationally by Indigenous peoples because of its connection with assimilationist policies.24 Such a connection has been clearly visible in Canada, where one major assault on Indigenous rights, the first Trudeau government’s 1969 White Paper on Indian Policy, which planned to scrap the treaties between First Nations and the Crown and to privatize communal Indigenous land, claimed to be motivated by a concern for human rights. The white paper stated that the government was proposing to act in support of the “right of Indian people” – as individuals, apparently, rather than peoples or nations  – “to full and equal participation in the cultural, social, economic and political life of Canada.”25 Under the leadership of Harold Cardinal, the Indian Association of Alberta declared, in response, in a manifesto entitled Citizens Plus, which became known as the Red Paper, that the government was in fact proposing a future of dispersal, landlessness, poverty, and cultural extinction.26 And in a book whose title, The Unjust Society, rebuked Pierre Trudeau’s 1968 campaign slogan promising a “Just Society,” Cardinal described the white paper as “a thinly disguised programme of extermination through assimilation.”27 A similarly individualist instrumentalizing of rights discourse was revived by the Conservative government of Stephen Harper in a proposed First Nations Property Ownership Act (FNPOA; Harper 2013)  – which too was firmly opposed by Indigenous scholars and communities.28 One such scholar, Michael Fabris, has exposed as fraudulent the claim by supporters of the FNPOA that it would result in “ ‘restoring’ pre-­colonial property rights regimes.” Rather, in providing “what its proponents describe[d] as a tool ‘to unlock the tremendous economic potential of First Nations land,’ ” this act would “facilitate the further dispossession of Indigenous people.”29 Moreover, the imposition of fee simple property rights30 on land “within reserve boundaries” that the Canadian government had unilaterally established would negate the fact that contemporary Indigenous analyses and struggles have insistently put those boundaries in question.31 The act’s key to “unlocking” the economic potential of Indigenous land is obvious: once Indigenous people could hold title to land only as private individuals, any notion of communal title to unceded lands that a people had inhabited for centuries or millennia would be meaningless, and Indigenous communities would no longer be able to object to resource extraction or other development on such lands. Daniel Fischlin and Martha Nandorfy have argued forcefully in The Community of Rights/The Rights of Community that human rights must be conceived in relation to collectivities, communities, and the civil and natural commons that sustain them. But while proposing “a rethinking of rights via the prism of community, as opposed to the conventional default for thinking about rights via prioritizing the individual,” they are at the same time aware of the difficulty, when collective rights “have virtually no standing or meaning juridically, except in the vaguest and most

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diluted ways,” of moving toward “a vision of rights that addresses the realities of collective rights not privileging the individual.”32 However, as Peter Kulchyski has observed, collective and communal rights do have standing in Canadian constitutional law. Human rights, “a product of the late 18th century Enlightenment, and of a long history of struggle [. . .] tend to be used to protect individuals, and tend to be invoked in urban contexts. Everyone, on principle, has access to them. They reflect a universalizing notion of humanity, and involve equality rights and various freedoms that all humans should enjoy.”33 Aboriginal rights, in contrast, reflect a version of cultural particularism: Indigenous cultures have become threatened as colonialism left many Indigenous peoples in the position of being a minority in their homelands. We do not all have Aboriginal rights, nor should we. Aboriginal rights stem from the struggles of Indigenous peoples. In a way, they could be seen as a specific form of customary rights, rights that developed over time, through repeated practice of an activity, rather than abstract rights that reflect a notion of how all people are “the same.”34 Kulchyski underlines this distinction with a reminder of the 1969 white paper’s deployment of equality rights in an assault upon Aboriginal and treaty rights. He notes that section  35 of the repatriated Canadian Constitution declares “simply but powerfully that ‘existing Aboriginal and treaty rights are hereby recognized and affirmed.’ ” And he adds that “coming out of the White Paper struggle, leaders knew that something else was needed to ensure that such a proposal would never again be on the table. Another section of Canada’s Constitution, section 25 [. . .] was put in place in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It says that the Charter will not be interpreted in any way that might ‘abrogate or derogate,’ that is, diminish, Aboriginal rights. By doing so, Canada makes it clear that Aboriginal rights have equal legal force with human rights, that human rights will not be used to override Aboriginal rights.”35 In 1970 the Indian Association of Alberta’s Red Paper insisted, “Our treaties are the bases of our rights.”36 It follows that Aboriginal and treaty rights must figure prominently in any discussion of Indigenous human rights in Canada.

2  Genocide in Canadian history a  Contexts for understanding historical trauma More than a quarter-­century ago, Alan Davies wrote, in another context, that social historians have demolished the old myth of Canada as a uniquely tolerant, peaceful, and just society: in his words, the “proud complacency” implied by the phrase “Canada the good” has been destroyed, and “our national self-­r ighteousness has been left in tatters.”37

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This is especially evident in Canada’s relations to Indigenous peoples, where the work of dissipating what Derrick O’Keefe called “racism-­fuelled historical amnesia” involves an ongoing grappling with hard truths.38 The introductory paragraphs of the first volume of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report provide an incisive summary of Canada’s treatment of its Indigenous population since before the time of Canadian Confederation: For over a century, the central goals of Canada’s Aboriginal policy were to eliminate Aboriginal governments; ignore Aboriginal rights; terminate the Treaties; and, through a process of assimilation, cause Aboriginal people to cease to exist as distinct legal, social, cultural, religious, and racial entities in Canada. [. . .] Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and biological genocide is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity. Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. Languages are banned. Spiritual leaders are persecuted, spiritual practices are forbidden, and objects of spiritual value are confiscated and destroyed. And [.  .  .] families are disrupted to prevent the transmission of cultural values from one generation to the next. In dealing with Aboriginal people, Canada did all these things.39 The introduction to the commission’s report also explains what motivated this policy: The Canadian government pursued this policy of cultural genocide because it wished to divest itself of its legal and financial obligations to Aboriginal people and gain control over their land and resources. If every Aboriginal person had been “absorbed into the body politic,” there would be no reserves, no Treaties, and no Aboriginal rights.40 During the late19th and early 20th centuries the goal of a complete assimilation of Canada’s Indigenous peoples may have seemed close to being achieved. First Nations forces had played a decisive role in frustrating US invasions of Canada in the War of 1812. But following the Treaty of Ghent, which ended hostilities between Britain and the United States, in December 1814, First Nations sank into political insignificance in the eyes of Canadian settler colonists, whose numbers by the 1830s and 1840s were increasing exponentially. Settlement pressures led to the taking and legalized appropriation of Indigenous lands. Colonial authorities in the eastern provinces and in Lower and Upper Canada moved Indigenous people onto reserves, and by the 1830s were adopting

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policies aimed at their assimilation: a system of treaties ceding land to the colonizers, a system of tutelage that placed Indigenous people under the authority of supervisory Indian agents, and planning for schools aimed at moving Indigenous children into the now-­dominant culture and training them for menial or agricultural work.41 Due to factors including the loss of land and of traditional food sources, the shrinking of the fur trade, and the impact of epidemic diseases, Indigenous populations declined, so that by the time of Confederation in 1867, the total Indigenous population in all of what is now Canada is estimated to have been around 125,000 people.42 The Indian Act (1876), which redefined Indigenous people as wards of the state, was successively amended in succeeding decades so as to increase assimilationist pressures. In 1920 Duncan Campbell Scott, the Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, explained the motivation of further amendments to a parliamentary committee: “I want to get rid of the Indian problem. [. . .] Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department.”43 In the interim, Scott wanted there to be no question of land claims, or of litigation over misappropriated rents or unfulfilled treaty commitments. In 1927, Section 141 was added to the act, making it illegal, without the written permission of the Superintendent General, to receive or solicit money “for the prosecution of any claim which the tribe or band [. . .] has or is represented to have for the recovery of any claim or money for the benefit of the said tribe or band.”44 There is an important dissonance, in terms of their implications for Aboriginal, treaty, and human rights, between the Indian Act, in its various manifestations, and the Royal Proclamation of 1763. As John Milloy has written, The principles [the Royal Proclamation] laid down with respect to land and its inherent respect for the “national” character of First Nations formed the core of British-­Indian relations. Certainly, the fundamental characteristics of the contemporary relationship emanate from it: the recognition of Aboriginal rights, the Canadian treaty system and, of course, the persistent court cases geared to clarifying the nature of the “existing rights” embedded in the repatriated Constitution of 1982 – a constitution which specifically recognizes the continuing existence and significance of the Proclamation and its principles.45 And yet, Milloy adds, “the centrality given to the Proclamation in the 1982 Constitution, and its respect for Aboriginal rights, is only a relatively recent feature of Canada’s history. For most of that history, from 1869 forward, the Proclamation’s principles were alternately ignored, violated or, more often than not, applied with an eye to serving first national and only incidentally Aboriginal best interests.”46 During a period that Shin Imai has described as “a century-­long Dark Ages in [Canada’s] relations with Indigenous peoples,”47 government policies toward Indigenous peoples were shaped less by ethical or legal principles than by racist ideologies

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of nationalism and imperialism, and by a determination – still very much active – to settle and exploit land and resources under a system of private and corporate property ownership. The 1869 Act for the Gradual Enfranchisement of Indians abolished Indigenous forms of government, substituting elected councils under the control of Indian agents and having only municipal-­level responsibilities. The 1876 Indian Act spelled out a planned reduction of Indigenous people to a status of political impotence and cultural and economic deprivation so complete that even the question of who belonged to Indigenous communities was to be determined not by those peoples themselves but by the Department of Indian Affairs.48 These effects have been compounded by sustained underfunding, bureaucratic inertia, and incompetence, with the result, as Dr. Michael Dan has observed, that “All the social determinants of health that are governed by the Indian Act (housing, education, economy, etc.) have been allowed to fail.”49 After touching what appears to have been a low point in 1921, when there were about 114,000 Indigenous people in Canada, Indigenous populations began to recover, despite continuing systemic inequities. By 1951, the total population had more than doubled in size, and the populations of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit people have since continued to increase.50 By 2006, 1,173,000 Indigenous people made up 3.8 percent of Canada’s population; in 2011, 1,401,000 Indigenous people composed 4.3 percent of the total population; and in 2016, there were 1,674,000, accounting for 4.9 per cent of the total. This is an increase of 42.5 percent over a decade – “more than four times the growth rate of the non-­Aboriginal population over the same period.”51 The largest increase has been among First Nations people without registered or treaty status under the Indian Act, whose numbers have grown by 75 percent in a decade, so that in 2016 they made up nearly 24 percent of all First Nations people. The total number of First Nations people grew to 977,000, an increase of more than 39 percent from 2006 to 2016. The Métis population, nearly two-­thirds of whom live in cities of 30,000 people or more, increased in numbers to 588,000, growing by more than 51 percent over the decade. The Inuit, nearly three-­quarters of whom live in the traditional lands of Inuit Nunangat, grew to just over 65,000 by 2016, an increase of 29 percent over the decade.52 Despite this rebound in numbers, there is disturbing evidence of cultural assimilation among Indigenous people. More than 70 Aboriginal languages were reported in the 2016 census, but only about half of these had 500 or more speakers, and only some 261,000 Indigenous people (15.6 percent of the total) could speak an Aboriginal language. The fact that one-­fifth of these people reported learning their language through study rather than as a mother tongue suggests a growing availability of language teaching, but the overall percentage who speak an Aboriginal language has declined from the 21.4 percent reported in 2006.53 Still more disturbing are the conditions in which most Indigenous people live. Fully 29 percent of off-­reserve Indigenous people experience food insecurity and related health and psychosocial problems. This percentage is nearly three times higher than for non-­Indigenous Canadians54  – one sign that in Canadian cities,

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Indigenous people are among the poorest of the poor. Many on-­reserve Indigenous people lack adequate access to clean drinking water. In 2015, there were “162 drinking water advisories in 118 First Nations communities”; Shoal Lake 40 First Nation had been living under a boil-­water advisory for 18 years, and Neskantaga First Nation for 20 years.55 As of December 2017, 67 long-­term boil-­water advisories in “public water systems managed by the federal government” had been in effect for longer than a year.56 Charlotte Reading and Fred Wien have remarked that “inequitable social determinants of health” produce “burdensome health disparities facing all Aboriginal peoples.”57 A disadvantaged condition caused by “colonization, colonialism, systemic racism and discrimination [.  .  .] is currently manifested in high rates of unemployment, scarce economic opportunities, poor housing, low literacy and educational attainment, as well as meagre community resources”; and the poverty of Indigenous people and the resulting psychosocial stress produce anxiety and despair, physical and mental illness, and high levels of suicide “linked to violence, addictions, poor parenting, and lack of social support.”58 As John Milloy observed, Department of Indian Affairs reports have charted, over decades, against a background of rapid population growth, “the heritage of colonialism, of federal control and neglect of community development – the continuing deterioration of the social and economic conditions of First Nations, [and] the failure of successive governments to alleviate those conditions.”59 Inequitable social determinants of health and well-­being are directly linked to other kinds of inequity. Milloy noted, for example, that during the 1970s, which he describes as having been a critical decade in the “near total” social collapse taking place within First Nations communities, “funding for First Nations increased 14% per capita compared to a 128% per capita growth in other federal social programs, and only 10% of overall First Nations funding was assigned to development.”60 These grossly disadvantageous conditions have been traumatic for Indigenous communities over an extended period of time. But the concept of historical trauma can also be applied to the effects of government actions that have contributed in a particularly forceful manner to the social and psychosocial problems afflicting contemporary Indigenous peoples. Teresa Evans-­Campbell uses “historical trauma” to refer to effects produced by harmful events, perpetrated by outsiders with purposeful and destructive intent, which have impacted many people among a population and have caused high levels of collective distress. It is characteristic of responses to historical trauma that effects of the event or events continue over time to undermine the well-­being of contemporary members of the victim group; that the responses of victims and their descendants interact with contemporary sources of stress, echoing and compounding the original distress; and that the harm to well-­being associated with historically traumatic events can accumulate over generations.61 To this analysis we can add a further temporal dimension having to do with the double processes of the dissolution of Native societies and the imposition of a foreign economic and biocultural order that are characteristic of settler colonialism.

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Patrick Wolfe reminds us, in relation to these processes, of the obvious fact that “settler colonizers come to stay: invasion is a structure not an event.”62 One might say, then, that an event in a colonial context – a traumatic event especially – is never a singularity, because traumatic events do not come separately, but as components of a structure. And the structure of a settler-­colonial invasion is composed of sequential and clustered traumatic events marked by a common underlying intentionality. The residential schools have been a major source of historical trauma for generations of Indigenous people in Canada, and of an intergenerational proliferation of stress and trauma for the families of victims – about which many of those victimized by the schools have been able to speak, most eloquently, in public. There is little question that the residential schools and the “60s Scoop,” which continued the project of separating Indigenous children from their families and cultures, deserve to be categorized as genocidal.63 But other, no less egregiously genocidal, acts were carried out by the Canadian government during the period when the residential schools were first being established. The so-­called clearing of the plains through a policy of deliberate starvation imposed by the government of Sir John A. Macdonald constitutes a deeper layer of historical trauma, one whose re-­entry into historical memory now requires, except for the descendants of surviving victims who have had access to it through oral traditions, the mediation of scholarship. These clustered and sequential traumatic events do indeed form part of a common structure of invasive dissolution and imposition, and reveal a shared genocidal intentionality.

b  Genocide on the Great Plains James Daschuk writes in his magisterial study Clearing the Plains that during the mid-­19th century the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains were probably the best-­nourished and tallest humans on the planet.64 But following the Dominion of Canada’s acquisition of sovereignty in December 1869 over the North-­West Territories – immense tracts that, according to the British crown, at least, had been “owned” by the Hudson’s Bay Company – these people experienced mass starvation, epidemic diseases, and cruelly imposed socio-­political transformations. The principal factor in this disaster was the extermination of the vast bison herds that had been the people’s principal food source – a process enabled by the technologies of the repeater rifle and the railroad (the American Transcontinental Railroad was completed in May 1869), and accelerated by the US Army’s policy of starving the Indigenous nations against whom they were waging war,65 and by the discovery in the early 1870s that bison hides, correctly tanned, could be made into machine belts for eastern factories.66 A supplementary cause of privation on the Canadian prairies was the Hudson’s Bay Company’s decision in 1872 to end its traditional provision of credit and aid to the sick and elderly: “Having sold its charter, the company no longer felt responsible for the physical well-­being of its suppliers.”67 Ill prepared to provide a substitute

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for this rudimentary safety net, or indeed to take responsibility in any way for the inhabitants of the newly acquired territories, the Canadian government was likewise determined to minimize costs. Daschuk observes, “In the Canadian northwest epidemics of introduced contagious diseases swept through the region from the 1730s to the 1870s.” But he insists that while those epidemics “among highly susceptible populations comprised a tragic, unforeseen, but largely organic change,”68 what happened after 1870 must be understood in terms of “the politics of famine,” as a result of shifting colonial relations of production and a “pathological intersection of political, economic, and biological forces.”69 Vaccination provided by the Hudson’s Bay Company had since the 1830s diminished the threat of smallpox. But in 1869 American whisky traders moving north from the Missouri River brought a catastrophic new smallpox epidemic with them. The response of Canadian authorities in 1870, Daschuk says, stands in “stark and fatal contrast to the measures taken by the HBC against the outbreak a generation earlier. Government officials did not have a clue about the magnitude of the suffering or, in the short term, how to organize medical assistance over such a vast region.”70 Daschuk remarks, “It was in an atmosphere increasingly marked by privation, resignation and dread that the dominion treaty party met with the First Nations of the northern plains in the late summer of 1876. By then, the Cree along the North Saskatchewan River knew that the bison economy was all but over, and they recognized that conversion to a new economic paradigm based on agriculture would be extremely difficult.” But the dread went both ways: “The Plains Cree still posed a serious military threat to the small number of Europeans who had ventured onto the western prairie. [. . .] The fear of violence was heightened by the military victory of the Sioux under Sitting Bull at the Battle of the Little Big Horn only two months before negotiations began at Fort Carlton.”71 Indigenous people were aware of the challenges posed by the impending collapse of their traditional systems of trade and sustenance, the imposition of a new agricultural-­industrial economic order, and the likelihood that European settlers would bring increased exposure to diseases. Their leaders ensured that the terms of Treaty 6 included reference to their most urgent needs: “extra assistance in their conversion to agriculture, protection from famine and pestilence, and inclusion of the ‘medicine chest’.” What they did not anticipate were the government’s “miserly interpretation of the terms of the treaty in the years following extirpation of the bison,” and the manner in which government policies ensured their “marginalization from the new agricultural economy on the plains.”72 For most of the decade preceding the final disappearance of the bison herds in 1878, Indigenous peoples on the plains had been experiencing food shortages, privation, and starvation.73 The region-­wide famine that followed the near-­extinction of the bison was accompanied, due to “the inability of authorities to provide adequate food relief,” by “the widespread emergence of tuberculosis among immune-­ compromised communities.”74 Daschuk states, “In contrast to smallpox and other

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infections [. . .], to a significant degree the TB outbreak was defined by human rather than simply biological parameters. The most significant factor under human control was the failure of the Canadian government to meet its treaty obligations and its decision to use food as a means to control the Indian population to meet its development agenda rather than as a response to a humanitarian crisis.”75 Sir John A. Macdonald’s Conservatives returned to power in the autumn of 1878, with Macdonald holding the position of Minister of Indian Affairs as well as that of Prime Minister. Daschuk writes, “Management of the increasingly serious food situation and Indian affairs generally shifted from a position of ‘relative ignorance’ under [Alexander Mackenzie’s] Liberals to one of outright malevolence during the Macdonald regime.”76 Macdonald’s most notorious action, “the forced removal of communities from their chosen reserves in the Cypress Hills after the decision to build the Canadian Pacific Railway along the southern prairies,” was carried out in 1882. This ethnic cleansing of some 5,000 already starving people – whose rations were withheld until they capitulated – was intended, Daschuk writes, to open the country “close to the railway for European settlement and to minimize the potential threat of a concentrated Indian population to the planned establishment of an agricultural economy.”77 In fact, many Indigenous people were willing to enter such an economy. But they were set up to fail. According to a statement in the House of Commons in 1886, the farm instructors hired by the government “were universally known to be brutal wretches”; moreover, Indigenous farmers were denied access to machinery they needed to succeed in grain farming.78 Macdonald was responsible for appalling sufferings inflicted on sick and starving people by government agents acting on his orders to reduce expenditures on relief measures as much as possible. “We cannot allow them to die for want of food,” he said. But at the same time, “we are doing all we can, by refusing food until the Indians are on the verge of starvation, to reduce the expense.”79 In 1955 Dr. R. G. Ferguson, an authority on tuberculosis, estimated, on the basis of mortality data from annuity lists, that “the death rate on the Qu’Appelle reserves rose from 40 per 1,000 in 1881 to 127 per 1,000 in 1886, an increase of 87 per 1,000 in only five years.” Daschuk remarks that if these estimates are correct, “a European population would not experience a comparable rate until 1942 – among the Jewish population of the Warsaw ghetto.”80 One irony of the situation is that cattle brought north from the US as a relief measure were commonly infected with bovine tuberculosis, which was passed on to the Indigenous people who ate the meat. Other, crueler ironies ensued when government agents refused to distribute stockpiled food to starving people. At Battleford, when in 1878 “A  stockade was built ‘for fear that starving Natives might attack the fort where supplies were held’,” Daschuk writes, “labourers were paid with food to build the fortification intended to keep the hungry away from the dominion ration house.”81 At the Sakimay Reserve in the Qu’Appelle Valley, 12,400 pounds of bacon and 5,100 pounds of flour were stored on reserve while people starved: on February 18, 1884, Chief Sakimay and a band of armed men

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took some of the food for distribution. On that occasion, and at a similar confrontation in the spring of 1884 between police, local volunteers, and more than 2,000 Cree at the Poundmaker Reserve at Battleford, “sacks of grain withheld from the hungry were used to fortify the police positions during the standoff.”82 Confrontations of this kind, exacerbated by acts of wanton cruelty and abuses of power on the part of Department of Indian Affairs employees, which included widespread sexual predations and (according to an accusation in Parliament) the trafficking of young girls, led in 1885 to open violence. In late March and April, Cree warriors took food and supplies by force in Battleford, Lac la Biche, and Green Lake, and on April 2, they killed ten Europeans at Frog Lake and Battleford. This was followed, after a drumhead trial in Battleford before an openly prejudiced judge and in which no translations were provided to the defendants, by the hanging of eight Indigenous men: the largest mass execution in Canadian history.83 The first of the industrial or residential schools had been opened in Battleford in 1883; it is claimed that all of the students “were taken out to witness the event.”84

c  The residential schools and the “60s Scoop” Canada’s system of residential schools for Indigenous children remained in operation for more than a century. John Milloy has written that this system “represents in bricks and lumber, classroom and curriculum, the intolerance, presumption, and pride that lay at the heart of Victorian Christianity and democracy, that passed itself off as caring social policy and persisted, in the twentieth century, as thoughtless insensitivity.”85 The system did provide an education of sorts – usually rudimentary, ineptly conceived, incompetently taught, and involving a dispiriting emphasis on manual labour – but its primary function was to separate Indigenous children from their families, community, language, and culture. Sir John A. Macdonald himself informed Parliament in May 1883 that “Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits, mode and thought of white men.”86 Indian Commissioner Hayter Reed echoed this view in 1889, saying that “every effort should be directed against anything calculated to keep fresh in the memories of children habits and associations which it is one of the main objects of industrial institutions to obliterate.”87 And in 1914 another senior official, Duncan Campbell Scott, published an essay in which he expressed concern about the “relapse” of students “to the level of reserve life as soon as they came into contact with their parents.”88 Because especially after 1920 enrollment was typically not voluntary but forced, with punishments imposed for “truancy,” the system is vulnerable to the accusation of having been genocidal, in the terms of Article 2(e) of the Convention on Genocide: it was seeking to destroy national, ethnic, or racialized groups by forcibly transferring their children into another group in what Macdonald, together with Department of Indian Affairs (DIA) bureaucrats, hoped would be a permanent manner.89

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The manner in which the system worked adds weight to the imputation of genocide. The schools were run by the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, United, and Methodist churches by agreement with the DIA, which provided most of the funding, and imposed what an 1892 Order-­in-­Council called “a forced system of economy” arranged in terms of per capita payments based on student enrollment.90 The system did indeed economize: it “forced the churches to enrol more students and feed them less.”91 The consequences of inadequate funding clinch with haunting clarity the argument of Dean Neu and Richard Therrien, in their book Accounting for Genocide: Canada’s Bureaucratic Assault on Aboriginal People, that “[c]ost-­cutting and other numerical ‘solutions’ – at first sight deceptively free of moral entanglements – come to light, upon close scrutiny, as genocidal government policies.”92 As Robyn Bourgeois wrote of Neu and Therrien’s analysis, “It is the mundane and insidious acts of violence that have the most substantial long-­ term effects on Aboriginal peoples.”93 Predominantly based upon internal DIA documents, John Milloy’s account of the schools is devastating. The school buildings were in many cases incompetently designed and poorly constructed; some fell quickly into a scandalous state of disrepair.94 Children lived and slept in overcrowded, unventilated, and otherwise unhealthy dormitories and classrooms that fostered the spread of tuberculosis and other epidemic diseases.95 The food on offer was disgracefully inadequate in terms both of quantity and nutritional value, and malnutrition, together with wretchedly inadequate clothing (especially winter clothing), increased children’s vulnerability to disease.96 The medical and nursing care provided to children suffering from tuberculosis, influenza, or scabies was often either rudimentary or nonexistent.97 Principals, teachers, and staff were often both incompetent98 and brutal, and the cruelties and humiliations inflicted upon children, including horrifying levels of physical and sexual abuse, augmented the grievous psychological harm caused by the deliberate obliteration of family and community ties.99 As noted earlier, the schools have had intergenerational effects which resonate destructively with ongoing injustices. While fostering disease, Milloy suggests, the schools were themselves part of a larger disease: The schools were, with the agents and agencies of economic and political marginalization, part of the contagion of colonization. In their direct attack on language and spirituality, the schools had been a particularly virulent strain of that imperial epidemic sapping the children’s bodies and beings. In their lives after residential school, many adult survivors, the families and communities to which they returned, all manifest a tragic range of symptoms emblematic of [. . .] “the silent tortures” that continued in their communities.100 A final issue raised by the schools is the fact that church and government authorities made very determined attempts – successful for many decades, and continuing on the government’s part to the present day – to cover up the abuses and crimes for which they and their predecessors were responsible.101

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It is worth focussing on one DIA bureaucrat who for nearly a quarter-­century exercised primary responsibility for the residential schools, who was instrumental in early cover-­ups of even their worst features, and who was also a quite central figure in Canadian culture in his own time. Duncan Campbell Scott joined the Department of Indian Affairs in 1879, at the age of 17, rose to the positions of Chief Accountant and Superintendent of Schools, and from 1913 until his retirement in 1932 held the position of Deputy Superintendent (equivalent to Deputy Minister). He was best known, however, as a poet and man of letters. By the first decade of the 20th century, his early collections of poetry had received some modest international attention; during the same years, as co-­editor from 1903 to 1908 of the 20-­volume Makers of Canada series, he helped shape a canonical view of Canadian history and culture. Scott received important honours: he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1899, and was its president in 1921 and 1922; he received the Royal Society’s Lorne Pierce Medal in 1927, and honorary doctorates from the University of Toronto and Queen’s University in 1922 and 1939, respectively; and in 1934 he was made a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG). By the mid-­20th century, he occupied a secondary but firm position in the English-­Canadian literary canon, as one of the so-­called Confederation Poets.102 But when laid alongside his work for the DIA, Scott’s cultural production would seem to validate Walter Benjamin’s dictum that “[t]here is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism.”103 In October  1903 Dr. Peter Bryce, a public health specialist and secretary of the Ontario Provincial Board of Health,104 expressed concerns to the DIA about tuberculosis on reserves and in schools, and proposed improvements to the DIA’s medical services. On Scott’s advice – “When the peculiar conditions are taken into consideration, the Department is doing as well as can be expected for the Indians, and to do anything further would entail a very heavy expenditure, which, at present, I am not able to recommend”105 – no action was taken. In 1904 Bryce was appointed Chief Medical Officer of the Indian Department, and in 1907 he was instructed by the Minister to make a special inspection of 35 residential schools in the prairie provinces. In January of that year, a lawyer reviewing Anglican mission work had informed the Minister of the “appalling number of deaths among the younger children,” adding that “doing nothing to obviate the preventable causes of death, brings the Department within unpleasant nearness to the charge of manslaughter.”106 Bryce’s report substantiated this view: he found the schools to be underfunded and riddled with disease. After 15 years of operation, “24 per cent of all the pupils [who] had been in the schools were known to be dead,” and fully three-­quarters of the pupils who had attended one school “were dead at the end of the 16 years since the school opened.”107 In November 1907 news of this report leaked out to the press: the Ottawa Evening Citizen ran a front-­ page story under the headline “Schools Aid White Plague – Startling Death Rolls Revealed among Indians – Absolute Inattention to Bare Necessities of Health,” and an article in Saturday Night magazine declared that “Indian boys and girls are dying

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like flies. [. . .] Even war seldom shows as large a percentage of fatalities as does the education system we have imposed on our Indian wards.”108 The recommendations in Bryce’s 1907 report were suppressed by the DIA, and his attempts in subsequent annual reports to improve the “unsatisfactory health of the pupils” and prompt the “greater action” urged by local medical officers were blocked – owing, Bryce later wrote, “to the active opposition of Mr. D. C. Scott.”109 In 1909 Scott, by then Superintendent of Education, described Bryce’s recommendations as “scientific,” but “quite inapplicable to the system under which these schools are conducted.” Scott made some minor reforms, which he assured his superiors would “remove the imputation that the Department is careless of the interests of these children.”110 But he believed no further changes were necessary: he wrote in 1910 to Major D. MacKay, the Indian Agent General in British Columbia: “It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habituating so closely in the residential schools, and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared towards a final solution of our Indian problem.”111 Thomas King is right to see in these words a slippage between assimilation and extermination.112 Four years later, in an essay on “Indian Affairs, 1867–1912,” Scott offered a no less chilling assessment of problems encountered “in the early days of school administration in the territories”: The well-­known predisposition of Indians to tuberculosis resulted in a very large percentage of deaths among the pupils. They were housed in buildings not carefully designed for school purposes, and those buildings became infected and dangerous to the inmates. It is quite within the mark to say that fifty per cent of the children who passed through these schools did not live to benefit from the education which they had received therein.113 That horrifying estimate of the death rate, though projected into the past, was scarcely a matter of ancient history, since by 1914 the earliest of the schools had been in operation for just over 30  years.114 And although Scott’s later comment makes a racially inherited predisposition (a notion advanced by many doctors at the time) the primary cause of deaths, his comments also show an awareness of institutional factors identified by Bryce,115 as well as a heartless lack of concern over the suffering and deaths of very large numbers of children. In June 1914 Scott, by then Deputy Superintendent, effectively dismissed Bryce by refusing him further access to departmental documents.116 In 1922 Bryce, following his retirement from the civil service, wrote with passionate anger about the decline of Native populations,117 the DIA’s underspending on tuberculosis,118 the government’s refusal to live up to its treaties with First Nations people,119 and the DIA’s failure even to collect adequate statistics, due to “the dominating influence, stimulated by the reactionary Deputy Minister, which prevents even the simplest effective efforts to deal with the health problems of the Indians along modern scientific lines.”120

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Having read the stream of critical reports, despairing letters from teachers, and protests from parents that crossed Scott’s desk, Milloy writes, “The whole system was tugging at Scott’s sleeve, was crying out for funding for critical improvements and per capitas that would provide adequate meals and clothes.”121 But when faced with clear evidence of administrative collapse and criminal physical abuse, his response (while sometimes reproving subordinates or church-­appointed administrators) was either to take no action or to discredit people who had brought complaints.122 He was particularly aggressive with Indigenous activists who attempted to organize opposition to DIA policies. In the case of Frederick Ogilvie Loft, a Mohawk World War I veteran and founder, in 1919, of the League of Indians – Scott did not just smear him, as Milloy notes; he attempted in 1920 to deprive Loft of his Indian status, and in 1927 he proposed prosecuting him under the new Section 141 of the Indian Act, which made it illegal to solicit funds from Indians or Indian bands except with the DIA’s written permission.123 It is hard not to feel, on returning to Scott’s poetry or fiction, revulsion from a figure whose voice is so monstrously bifurcated between the cold and manipulative tone124 of his “official” writing and the lyricism of his imaginative work. Scott seems himself to have recognized that his failure as a poet to develop beyond the promise manifested in his early books was rooted in the other side of his employment. In 1929 he wrote to Elise Aylen, who became his second wife in 1931: “I know now that I have never fought against anything nor worked for anything but just accepted & drifted from point to point – I have dimly felt that if I worked & protested & resisted I should be wrecked – So maybe you will understand why with some gifts I have done so little.”125 Indigenous people might reply that this highly honoured representative of a social order whose discourses and practices shaped his poetry no less than his bureaucratic mentality, managed – whatever else he failed at – to inflict a lot of harm upon them. The influences Scott accepted without resistance continued to do harm after his retirement. In February 1940, a Dr. J. D. Galbraith wrote to British Columbia’s provincial secretary from the largely Nuxalk community of Bella Coola, urging action to address “the utter lack of measures” for treatment or prevention of tuberculosis, and noting that “the Canadian Indian is the only person in Canada who is excluded entirely from the nation-­wide organization to cope with the disease of tuberculosis.”126 According to the Canadian Public Health Association, malnutrition and “the confinement of First Nations people on crowded reserves” were encouraging a continuing spread of tuberculosis: “Death rates in the 1930s and 1940s were in excess of 700 deaths per 100,000 persons, among the highest ever reported in a human population. Tragically, TB death rates among children in residential schools were even worse – as high as 8,000 deaths per 100,000 children.”127 During the years following World War II, scandalous deficiencies in residential-­ school buildings continued to be reported. In 1953, the basement of one school was found by an inspector to be flooded with raw sewage, creating conditions under which “no human being should be asked to live”; a similarly collapsing

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septic system at another school had caused a “serious outbreak of typhoid fever among the staff and the pupils” in 1947.128 Other schools at much the same time were found to be firetraps, and there were widespread problems “with design, hygiene, heating, and ventilation.”129 A  school which had been condemned in reports in 1908 and 1920 as a sinkhole of infection was found by local nurses in 1956 to be in an equally filthy condition: some 57 students had to be taken to hospital with “numerous skin lesions,” and “thirty-­two were admitted for treatment.”130 On the plus side, however, the postwar arrival of antibiotics, an effective vaccine, and X-­ray clinics produced a significant decline in tuberculosis deaths. A consensus emerged in government circles in the postwar years that the residential schools ought to be shut down and the children integrated into provincial day-­school systems or into day schools run by the DIA. But that process was delayed, in part because during the 1950s, through the action of children’s aid societies and provincial child welfare agencies, rapidly growing numbers of Indigenous children were being taken from their families on grounds of neglect and placed in the schools. The root problem was transparently poverty: but rather than remediate poverty, government agencies preferred to break up Indigenous families. According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s final report, “The reality is that residential schools had been used as child-­welfare facilities from the outset of the system.”131 This was a role they were completely unfitted to fulfil: during the 1960s, “a period of unprecedented economic growth and prosperity in the country, the children who attended residential schools continued to be poorly housed, poorly fed, poorly clothed, and poorly educated. Separated from their parents, they were emotionally neglected, subject to harsh discipline, and, due to poor staff recruitment and supervision, at risk of sexual abuse.”132 By 1966, when there were 9,778 children enrolled in residential schools, “a confidential report estimated that throughout the system seventy-­five percent of the children were ‘from homes which by reasons of overcrowding and parental neglect or indifference [were] considered unfit for school children.’ ”133 By the latter part of that decade, however, the DIA was closing residential schools and, in partnership with children’s aid societies and child welfare agencies, sending the children either into provincially run foster homes, or, when parents were deemed fit, back into their own families. There is thus a direct continuity between the residential schools and what, in a book he published in 1983 on the cruelly racialized imbalance of Canada’s child welfare system, Patrick Johnston called the “60s Scoop.”134 He used the term as the heading for a chapter in which he presented statistics, first brought to public attention three years previously in a study by H. Philip Hepworth,135 which revealed a scandalous racial bias in children’s aid programs: across Canada, many times more Indigenous children than non-­Indigenous children were being taken into care, and most of them were being placed with non-­Indigenous foster families. The old project of assimilation was still in full swing. In 1967 Saskatchewan’s child welfare agency launched an explicitly trans-­racial adoption programme called AIM, the Adopt Indian Métis Program, which was

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jointly funded by the province and the Canadian government, and sought to place Indigenous children who had been made wards of the province with middle-­class white families.136 This program, and the parallel actions taken by child welfare agencies in other provinces across Canada, had appalling results. The sufferings of four siblings from Regina who were adopted by a farming family into a life of brutal abuse and hard labour, from which they escaped into drug addiction, prostitution, and crime137 – or of an Alberta Métis boy who was taken from his family at the age of three, and after 14 years in 28 different foster homes hanged himself138 – may have been extreme. But the uprooting of tens of thousands of children had grievous effects both on them and on their families. Canada’s racialized child-­welfare system continues to have a disproportionate impact on Indigenous families: in 2011, Statistics Canada’s National Household Survey found that 3.6  percent of Indigenous children aged 14, compared with only 0.3 percent of non-­Indigenous children, were foster children, and nearly half (48.1 percent) of all children in foster care in Canada were Indigenous.139 The percentage of Indigenous children “scooped” by child welfare agencies is thus 12 times higher than the percentage of non-­Indigenous children. The residential schools and the “60s Scoop” – which is not over, but ongoing140 – continue to generate front-­page news. In 2013 historian Ian Mosby unveiled the ugly facts of nutritional deprivation experiments conducted by government scientists on some 1,000 children in six residential schools in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Nova Scotia between 1947 and 1952. In one school, the experiments included feeding children half the recommended amount of milk for two years, and withholding essential vitamins and dental services (because caries and gingivitis are “important factors in assessing nutritional status”).141 Together with subsequent research indicating that experimental drugs were tested on Indigenous children, this evidence has become the basis of a class-­action lawsuit against the Canadian government.142 The residential school system has been the subject of extended court actions, which led to the formation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the government’s commitment to a compensation process involving “common experience” payments to all former students alive as of May 2005, and additional compensation for victims (as established by an independent assessment process) of sexual and physical assaults and other wrongful acts. Almost 80,000 people have received common-­experience payments totalling $1.6 billion, and further compensation totalling $3.1 billion has been paid to nearly 32,000 of that number (with another 6,000 claims still under assessment).143 Other issues relating to the residential schools are still the subject of legal actions. In one case, survivors of the notorious St. Anne’s School, where teachers disciplined students with a home-­made electric chair,144 have taken court action – so far unsuccessful – because their claims for compensation had been rejected due to the use by government lawyers of false documentation, while at the same time the government was withholding other documents that would have supported their claims.145

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A long-­negotiated financial settlement has been arranged for victims of the “60s Scoop,” who are to receive a maximum of $50,000 each (probably much less, depending on their numbers) out of a fund totalling $750 million; another $50 million will pay for an Indigenous healing foundation, and a further $75 million will go to legal fees.146 The payments are intended as “restitution to Indigenous children who lost their cultural identities after being removed from their families and placed with non-­Indigenous foster and adoptive families in Canada, the US, and Europe.”147 But since Métis and non-­status Indigenous victims are excluded from the settlement, there may be further legal action.148 Senator Murray Sinclair (Mizanay Gheezhik), who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, has summed up what is at stake in all these matters: Our children are the ongoing prize in the cultural war that Canada declared against us over 150 years ago. Canada may believe that the war is over, but until the automatic weapons it created as part of that war have been taken from their hands or altered in fundamental ways, or disabled totally, the war continues of its own momentum. The child welfare system, the youth justice system and the educational system all function from the inherent fundamental belief that we as parents in our own communities do not have the right to birth, raise, educate, discipline and protect our children from Canada’s inherent racism.149 Sinclair’s metaphors of war are not inappropriate: it has been calculated that the odds of dying were higher for children in residential schools than for Canadians serving in World War II.150

3 Conclusion Canada has a dismal historical record of contempt for Aboriginal rights, treaty rights, and Indigenous human rights in general; and the conditions in which Indigenous people in this country continue to live provide evidence that the contempt has not as yet significantly abated. In drawing this chapter to a conclusion, it is worth asking, then, what the prospects may be for positive change. I will touch first on some forces and structures that tend to obstruct positive developments; I will then consider some emergent tendencies of a more positive nature that might give hope for the future. One negative factor is political instability. A Westminster-­style first-­past-­the-­ post electoral system, in which five political parties are contending for power, four of them parties of the centre-­left, and three of the five possessing substantial bases of support, is liable to produce results at variance with the wishes of a large majority of the electorate – and favouring the party of the right, thanks to splitting of the centre-­left vote. Thus Stephen Harper’s Conservatives won the elections of 2006, 2008, and 2011 and governed for a decade without ever securing as much as 40 percent of the votes cast.151 Their accession to power in 2006 was followed by

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major policy shifts – most notoriously the cynical abandonment of the Kelowna Accords.152 Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, who formed a majority government in 2015 with 39.5 percent of the vote, promised (but have yet to provide) substantive changes on Indigenous issues. The present configuration of political parties could easily result in future policy reversals if the Conservatives were to return to power. A second factor, shared with most countries worldwide, is the corporatist orientation of the major parties,153 which means that when the interests of corporate development or resource extraction interests and the rights of Indigenous people come into conflict, there is no doubt which side a Conservative or Liberal government – or for that matter a New Democratic Party government – will favour. The very high level of corporate ownership concentration in the Canadian media154 may likewise lead to a tendency to favour corporate interests in the reporting of Indigenous issues. A third and perhaps related factor is a tendency on the part of provincial as well as federal governments to act in defiance of superior court judgements in favour of Aboriginal and treaty rights, and to apply the harshest forms of law enforcement in situations where, according to the principles of common law, the government and the corporate interests on whose behalf it is acting are in the wrong. In an interview on CBC Radio in early November 2013, Bill Gallagher, a specialist in natural resources law, expressed his frustration with governmental failures to apply what superior courts have determined to be the law of Canada. In New Brunswick, he observed, “There are seven high-­level court cases [won by First Nations] that have been sitting on shelves through previous governments. These are appellate-­level decisions, Supreme Court of Canada– level decisions, that are declaratory: the natives have won on a very profound point of law, [and] the parties that have lost, governments and interveners and industry, have been given a series of admonitions”155  – which they have then proceeded to ignore. These remarks had a very precise context. Throughout the summer and fall of 2013, the Mi’kmaq First Nation of Elsipogtog, in eastern New Brunswick, had been opposing shale gas exploration by hydraulic fracking on unceded Mi’kmaq territory. Confrontations between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Mi’kmaq (supported by non-­Indigenous people from both Acadian French and English-­speaking communities) culminated with the blockade of a major cache of gas exploration equipment near the town of Rexton. After three full weeks, during which Elsipogtog Chief Arren Sock made an important declaration of Mi’kmaq rights over “unoccupied Crown lands,” a very large and heavily armed RCMP force assaulted the blockade encampment on October 17 and made mass arrests.156 Speaking several weeks later, Gallagher was telling his interviewer that a commonly reiterated Canadian view of the conflict – to the effect that the Mi’kmaq had violated property rights and the law, while the RCMP was simply restoring peace and good order  – was diametrically wrong.

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The RCMP’s actions on October 17 were justified by a provincial court injunction that had been obtained by Southwestern Energy, the Houston, Texas–based company whose equipment had been blockaded. But as the police were aware, that injunction was scheduled for a legal challenge on the 18th – and it was in fact rescinded by the court four days later, for it had been issued in ignorance or defiance of a higher court’s authoritative judgement. In July 2008, the Ontario Court of Appeal had weighed the interests of a mining company against an assertion of Aboriginal rights by Ardoch Algonquin First Nation, which had blocked the company’s exploration work – and, like the Elsipogtog Mi’kmaq in 2013, had defied an injunction to desist. After surveying two decades of Supreme Court of Canada jurisprudence, the Court of Appeal determined, as Annie Leeks of the law firm Blake, Cassels & Graydon has noted, that “injunctions sought by private parties to protect their interests should only be granted where every effort has been made by the court to encourage consultation, negotiation, accommodation and reconciliation. . . . ” The Court of Appeal cautioned in particular that if the injunction is intended to create a “protest free zone” for contentious private activity that impacts upon an asserted aboriginal right, the court must be extremely careful to ensure that the duty to consult with the First Nation has been fully and faithfully discharged.157 That duty, prescribed by the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in Haida Nation v. British Columbia,158 had not been discharged in the case of the New Brunswick blockade – a fact acknowledged by the subsequently appointed New Brunswick Commission on Hydraulic Fracturing when, in its final report, it gave prominence to a submission stating, “The duty to consult has become a meaningless process,” because consultation meetings involve one-­way communication, “manipulation of the process,” and a “lack of regard for collective rights.”159 If the injunction that justified a massive police assault and mass arrests contravened Canadian law, what about the underlying issue of property rights? Did the provincial government have a right to sell licenses for fracking exploration rights in a million hectares of New Brunswick – including Crown land, privately owned farmland and forests, and Indigenous reserves  – to SWN? Were the Elsipogtog Mi’kmaq trespassing in setting up their blockade? Michael McClurg, another specialist in natural resources law, wrote in October 2013 that “the rule of law in this case would arguably dictate that the protesters [had] every right to be on their traditional land and that in fact, others, including the Crown and resource extraction companies, [were] trespassers.”160 An article in the Toronto Star by Métis writer Chelsea Vowel explained that there are two relevant judgements of the Supreme Court of Canada. The first of these, the Supreme Court’s Delgamuukw decision, determined that Aboriginal title to most of British Columbia had never been extinguished  – meaning that other parts of the country where no treaties giving up land ownership were signed had likewise never been acquired by the Crown. The second, the 1999 Marshall

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decision, confirmed that the Mi’kmaq and Maliseet Peace and Friendship Treaties of 1760–1761 did not involve any surrender of land or resources. As Vowel wrote, “This cannot be emphasized strongly enough: the Mi’kmaq never gave up legal right to their land or resources. Canada does not own the land that the people of Elsipogtog are defending. This is not conspiracy theory, or indigenous interpretation. This is Canadian law, interpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada, applying Canadian constitutional principles.”161 Michael McClurg expressed hope that people in government can learn – from the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples,162 for example, or the Ipperwash Inquiry Report163 – how to behave in “conflicts over resources, including appropriate police responses.” But their reactions to the Elsipogtog confrontation give one, he said, “a strong sense of history repeating itself.”164 In discussing this issue, we have moved imperceptibly into the category of emergent tendencies that might induce one to hope for substantial improvements in the rights held and exercised by Indigenous people in Canada. The stand taken by the Mi’kmaq of Elsipogtog is just one of a series of many recent struggles in which Indigenous people, faced with entrenched injustice and intransigent government agencies, have gone beyond victimhood and exercised political agency by engaging in diverse, often inventive forms of political action.165 Some of these episodes – such as the Oka crisis (1990), and the Ipperwash (1995) and Caledonia (2006) stand-­offs – have involved the reclamation of misappropriated reserve land. Others – such as the Gustafsen Lake stand-­off (1995) – have been prompted by assertions of Aboriginal and ceremonial rights on land appropriated by settlers. The Burnt Church fishing dispute (1999–2000) involved a struggle by Mi’kmaq fishers to exercise their Aboriginal right to traditional food sources. The blockade of the Goose Bay airfield by Innu women (1988–90) responded to years of disruption of hunting activity in their territory of Nitassinan by low-­level overflights of NATO military aircraft rehearsing for World War III. Many other blockades since the late 1980s – at Barrière Lake, Quebec, and Temagami, Ontario, in the land of the Lubicon Cree in Alberta, and all through British Columbia – have been undertaken in defence against clear-­cutting and to assert Aboriginal title. There have been numerous instances in which, like the Elsipogtog First Nation, Indigenous peoples have resisted hydrocarbon and pipeline developments that threaten their elementary rights to land and water. And other forms of energy development have likewise prompted resistance in defence of the land and of Indigenous people’s health. The dogged and persistent resistance to the Muskrat Falls dam in Labrador (2016–18) is well known; less widely recognized is the fact that 11 other hydro-­ electric projects in northern Canada are projected to produce even higher levels of methylmercury poisoning than is expected downstream of Muskrat Falls.166 Of a quite different nature is the struggle in the village of Attawapiskat, where children for many years suffered in incompetently constructed school buildings polluted with diesel fuel and mould: beginning in 2007, the children themselves took a leading role in a remarkable and memorable agitation for the treaty right – and the basic human right – of a school building in which education could occur.167

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A related form of political action, aimed at ending the gross and discriminatory disparities between health and social services funding provided for Indigenous children and families by the Aboriginal Affairs Department and the funding provided to non-­Indigenous families by provincial governments, has been led for over a decade by Cindy Blackstock and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada. After nearly nine years of struggle, marked by repeated attempts on the part of Aboriginal Affairs and Justice Canada to spy on and “retaliate” against Blackstock,168 the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal found in January 2016 “that the discriminatory policies of the Indigenous Affairs department have led to chronic underfunding and are damaging the lives of thousands of First Nations children.” It ordered the government to comply with “Jordan’s principle,” according to which Indigenous children “should have the same access to services as other Canadians without delays caused by jurisdictional disputes.”169 A  year later, Blackstock had to return to the Tribunal: the Trudeau government was ready to spend half a billion dollars celebrating “Canada 150,” but not to devote similar resources to making up the shortfall in Indigenous welfare services.170 A more ambiguously positive tendency – the movement in Supreme Court jurisprudence toward an adequate recognition of Indigenous rights – has already been alluded to. Landmark decisions moving in this direction include, in addition to the Delgaamukh (1997), Marshall (1999), and Haida (2004) decisions already mentioned, the “game-­changing” 1973 Calder (1973) decision in which “the Court found that Aboriginal title to land continues to exist unless validly extinguished by the Crown,” the decision in Mikisew Cree (2005) “applying the Crown’s duty to consult to situations in which treaty rights might be affected; the 2010 Beckman decision extending the duty to consult to govern modern as well as historic treaties; the 2013 Manitoba Métis decision expanding on what the honour of the Crown requires; and the 2014 Tsilhqot’in Nation decision finding that the Tsilhqot’in Nation has Aboriginal title to areas which it had regularly used for hunting and fishing.”171 Lower courts have been moving in the same direction: in 2013 Bill Gallagher remarked on the fact that First Nations and Indigenous organizations had been consistent winners in upwards of 180 recent court cases.172 There has also been a surge in the capacity of Indigenous self-­representation in Canada. I  am thinking here not just of nationally celebrated visual artists (among them Pitseolak Ashoona, Norval Morriseau, Bill Reid, Daphne Odjig, Kent Monkman), or writers (Tomson Highway, Lee Maracle, Thomas King, Daniel David Moses, Yvette Nolan), or filmmakers (Alanis Obomsawin, Zacharias Kunuk) – and not just of the hosts of talented younger artists who have arisen in their wake. A  different (though in many ways complementary and overlapping) order of self-­representation is apparent within the Canadian academy, where influential work in many disciplines is being published by Indigenous scholars. Indigenous self-­representation is necessarily a relational act that brings about encounters within which many forms of recognition or misrecognition can occur.

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When the other party is non-­Indigenous, and accepts in good faith the risk of any such meeting of mind and spirit, there may be potential for an expansion of understanding. What, for example, is a treaty? A once-­and-­we’re-­done piece of contract law? Michael Coyle shows, through an analysis of texts that preserve the processes involved in actual treaty-­making throughout Canadian history, that the “central imperative of treaty-­making in Canada” has been, rather, “to establish a new structure of relationships between the parties that would endure indefinitely.” There is evidence that treaty-­making involved “conscious efforts on the part of Indigenous negotiators to educate their counterparts and introduce them to Indigenous ways of thinking about relationships and mutual responsibilities [. . .] that included caring, loyalty, and respect.”173 But the resistance of the Canadian state to absorbing any such understanding has been monumental and ongoing. Some scholars, notably Taiaiake Alfred, have responded to the incessant misrecognitions and destructive interpellations ensuing from repetition of the colonizer’s demands by calling for a turning away from established patterns of submission and cooperation, and a resurgence of creative contention.174 Such a resurgence is precisely what ensued in late 2012 and 2013. Initiated and led by Indigenous women, the Idle No More movement took its name from the title of a November 2012 Saskatoon teach-­in held in response to new legislation that violated Aboriginal and treaty rights, and set out to educate, revitalize, and empower Indigenous people so they can join in demanding the withdrawal of treaty-­violating legislation, demand the provision of fair and adequate funding to Indigenous communities, and demand as well the establishment of nation-­to-­nation processes to address issues relating to the implementation of treaties and the sharing of land and resources.175 As Glen Coulthard has remarked, “What had begun in the fall of 2012 as an education campaign designed to inform Canadians about a particularly repugnant and undemocratic piece of legislation had erupted by mid-­January 2013 into a full-­blown defense of Indigenous land and sovereignty.”176 What is needed on the non-­Indigenous side is another kind of de-­colonizing – an “unsettling,” as Paulette Regan proposes, of “the settler within.”177 That process can be assisted by the kind of radical “indigenizing” of Canadian educational systems that Len Findlay called for nearly two decades ago.178 Taiaiake Alfred has proposed that the “regimes of conscience and justice” developed countless generations ago by Indigenous societies can become, in a post-­ imperial age, “the indigenous contribution to the reconstruction of a just and harmonious world.”179 Whether, or to what degree, Canada is capable of moving in this direction and becoming the “fair country” imagined by John Ralston Saul180 remains, for the moment, an open question.

Notes 1 Arundhati Roy, ‘What We Call Peace Is Little Better Than Capitulation to a Corporate Coup’, excerpt from the 2004 Sydney Peace Prize Lecture, Sydney Morning Herald (3 November  2004), reproduced online at Common Dreams (3 November  2004), www.

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commondreams.org/views/2004/11/03/what-­we-­call-­peace-­little-­better-­capitulation-­ corporate-­coup. Used with permission. 2 These human rights instruments would include the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT, 1984); the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (ICMW, 1990); and the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CPED, 2006). 3 Stéphane Hessel, Indignez-­vous! (Montpellier: Indigène éditions, 2010). The information about its sales are from Revue des Sciences Humaines, numéro 305 (janvier/mars 2012): 24, as cited by “Indignez-­vous!” Wikipedia, https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indignez-­vous_! (accessed 6 April 2018.) The Wikipedia article says there were translations into 34 other languages, but cites just 15 of them. 4 See Paul Koring, ‘Amnesty Slams Canada Over Afghan Detainees’, The Globe and Mail (21 February 2007, updated 31 March 2009), http://v1.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ story/RTGAM.20070221.wamnesty21/business; Omar Sabry, Torture of Afghan Detainees: Canada's Alleged Complicity and the Need for a Public Inquiry (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives/Rideau Institute on International Affairs, September 2015), www.rideauinstitute.ca/wp-­content/uploads/2015/09/Afghan-­Detainees-­002.pdf; Michael Keefer, ‘Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Canadian War Crimes in Afghanistan’, Centre for Research on Globalization (24 April 2015), www.globalresearch.ca/index. php?context=va&aid=24473; also available at www.michaelkeefer.com/blog/2015/9/15/ prime-­minister-­stephen-­harper-­and-­canadian-­war-­crimes-­in-­afghanistan. 5 See Yves Engler and Anthony Fenton, Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority (Vancouver: Red Publishing, and Black Point, N.S., and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2005); Jeb Sprague, Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2012), pp. 201–273; Michael Keefer, ‘Dignity of the Haitian Women (and Canada’s Shame)’, in Anna Pia De Luca (ed), Investigating Canadian Identities: 10th Anniversary Contributions (Udine: FORUM, Editrice Universitaria Udinese, 2010), pp. 111–125. 6 See Abigail B. Bakan and Tasmeen Abu-­Laban, ‘Israeli Apartheid, Canada, and Freedom of Expression’, and Edward C. Corrigan, ‘Israel and Apartheid: A Framework for Legal Analysis’, in Ghada Adeel (ed), Apartheid in Palestine: Hard Laws and Harder Experiences (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, 2016), pp. 163–180, 213–246; Michael Keefer, ‘Criminalizzazione Della Critica d’Israele in Canada’, trans. Oscar Mina, Eurasia: Rivista di Studi Geopolitici (17 maggio 2014), www.eurasia-­r ivista.com/criminalizzazione-­della-­critica-­ disraele-­in-­canada/; English text available at www.michaelkeefer.com/blog/2015/9/18/ criminalizing-­criticism-­of-­israel-­a-­hate-­propaganda-­trojan-­horse-­in-­bill-­c-­13. 7 ‘Canada’s Statement of Support on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples’, Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada (12 November  2010, updated 30 July 2012), www.aadnc-­aandc.gc.ca/eng/1309374239861/1309374546142. 8 Ibid. 9 See ‘First Ministers and National Aboriginal Leaders: Strengthening Relationships and Closing the Gap’, Kelowna, British Columbia (24–25 November 2005), www.health. gov.sk.ca/aboriginal-­first-­ministers-­meeting; ‘F[irst] M[inisters'] M[eeting]  – Government of Canada invests in immediate action’, Prime Minister’s News Release, Kelowna British Columbia (25 November 2005), http://epe.lac-­bac.gc.ca/100/205/301/prime_ minister-­ef/paul_martin/06-­01-­14/www.pm.gc.ca/eng/news.asp@id=661. 10 Quoted by Erin Hanson, ‘The Residential School System’, Indigenousfoundations.arts. ubc.ca, http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/the_residential_school_system/. For another Indigenous response, see Lynda Gray, ‘Why Silence Greeted Stephen Harper’s Residential-­school Apology’, The Georgia Straight (12 June 2008), www.straight.com/ article-­150021/unyas-­lynda-­g ray-­responds-­prime-­ministers-­apology. 11 See David Ljunggren, ‘Every G20 Nation Wants to Be Canada, Insists PM’, Reuters (25 September  2009), www.reuters.com/article/columns-­us-­g20-­canada-­advantages/ every-­g20-­nation-­wants-­to-­be-­canada-­insists-­pm-­idUSTRE58P05Z20090926.

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12 Derrick O’Keefe, ‘Harper in Denial at G20: Canada Has ‘No History of Colonialism” ’, Rabble.ca (28 September  2009), http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/derrick/2009/09/ harper-­denial-­g20-­canada-­has-­no-­history-­colonialism. 13 Gloria Galloway, ‘Ottawa Taken to Court Over Release of Residential Schools Documents’, The Globe and Mail (3 December 2012, updated 26 March 2017), www.theglobeandmail. com/news/politics/ottawa-­taken-­to-­court-­over-­release-­of-­residential-­schools-­docu ments/article5904543/. 14 James Anaya, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples: The situation of indigenous peoples in Canada, United Nations General Assembly, Human Rights Council, Twenty-­ seventh session (4 July  2014), http://unsr.jamesanaya.org/docs/ countries/2014-­report-­canada-­a-­hrc-­27-­52-­add-­2-­en.pdf, p. 15. 15 Ibid., pp. 1, 6. 16 Ibid., pp. 7–9. 17 The residential schools and the “Sixties Scoop” are discussed in the second part of this chapter. As will be seen later, Anaya's figure for the comparative rate at which Aboriginal or Indigenous children are being taken into care may err on the side of optimism. 18 Ibid., pp. 5, 10–11. 19 Ibid., pp. 11–19. 20 The exclusion of “reconciliation” from this sentence is deliberate. South Africa entered a formal process of reconciliation over the crimes of apartheid only after the apartheid regime had been ended. Given that the systems of governmentality and equity-­market capitalism that have dispossessed and inflicted grievous harm upon Indigenous people remain in force, discourses of reconciliation in Canada are tainted with hypocrisy. 21 Guy S. Goodwin-­Will, ‘Introductory Note, Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees’, Audiovisual Library of International Law, http://legal.un.org/avl/ha/prsr/prsr.html. 22 Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (2nd ed., 1958; rpt. Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books, 1963), pp. 269–302. 23 Ibid., p. 281 n. 27. 24 Shin Imai, ‘Consult, Consent, and Veto: International Norms and Canadian Treaties’, in John Borrows and Michael Coyle (eds), The Right Relationship: Reimagining the Implementation of Historical Treaties (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), pp. 375–376. 25 Quoted from ‘White Paper, Red Paper’, ch. 8 of Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools, www.facinghistory.org/stolen-­lives-­indigenous-­ peoples-­canada-­and-­indian-­residential-­schools/chapter-­8/white-­paper-­red-­paper. 26 Citizens Plus (Indian Chiefs of Alberta, 1970); online rpt. in Aboriginal Policy Studies 1.2 (2011): 188–281, https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/aps/index.php/aps/article/ view/11690/8926, p. 189. 27 Harold Cardinal, The Unjust Society: The Tragedy of Canada’s Indians (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre, 1969), p. 1. 28 See Âpihtawikosisân [Chelsey Vowel], ‘White Paper, What Paper?’ âpihtawikosisan (22 August  2012), http://apihtawikosisan.com/2012/08/white-­paper-­what-­paper/; Pam Palmater, ‘Flanagan National Petroleum Ownership Act: Stop Big Oil Land Grab’, Indigenous Nationhood (7 August 2012), http://indigenousnationhood.blogspot.ca/2012/08/ flanagan-­national-­petroleum-­ownership.html; Michael P. C. Fabris, Beyond the New Dawes Act: A Critique of the First Nations Property Ownership Act (University of British Columbia MA Thesis, August  2016), https://open.library.ubc.ca/cIRcle/collections/ ubctheses/24/items/1.0308596. 29 Fabris, pp. ii, 71–2. 30 “Fee simple” refers to the fullest possible form of ownership of real property (land, houses, etc.) in common law countries. (Other more conditional forms of ownership include condominium ownership, leasehold and life estate.) 31 Ibid., p. 39. 32 Daniel Fischlin and Martha Nandorfy, The Community of Rights: The Rights of Community (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 11, 63.

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33 Peter Kulchyski, Aboriginal Rights Are Not Human Rights (Winnipeg: ARP Books, 2013), p. 20. (In quoting from Kulchyski's work, I have supplied capital letters and italics, which he eschews.) 34 Ibid., pp. 20–21. 35 Ibid., p. 22. 36 Citizens Plus, p. 194. 37 Alan Davies (ed), Antisemitism in Canada: History and Interpretation (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1992), ‘Introduction’, p. 6. 38 The question of how terms like “genocide,” “colonial genocide,” or “cultural genocide” ought to be applied to the hard truths of Canada's settler-­colonial past and the hard complexities of structures and forces intersecting in our settler-­colonial present is vigorously debated. For a helpful survey of positions and analyses, see Andrew Woolford and Jeff Benvenuto, ‘Canada and Colonial Genocide’, Journal of Genocide Research, 17 (4) (2015): Special Issue on Canada and Colonial Genocide, 373–390. See also, for a sustained analysis of definitional issues, evidence, systemic intentionality, and the applicability to Canada of the UN Convention on Genocide, Tamara Starblanket, Suffer the Little Children: Genocide, Indigenous Nations and the Canadian State (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2018). As my comments on the policy of “clearing the plains” and on the residential schools may suggest, I would prefer to describe both simply as genocide, without qualifying adjectives. 39 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Canada’s Residential Schools. The History, Part 1: Origins to 1939. The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 1 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-­Queen's University Press, 2015), p. 3. 40 Ibid., p. 4. 41 See John F. Leslie, ‘The Indian Act: An Historical Perspective’, Canadian Parliamentary Review, 25 (2) (2002), www.revparl.ca/english/issue.asp?art=255¶m=83. 42 This figure is given by John Douglas Belshaw, Canadian History: Post-­Confederation (BC Open Textbook Project, 2016), 11.3: ‘Natives by the Numbers’, https://opentextbc.ca/ postconfederation/chapter/11-­3-­natives-­by-­the-­numbers/#return-­footnote-­2958-­5. A  census estimate of 1871 gives a figure of 102,000: see ‘TABLE of the Aboriginal Population of Canada [.  .  .] the Whole Referring to the Year 1871’, Introduction to Censuses of Canada, 1665 to 1871, Statistics Canada, www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/98-­187-­ x/2000001/4198819-­eng.pdf. The best available evidence suggests that the pre-­contact population of Canada was around 2,250,000: see Russell Thornton, American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987), pp. 30–32. This would imply a population decline by the beginning of the twentieth century of more than 90 percent. (An early factor in that decline appears to have been the movement of epidemic diseases from areas of coastal contact with Europeans along Indigenous trade-­routes into the interior, causing large declines in populations that did not directly encounter Europeans until much later.) 43 Duncan Campbell Scott, Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs, ‘Testimony Before the Special Committee of the House of Commons examining the Indian Act amendments of 1920’, Library and Archives Canada, Record Group 10, vol. 6810, file 470–2–3, vol. 7, pp.  55 (L-­3) and 63 (N-­3). Quoted by Jennifer Pettit, in Belshaw, Canadian History: Post-­Confederation, 11.7, ‘From Agricultural Training to Residential School’; also quoted in ‘Duncan Campbell Scott’, The Canadian Encyclopedia, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/duncan-­campbell-­scott/. For a useful introduction to issues raised by the Indian Act, see Erin Hanson, ‘The Indian Act’, Indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca, http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/the_indian_act/. 44 Quoted by Chief Joe Mathias and Gary R. Yabsley, ‘Conspiracy of Legislation: The Suppression of Indian Rights in Canada’, BC Studies (89) (Spring 1991): 35–36. Indigenous people thus could not retain legal counsel in support of their claims; nor could they legally raise money within their communities for internal organization. 45 John Milloy, ‘Indian Act Colonialism: A  Century of Dishonour, 1869–1969’, Research Paper, National Centre for First Nations Governance/Centre National pour la Gouvernance des Premières Nations (May 2008), http://fngovernance.org/ncfng_research/milloy.pdf, pp. 1–2.

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46 Ibid., p. 2. Central to the Proclamation, as Milloy observes, “was the recognition of Indian land tenure within an over-­arching Crown sovereignty; the recognition, in fact, of an Aboriginal right to land, that would be, thereafter, alienable only to the Crown by purchase.” 47 Imai, ‘Consult, Consent, and Veto’, p. 372. 48 For detailed analysis, see Milloy, ‘Indian Act Colonialism’, pp. 4–11. A central aspect of this control was the determination, which remained in force until 1985, that women who married non-­Indigenous men lost Indian status, as did their children. 49 Michael Dan, ‘The Impact of Colonization on the Health of Indigenous People in Canada’, www.med.mun.ca/getattachment/ca784440-­194d-­4972-­b070-­e336f6db224c/ Impact-­o f-­c olonization-­o n-­t he-­h ealth-­o f-­I ndigenous-­p eople-­i n-­C anada-­( for-­ Memorial-­U).pdf.aspx. 50 Belshaw, ‘Natives by the Numbers’. Belshaw remarks that demographers’ estimates of population growth are complicated by changes to the legal definition of Indian status and by Métis self-­identification. For discussion of these matters, see Chelsea Vowel, Indigenous Writes: A  Guide to First Nations, Métis  & Inuit Issues in Canada (Winnipeg: HighWater Press, 2016), pp. 25–66. 51 See ‘Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: First Nations People, Métis and Inuit’. National Household Survey, Statistics Canada (2011), http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-­enm/2011/ as-­sa/99-­011-­x/99-­011-­x2011001-­eng.cfm; ‘Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: Key Results from the 2016 Census’, The Daily (25 October 2017), Statistics Canada, www. statcan.gc.ca/daily-­quotidien/171025/dq171025a-­eng.htm. (I have rounded off numbers to the nearest thousand.) 52 “Aboriginal peoples in Canada.” (Population figures are rounded off to the nearest thousand, and percentage increases to the nearest whole number.) Inuit Nunangat consists, from east to west, of Nunatsiavut (northern Labrador), Nunavik (northern Quebec), Nunavut, and the Inuvialuit region in the northwest. 53 Jorge Barrera, ‘Indigenous Population Growing Rapidly, Languages Surging’, CBC News (25 October  2017), www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/indigenous-­census-­rapid-­ growth-­1.4370727. (The last two words of this article’s title are misleading.) 54 Noreen Willow, Paul Veugelers, Kim Raine and Stefan Kuhle, ‘Associations Between Household Food Insecurity and Health Outcomes in the Aboriginal Population (Excluding Reserves)’, Health Reports, 22 (2) (2011), www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-­ 003-­x/2011002/article/11435-­eng.htm; Reading and Wien, Health Inequalities, p. 17. An earlier study found that 24  percent of off-­reserve Indigenous people experienced food insecurity to the point of compromised diet: see Janet Che and Jiajian Chen, ‘Food Insecurity in Canadian Households’, Health Reports, 12 (4) (2001), www.statcan.gc.ca/ pub/82-­003-­x/2000004/article/5796-­eng.pdf. 55 ‘Federal Party Leaders Urged to End Drinking Water Crisis in First Nation Communities Once and for All’, Media Release, The Council of Canadians (13 October 2015), https://canadians.org/media/federal-­party-­leaders-­urged-­end-­drinking-­water-­crisis-­ first-­nation-­communities-­once-­and-­all. 56 Rachel Aiello, ‘Can PM Trudeau Keep Drinkable Water Promise to First Nations?’ CTV News (28 December  2017), www.ctvnews.ca/politics/can-­pm-­trudeau-­keep­drinkable-­water-­promise-­to-­first-­nations-­1.3736954. 57 Charlotte Reading, PhD and Fred Wien, PhD, Health Inequalities and Social Determinants of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health (Prince George, BC: National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health, 2013), www.ccnsa-­nccah.ca/docs/determinants/RPT-­ HealthInequalities-­Reading-­Wien-­EN.pdf, p. 25. 58 Ibid., p. 13. 59 Thus, for example, the proportion of Indigenous people receiving social assistance grew from 36 percent in 1964 to 70 percent at the end of the 1970s; in 1980, “less than 50 percent of Indian houses were properly serviced compared to a national level of 90 percent”; and the Department attributed high levels of infant deaths “to respiratory ailments and infectious or parasitic diseases, reflecting poor housing, lack of sewage disposal and potable water, as well as poorer access to medical facilities.” Milloy, ‘Indian Act Colonialism’, p. 12.

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6 0 Ibid., p. 13. 61 Teresa Evans-­Campbell, ‘Historical Trauma in American Indian/Native Alaska Communities: A Multilevel Framework for Exploring Impacts on Individuals, Families, and Communities’, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 23 (3) (2008): 316–338; Amy Bombay, Kimberly Matheson and Hymie Anisman, ‘The Intergenerational Effects of Indian Residential Schools: Implications for the Concept of Historical Trauma’, Transcultural Psychiatry, 51 (3) (2014): 320–338, have analyzed this latter pattern, with particular reference to the Canadian residential schools, in terms of “intergenerational stress proliferation,” in which parental stress caused by traumatic experiences gives rise to secondary causes of stress related to social disadvantages and altered parenting behaviours. 62 Patrick Wolfe, ‘Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native’, Journal of Genocide Research, 8 (4) (December 2006): 388. 63 The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines as genocide five distinct acts “committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”; the fifth such act is “Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group” (Article II [e]). 64 James Daschuk, Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life (Regina: University of Regina Press, 2013), p. 100. 65 Gilbert King, ‘Where the Buffalo No Longer Roamed’, Smithsonian.com (17 July 2012), www.smithsonianmag.com/history/where-­the-­buffalo-­no-­longer-­roamed-­3067904/. US commanding officer General Philip Sheridan is quoted as saying that the ‘sport’ hunters who were wiping out the herds “are destroying the Indians' commissary. And [. . .] an army losing its base of supplies is placed at a great disadvantage.” 66 According to Andrew C. Isenberg, The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750–1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 130–31, an ensuing “spasm of industrial expansion was the primary cause of the bison’s near extinction”; quoted by Daschuk, Clearing the Plains, pp. 227–228, n. 14. 67 Daschuk, Clearing the Plains, p. 93. 68 Ibid., pp. xii, xv. 69 Ibid., pp. xix, xx. 70 Ibid., pp. 81, 88–89. 71 Ibid., p. 97. 72 Ibid., p. 98. The “medicine chest” is a reference to the medical supplies, including anti-­ smallpox vaccine, that were commonly held at Hudson Bay Company posts; in promising it, the government was committing itself to supplying the best available protections against pestilence and disease. 73 During the winter of 1873–74, for example, “Crees at the Victoria mission near the present Alberta-­Saskatchewan border were reduced to eating 'their horses, dogs, buffalo robes and in some cases their snow shoes and moccasins and then died.'” Ibid., p. 101. 74 Ibid., pp. 99–100. 75 Ibid., p. xix. 76 Ibid., p. 108. 77 Ibid., p. 123. 78 Ibid., pp. 151, 150. Daschuk gives an example provided by a missionary in Assissippi, who wrote in 1884 that people there were close to starvation, despite having threshed 2,000 bushels of grain, because farmers had to travel a hundred miles to Prince Albert to have their grain milled, “leaving nothing behind for their families but unground wheat.” 79 Maureen Lux, Medicine That Walks: Disease, Medicine, and Canadian Plains Native People, 1880–1940 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001), pp.  69–70; quoted by Daschuk, Clearing the Plains, p. 235, n. 209. 80 Daschuk, Clearing the Plains, p. 177. See R. G. Ferguson, Studies in Tuberculosis (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1955), pp. 4–8. 81 Ibid., p. 108. 82 Ibid., p. 147.

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83 Ibid., pp. 152–153. The attacks by Cree warriors were undoubtedly stimulated by early news of the Northwest Rebellion led by Louis Riel, but there does not appear to have been direct coordination. 84 ‘Battleford Hangings’, Saskatchewan Indian, 3 (7) (July 1972): 5, www.sicc.sk.ca/archive/ saskindian/a72jul05.htm. 85 John S. Milloy, A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986 (1999; 2nd ed., Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2017), p. xlii. Scott Trevithick provided a useful survey of early scholarship on the system in ‘Native Residential Schooling in Canada: A Review of Literature’, Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 18 (1) (1998): 49–86; in the following year, Milloy’s book provided a much more complete analysis of the system than had previously been available. 86 Canada, Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, 9 May 1883, 14: 1107–08 (MacDonald); quoted by Tamara Starblanket, ‘ “Kill the Indian in the Child”: Genocide in International Law’, in Irene Watson (ed), Indigenous Peoples as Subjects of International Law (New York and Abingdon: Routledge, 2018), p. 179. 87 Quoted by Brian Titley, A Narrow Vision: Duncan Campbell Scott and the Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986), p. 78. Titley adds that Reed believed school graduates “should not be permitted to return to their reserves. He hoped instead that they would be hired out to the white settlers who were entering the territories in increasing numbers.” 88 Duncan Campbell Scott, ‘Indian Affairs, 1867–1912’, in Leslie Ritchie (ed), Duncan Campbell Scott: Addresses, Essays, and Reviews (2 vols., University of Western Ontario: Canadian Poetry Press, 2000), vol. 1, pp. 205–206. Scott hoped to counter “the dangerous period of renewed contact with the reserve” by means of a “simplified” and “practical” curriculum, and a parting grant “of cattle or horses, implements, tools and building material” to male pupils, and of “domestic articles” to former female pupils chosen for them in “arranged” marriages. (Such grants were made to a very small proportion of ex-­pupils and cost the DIA, on average, just over $100 each.) 89 A recognition of that vulnerability is implicit in an anomaly noted by David Macdonald and Graham Hudson in Section 318 of Canada's Criminal Code, which defines the punishment for advocating or promoting genocide: Subsection 2, while derived from Article 2 of the UN Convention on Genocide, omits its clauses (b), (d), and (e). When Parliament ratified the Convention in 1952, it excluded those clauses from the necessary additions to the Criminal Code on the grounds that matters such as the forcible removal of children are not relevant to Canada. The bad faith of this move is transparent. When in 2000 Parliament passed the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, it made the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (which includes the Convention on Genocide's full definition of genocide) a part of Canadian statutory law. But Parliament explicitly excluded the possibility of retroactive prosecutions for genocidal crimes committed in Canada prior to 1998. See MacDonald and Hudson, ‘The Genocide Question and Indian Residential Schools in Canada’, Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue Canadienne de Science Politique, 45 (2) (June 2012): 434–448. 90 Milloy, A National Crime, pp. 62–63. 91 Maureen K. Lux, ‘Bryce, Peter Henderson’, Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16 (University ofToronto/Université Laval, 2003), www.biographi.ca/en/bio/bryce_ peter_henderson_16E.html. 92 Dean Neu and Richard Therrien, Accounting for Genocide: Canada's Bureaucratic Assault on Aboriginal People (Black Point, NS: Fernwood Publishing, 2003), p. 7. 93 Robyn Bourgeois, Review of Dean Neu and Richard Therrien, Accounting for Genocide: Canada's Bureaucratic Assault on Aboriginal People, H-­Genocide, H-­Net Reviews (August 2007), www.h-­net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=13531. A 1968 report on the residential school system declared, in a passage focussing on the early post-­WW II years, that neither the churches nor the DIA “appeared to have had any real understanding of the needs of the children. [. . .] The method of financing these institutions by per-­capita grants was an iniquitous system which made no provision for the establishment and maintenance of standards, even in such basic elements as staffing and clothing” (quoted by Milloy, A National Crime, p. 269).

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94 Milloy, A National Crime, pp.  78–84, 259–263. Milloy mentions an inspection of twenty-­one schools in Saskatchewan and Alberta carried out in 1908 by F. H. Paget: “Paget's report revealed that the schools ran the gamut from good to deplorable. The majority – fifteen out of the twenty-­one – were in the latter category” (p. 82). 95 Ibid., pp. 83–93, 96–101, 261–262. 96 Ibid., pp. 109–124, 262–268. 97 Ibid., pp. 96–101, 105–106. 98 Ibid., pp. 130–131, 135–136, 176–180. 99 Ibid., pp. 129, 135–136, 138–149, 279–288. 100 Ibid., p. 295. The words “the silent tortures” are quoted from a statement sent in September 1992 by Grand Chief Edward John to then-­Minister of Justice Kim Campbell. 101 Ibid., pp. 138–154, 288–290. See also, on this subject, Roland Chrisjohn and Sherri Young, The Circle Game: Shadow and Substance in the Residential School Experience in Canada (Penticton, BC: Theytus Books, 1997). Continuing efforts by government authorities to withhold documents are mentioned later. 102 The term, coined by Malcolm Ross in the introduction to Poets of the Confederation (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1960), refers to poets – Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, Archibald Lampman, Bliss Carman, and Scott – who were born around the time of Confederation, and who Ross and other literary historians thought were the first English-­Canadian poets who could stand comparison with their contemporaries in Britain and the US. Scott published eight collections of poetry, several books of short fiction and three books of non-­fiction, including a biography of John Graves Simcoe for the Makers of Canada series; he also wrote three plays and an unpublished novel. 103 Walter Benjamin, ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’, VII, Illuminations, Ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. Harry Zohn (1970; rpt. London: Fontana Books, 1973), p. 258. 104 Bryce had been President of the American Public Health Association in 1900; in 1904 he was elected Vice-­President of the American International Congress on Tuberculosis. 105 Titley, A Narrow Vision, p. 83. 106 Quoted by Milloy, A National Crime, p. 77. 107 Peter H. Bryce, The Story of a National Crime: An Appeal for Justice to the Indians of Canada (Ottawa: James Hope & Sons, 1922), p. 4. See also M. Sproule-­Jones, ‘Crusading for the Forgotten: Dr. Peter Bryce, Public Health, and Prairie Native Residential Schools’, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 13 (2) (1996): 199–224. 108 Milloy, A National Crime, p. 91. 109 Bryce, The Story of a National Crime, pp. 4–5. In 1907 Bryce had recommended reforms to both medical and pedagogical provisions for the schools; he proposed as well “That boarding schools [. . .] be established near the home reserves of the pupils,” and “That the government undertake the complete maintenance and control of the schools, since it had promised by treaty to insure such” (p. 4). In this and other reports he also urged increased spending and improvements in medical services. 110 Quoted by Maureen K. Lux, ‘Bryce, Peter Henderson’, Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Cannily citing the work of Dr. William Osler, Scott implemented “improved medical inspections upon enrolment, an increased per capita grant, and contracts with each school binding it to higher standards of sanitation and diet.” The increased funding was still insufficient, and the contracts (given Scott's very lax oversight) were largely meaningless. 111 Duncan Campbell Scott, Letter to D. MacKay: DCS to BC Indian Agent Gen. Major D. MacKay, 12 April 2010, Department of Indian Affairs Archives, RG 10 series; quoted by Wayne K. Spear, ‘Indian Residential Schools Were ‘Really Detrimental to the Development of the Human Being’, Wayne K. Spear (10 March 2010), https:// waynekspear.com/2010/03/10/indian-­residential-­schools-­2/. 112 King writes: “Final solution. An unfortunate choice of words. Of course, no one is suggesting that Adolf Hitler was quoting Scott when Hitler talked about the final solution of the ‘Jewish problem’ in 1942. That would be tactless and unseemly. And just so we’re perfectly clear, Scott was advocating assimilation, not extermination. Sometimes people get the two mixed up.” Thomas King, The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account

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of Native People in North America (2012; rpt. Toronto: Anchor Canada, 2013), p. 114. Indeed, Scott appears to accept the deaths of children in his schools as a short-­cut to his goal of a Canada with no unassimilated Indians, and thus no “Indian problem.” 113 Scott, ‘Indian Affairs, 1867–1912’, pp. 204–205. 114 Scott would have known from Bryce’s 1909 report that the tuberculosis epidemic continued to be devastating. That report revealed, as Titley writes, that “[o]f all the students who attended the Sarcee Boarding School between 1894 and 1908, 28 per cent had died, mostly from tuberculosis” (Titley, A Narrow Vision, p. 84). 115 What Scott calls close “habituating” in “infected and dangerous” buildings implies an awareness of Bryce’s 1907 finding (in Titley’s words): “With only two or three exceptions, the windows in the dormitories were kept sealed during the seven colder months to save on heating costs. As a result, the air became progressively more foul, especially when infected students were present” (Titley, A Narrow Vision, p. 84). 116 Bryce, The Story of a National Crime, pp. 7–8. 117 Bryce calculated that the Indian population, given its high birth rate, should have been expected to grow by 20,000 from 1904 to 1917 – instead of which, due to a high death rate, it declined by 1,639 (p. 9). 118 Bryce noted that in 1912 “the death rate in many of the bands [whose data he examined] was as high as forty per thousand,” while the DIA’s total expenditure on health amounted to “little more than $2 per capita” (pp. 6–7). 119 Ibid., pp. 12, 14. 120 Ibid., pp. 12–13. Bryce blamed Scott in particular for interrupting the collection of statistical data: “Due to the direct reactionary influence of the former Accountant and present Deputy Minister no means exists, such as is looked upon as elementary in any Health Department today, by which the public or the Indians themselves can learn anything definite as to the actual vital conditions amongst these wards of the nation” (p. 10). 121 Milloy, A National Crime, p. 133. 122 Ibid., pp. 138–140, 144–151. 123 See Milloy, A National Crime, pp. 149–150; Peter Kulchyski, ‘ “A Considerable Unrest”: F. O. Loft and the League of Indians’, Native Studies Review, 4 (1–2) (1988): 95–117. 124 Bryce documented Scott’s maneuver to prevent critical discussion of the residential schools at the annual meeting of the National Tuberculosis Association in 1910 by misleadingly promising DIA action along the lines Bryce had recommended (The Story of a National Crime, pp.  5–6); and Milloy quotes from a 1921 letter to Superintendent General Sir James Lougheed in which Scott smeared Frederick Loft (A National Crime, pp. 149–150). Scott’s machinations also included blocking attempts in the early 1920s by the Grand River Haudenosaunee to appeal to the League of Nations against Canadian aggressions. See Grace Li Xiu Woo, ‘Canada’s Forgotten Founders: The Modern Significance of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Application for Membership in the League of Nations’, LGD: Law, Social Justice & Global Development (1) (2003), sections 5–8, https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/elj/lgd/2003_1/woo. 125 Quoted by Stan Dragland, Floating Voice: Duncan Campbell Scott and the Literature of Treaty 9 (Concord, ON: Anansi, 1994), p. 74. 126 Christopher Rutty and Sue C. Sullivan, This is Public Health: A  Canadian History (Canadian Public Health Association), www.cpha.ca/sites/default/files/assets/history/ book/history-­book-­print_all_e.pdf, ch. 5, 5.7. 127 ‘TB and Aboriginal People’, History of Public Health, Canadian Public Health Association/Association Canadienne de Santé Publique, www.cpha.ca/tb-­and-­aboriginal-­ people. A  comparison with the countries now most afflicted by tuberculosis can show how scandalous these figures are. In Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola (countries recently or currently afflicted by proxy and civil wars), the death rates from tuberculosis are, respectively, 75, 67, and 64 per 100,000 population. See ‘Tuberculosis Death Rate in High-­ burden Countries

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Worldwide in 2016’, Statista: The Statistics Portal, www.statista.com/statistics/509760/ rate-­of-­tuberculosis-­mortality-­in-­high-­burden-­countries/. 128 Milloy, A National Crime, pp.  259–260; Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Canada's Residential Schools. The History, Part 2: 1939 to 2000. The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 1 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-­Queen's University Press, 2015), p. 208. 129 Milloy, A National Crime, pp. 260–261. 130 Ibid., p. 261. 131 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Canada’s Residential Schools. The History, Part 2: 1939 to 2000, pp. 147–148. 132 Ibid., p. 11. 133 Milloy, A National Crime, p. 214. 134 Patrick Johnston, Native Children and the Child Welfare System (Toronto: Canadian Council on Social Development and James Lorimer & Co., 1983). 135 H. Philip Hepworth, Foster Care and Adoption in Canada (Ottawa: Canadian Council on Social Development, 1980). 136 Finding Cleo team, ‘Saskatchewan’s Adopt Indian Métis Program’, CBC News (21 March  2018), www.cbc.ca/radio/findingcleo/saskatchewan-­s-­adopt-­indian-­métis­program-­1.4555441. 137 Mark Melnychuk, ‘ “They Were Treated Like Animals’ ”: How a Regina Family Was Torn Apart by the Sixties Scoop, Regina Leader-­Post (18 October  2017), http://leaderpost.com/news/local-­news/they-­were-­treated-­like-­animals-­how-­a-­regina-­family-­ was-­torn-­apart-­by-­the-­sixties-­scoop. 138 Alanis Obomsawin’s 1986 documentary film Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child is based upon his diary and on interviews with his brother and the two boys’ foster parents. 139 ‘Aboriginal Peoples in Canada: First Nations People, Métis and Inuit’, National Household Survey, Statistics Canada (2011), http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-­enm/2011/as-­ sa/99-­011-­x/99-­011-­x2011001-­eng.cfm. 140 Some analysts are now writing of a “Millennial Scoop”: see Chelsea Vowel [Âpihtawikosisân], ‘Our Stolen Generations’, Indigenous Writes, pp. 181–190. 141 Ian Mosby, ‘Administering Colonial Science: Nutrition Research and Human Biomedical Experimentation in Aboriginal Communities and Residential Schools, 1942– 1952’, Histoire sociale/Social History, 46 (91) (May 2013): 615–642. The experiments began in 1942, using as subjects some 300 people in Norway House, Manitoba, who researchers estimated were surviving on less than 1,500 calories per day. These experiments, as with the ones on residential school students, were conducted without the subjects’ knowledge or informed consent, and involved withholding food and essential nutrients from people who were already malnourished. 142 Ashifa Kassam, ‘Canada Sued Over Years of Alleged Experimentation on Indigenous People’, The Guardian (11 May 2018), www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/11/ canada-­indigenous-­people-­medical-­experiments-­lawsuit. 143 Maura Forrest, ‘A Decade After Payments Began, Residential School Survivors Still Await Payments’, National Post (2 August  2017), http://nationalpost.com/ news/politics/a-­decade-­after-­payouts-­began-­residential-­school-­survivors-­still-­await-­ settlements. 144 Jorge Barrera, ‘The Horrors of St. Anne’s’, CBC News (29 March 2018), https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform/st-­anne-­residential-­school-­opp-­documents. 145 Colin Perkel, Canadian Press, ‘Fight Over Secret Residential School Documents Back in Court’, Global News (12 March  2018), https://globalnews.ca/news/4077544/st-­ annes-­residential-­school-­documents-­court/; Perkel, Canadian Press, “Residential School Victims Lose Document Fight: Appeal Court Sides with Ottawa’, National Post (10 May  2018), http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-­pmn/canada-­news-­pmn/ residential-­school-­victims-­lose-­document-­fight-­appeal-­court-­sides-­with-­ottawa.

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146 Canadian Press, ‘Federal Judge Approves Multi-­million Dollar Sixties Scoop Settlement’, Toronto Star (11 May  2018), www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/05/11/ federal-­judge-­approves-­multimillion-­dollar-­60s-­scoop-­settlement.html; Jason Warick, ‘ “Justice Was Not Served”: Sixties Scoop Survivors Unhappy After Approval of $875M Settlement’, CBC News (11 May  2018), www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/it-­s-­a-­sham-­survivors-­blast-­federal-­court-­hearing-­into-­875m-­sixties-­scoop-­ settlement-­1.4658197. 147 ‘Chief Marcia Brown Martel Joins Minister of Crown-­ Indigenous Relations to Announce a Pan-­Canadian Resolution for Children of the Sixties Scoop’, Ontario Sixties Scoop Steering Committee (6 October  2017), www.newswire.ca/news-­releases/ sixties-­scoop-­survivors-­decade-­long-­journey-­for-­justice-­culminates-­in-­historic-­pan-­ canadian-­agreement-­649748633.html. 148 Leonard Monkman, ‘Sixties Scoop Compensation Excludes Métis, Non-­ status Indigenous Peoples’, CBC News (6 October  2017), www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/ sixties-­scoop-­settlement-­excluded-­1.4344355. 149 ‘Sen. Murray Sinclair: Our Children Do Not Set Out in Life to Fail’, Maclean’s Magazine (11 January 2018), www.macleans.ca/opinion/sen-­murray-­sinclair-­our-­children-­ do-­not-­set-­out-­in-­life-­to-­fail/. Sinclair’s Ojibwe name means “One who Speaks of Pictures in the Sky.” 150 Daniel Schwartz, ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission: By the Numbers’, CBC News (2 June  2015), www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/truth-­and-­reconciliation-­commission-­ by-­the-­numbers-­1.3096185. It appears that 1 in 26 of Canadians who served in that war died, as did 1 in 25 residential-­school pupils. (The calculation involves dividing the approximately 150,000 children who were taken into the residential schools by the conservatively estimated 6,000 who died there.) This may seem a fulfilment of the November 1907 remark quoted from Saturday Night. Other, more sensational comparisons might be made – for example, between the death rate estimate for residential-­ school pupils tossed off by Duncan Campbell Scott (50 percent) and the percentage of soldiers of the Newfoundland Regiment killed at Beaumont Hamel on July 1, 1916 (41.6 percent). The fact that any comparison can be made between soldiers killed in battle and children in the hands of an educational institution is itself an obscenity. 151 Two important studies of the Harper years are Michael Harris, Party of One: Stephen Harper and Canada’s Radical Makeover (Toronto: Viking, 2014); Mark Bourrie, Kill the Messengers: Stephen Harper’s Assault on Your Right to Know (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2015). 152 See Brooke Jeffrey, Dismantling Canada: Stephen Harper’s New Conservative Agenda (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-­Queen's University Press, 2015), pp. 297–302 (and for other examples of the application of Harper’s “open federalism” agenda, pp. 275– 297). For further details on the Kelowna Accords policy reversal, see Harris, Party of One, pp. 299–300, 309, 319–320. 153 Harris, Party of One, pp. 358–360, notes a salient example of this. 154 ‘Private Media Ownership in Canada in 2015’, Canada Media Guild, www.cmg.ca/en/ wp-­content/uploads/2015/09/PrivateMediaOwnership2015.pdf. 155 Bill Gallagher, ‘Sharing Resources’, Interview on CBC Radio One New Brunswick (6 November 2013), www.cbc.ca/shift/2013/11/06/sharing-­resources/. 156 See Miles Howe, Debriefing Elsipogtog: The Anatomy of a Struggle (Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2015), pp. 133–134, for the full text of this declaration. Howe’s book offers a finely textured combination of historical contextualizing, lucid analysis, and front-­line reporting. 157 Annie Leeks, ‘Canada: Frontenac Ventures Corporation v. Ardoch Algonquin First Nation [.  .  .]’, Blakes Bulletin on Aboriginal Issues (July  2008); reproduced online at Mondaq, www.mondaq.com/canada/x/63390/Public+Sector+Government/Fronten ac+Ventures+Corporation+v+Ardoch+Algonquin+First+Nation+Platinex+Inc+v+ Kitchenuhmaykoosib+Inn.  . 

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158 Howe, Debriefing Elsipogtog, pp.  68–70, quotes the key passage in this decision, and comments astutely on the very limited advantages (and significant disadvantages) that the “duty to consult” in a manner consistent with the “honour of the Crown” has brought to Indigenous people struggling to assert their rights against the interests of resource extraction corporations. 159 New Brunswick Commission on Hydraulic Fracturing – Volume I: The Findings (NB Commission on Hydraulic Fracturing, February 2016), p. 11, http://www2.gnb.ca/content/dam/gnb/Departments/en/pdf/Publications/NBCHF-­Vol1-­Eng-­Feb2016.pdf. 160 Michael McClurg, ‘Do We Need the “Rule of Law” in New Brunswick to Deal with Native Protesters?’ Olthuis Kleer Townshend-­LLP (23 October 2013), www.oktlaw.com/blog/do-­we-­need-­the-­r ule-­of-­law-­in-­new-­brunswick-­to-­deal-­with-­native-­ protesters/. [dead link] 161 Chelsea Vowel [Âpihtawikosisân], ‘The Often-­ignored Facts About Elsipogtog’, Toronto Star (14 November  2013), www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/11/14the_ oftenignored_facts_about_elsipogtog.html. See also ‘Resources on Elsipogtog’, Âpihtawikosisân: Law, Language, Life: A Plains Cree Speaking Woman in Montreal (23 October  2013), http://apihtawikosisan.com/author/apihtawikosisan/. Understandings of what precisely Aboriginal title to land implies have been evolving in Canadian jurisprudence. But unlike the system of Crown land, in which the government asserts ownership over land, has unconstrained control over development, and retains rents, mining royalties, and stumpage fees for itself, Aboriginal title entails (at the very least) full consultation with title-­holders, and their right to a share of benefits ensuing from any development. 162 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, René Dussault, Georges Erasmus et  al. (5 vols., November  1996), available online at Christian Aboriginal Infrastructure Developments, http://caid.ca/RepRoyCommAborigPple.html. 163 Report of the Ipperwash Inquiry, The Hon. Sidney B. Linden, Commissioner (4 vols., May  2007), www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/inquiries/ipperwash/report/vol_1/ index.html. 164 McClurg, ‘Do We Need the “Rule of Law”.?’ 165 See Yale D. Belanger and P. Whitney Lackenbauer (eds), Blockades or Breakthroughs? Aboriginal Peoples Confront the Canadian State (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-­Queen's University Press, 2015). 166 Marilyn Boone, ‘Not Just Muskrat Falls: Harvard Study Identifies Higher Health Risk in 11 Other Hydro Projects’, CBC News (9 November 2016), www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-­labrador/harvard-­research-­hydroelectric-­projects-­methylmercury­1.2879212. 167 See Charlie Angus, Children of the Broken Treaty: Canada’s Lost Promise and One Girl’s Dream (Regina: University of Regina Press, 2015). 168 Jorge Barrera, ‘Aboriginal Affairs, Justice Canada Gathered Personal Information on First Nations Child Advocate: Privacy Watchdog’, APTN National News (28 May  2013), http://aptnnews.ca/2013/05/28/aboriginal-­affairs-­justice-­canada-­ gathered-­personal-­information-­on-­first-­nations-­child-­advocate-­privacy-­watchdog/; Barrera, ‘Aboriginal Affairs “Retaliated” Against First Nations Child Advocate Over Human Rights Complaint: Tribunal’, APTN National News (6 June  2015), http:// aptnnews.ca/2015/06/06/aboriginal-­affairs-­retaliated-­first-­nations-­child-­advocate-­ human-­r ights-­complaint-­tribunal/. 169 Gloria Galloway, ‘Ottawa to Overhaul Provisions on First Nations Reserves’, The Globe and Mail (Tuesday, 26 January 2016, updated 27 January 2016), www.theglobeandmail. com/news/politics/indigenous-­children-­on-­reserves-­face-­discrimination-­from-­ottawa-­ tribunal-­rules/article28392603/. Government documents revealed an underfunding for welfare on reserves, as compared with provincial rates, of 22 to 34 percent. 170 Vicky Mochama, ‘Canada Will Party While Indigenous Kids Are Denied Services’, Metro News Toronto (8 January 2017), www.metronews.ca/views/metro-­views/2017/01/08/ canada-­will-­party-­while-­indigenous-­kids-­are-­denied-­services.html.

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171 Julie Jai, ‘Bargains Made in Bad Times: How Principles from Modern Treaties Can Reinvigorate Historic Treaties’, in John Borrows and Michael Coyle (eds), The Right Relationship: Reimagining the Implementation of Historical Treaties (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), p. 116. 172 Bill Gallagher, ‘Will the Canadian Native Legal Winning Streak Hit 200?’ Bill Gallagher/Strategist/Lawyer/Author (4 August 2013), http://billgallagher.ca/2013/will-­the-­ canadian-­native-­winning-­streak-­hit-­200/. 173 Michael Coyle, ‘As Long as the Sun Shines: Recognizing That Treaties Were Intended to Last’, in John Borrows and Michael Coyle (eds), The Right Relationship: Reimagining the Implementation of Historical Treaties (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), pp. 49–51. 174 Taiaiake Alfred, Wasáse: Indigenous Pathways of Action and Freedom (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2005). 175 See Pam Palmater, ‘Urgent Situation Report in Humanitarian Crisis in Canada, and What Is the Idle No More Movement . . . Really?’ in Indigenous Nationhood: Empowering Grassroots Citizens (Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing, 2015), pp. 64–72, 76–83. 176 Glen Sean Coulthard, Red Skin White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), p. 161. 177 Paulette Regan, Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Tellings, and Reconciliation in Canada (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2011). 178 Len Findlay, ‘Always Indigenize! The Radical Humanities in the Postcolonial Canadian University’, Ariel, 31 (1–2) (January–April 2000): 307–326. 179 Taiaiake Alfred, Peace, Power, Righteousness: An Indigenous Manifesto (Don Mills: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 6. 180 John Ralston Saul, A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada (2008; rpt. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2009).

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MacDonald, David and Graham Hudson. 2012. ‘The Genocide Question and Indian Residential Schools in Canada’, Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue Canadienne de Science Politique, 45 (2), June: 427–449, www.journals.cambridge.org/action/display/Abstr act?fromPage=online&aid=8649111. Mathias, Chief Joe and Gary R. Yabsley. 1991. ‘Conspiracy of Legislation: The Suppression of Indian Rights in Canada’, BC Studies (89), Spring: 34–45, www.vancouverbiennale. com/wp-­content/uploads/2014/07/Resende-­Unit-­Plan-­Mathisas-­Yabsley.pdf. McClurg, Michael. 2013. ‘Do We Need the “Rule of Law” in New Brunswick to Deal with Native Protestors?’ Olthuis Kleer Townshend – LLP, 23 October, http://oktlaw.com/ blog/do-­we-­need-­the-­rule-­of-­law-­in-­new-­brunswick-­to-­deal-­with-­native-­protestors/. Melnychuk, Mark. 2017. ‘ “They Were Treated Like Animals”: How a Regina Family Was Torn Apart by the Sixties Scoop’, Regina Leader-­Post, 18 October, http://leaderpost. com/news/local-­news/they-­were-­treated-­like-­animals-­how-­a-­regina-­family-­was-­torn-­ apart-­by-­the-­sixties-­scoop. Miller, J. R. 2017. Residential Schools and Reconciliation: Canada Confronts its History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Milloy, John S. 2008. ‘Indian Act Colonialism: A  Century of Dishonour, 1869–1969’, Research Paper, National Centre for First Nations Governance/Centre National pour la Gouvernance des Premières Nations, May, http://fngovernance.org/ncfng_research/milloy.pdf. ———. 2017. A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System, 1879 to 1986. 1999, 2nd ed. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press. Mochama, Vicky. 2017. ‘Canada Will Party While Indigenous Kids Are Denied Services’, Metro News Toronto, 8 January, www.metronews.ca/views/metro-­views/2017/01/08/ canada-­will-­party-­while-­indigenous-­kids-­are-­denied-­services.html. Monkman, Leonard. 2017. ‘Sixties Scoop Compensation Excludes Métis, Non-­ status Indigenous Peoples’, CBC News, 6 October, www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/ sixties-­scoop-­settlement-­excluded-­1.4344355. Neu, Dean and Richard Therrien. 2003. Accounting for Genocide: Canada’s Bureaucratic Assault on Aboriginal People. Black Point, NS: Fernwood Publishing. Obomsawin, Alanis, Director. 1986. Richard Cardinal: Cry from a Diary of a Métis Child. National Film Board. 29 minutes. O’Keefe, Derrick. 2009. ‘Harper in Denial at G20: Canada Has “No History of Colonialism” ’, Rabble.ca, 28 September, http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/derrick/2009/09/ harper-­denial-­g20-­canada-­has-­no-­history-­colonialism. Palmater, Pamela. 2011. ‘Stretched Beyond Human Limits: Death by Poverty in First Nations’, Canadian Review of Social Policy, 65–66: 112–127, https://crsp.journals.yorku. ca/index.php/crsp/article/view/35220/32057. ———. 2012. ‘Flanagan National Petroleum Ownership Act: Stop Big Oil Land Grab’, Indigenous Nationhood, 7 August, http://indigenousnationhood.blogspot.ca/2012/08/ flanagan-­national-­petroleum-­ownership.html. ———. 2015. Indigenous Nationhood: Empowering Grassroots Citizens. Halifax and Winnipeg: Fernwood Publishing. Perkel, Colin, Canadian Press. 2018a. ‘Fight Over Secret Residential School Documents Back in Court’, Global News, 12 Marc, https://globalnews.ca/news/4077544/ st-­annes-­residential-­school-­documents-­court/. ———. 2018b. ‘Residential School Victims Lose Document Fight; Appeal Court Sides with Ottawa’, National Post, 10 May, http://nationalpost.com/pmn/news-­pmn/canada-­ news-­pmn/residential-­school-­victims-­lose-­document-­fight-­appeal-­court-­sides-­with-­ ottawa.

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Reading, Charlotte, PhD and Fred Wien, PhD. 2013. Health Inequalities and Social Determinants of Aboriginal Peoples’ Health. Prince George, BC: National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health, www.ccnsa-­nccah.ca/docs/determinants/RPT-­HealthInequalities-­ Reading-­Wien-­EN.pdf. Regan, Paulette. 2011. Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth Tellings, and Reconciliation in Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Ed. René Dussault, Georges Erasmus et al. 5 vols., November 1996, Christian Aboriginal Infrastructure Developments, http://caid. ca/RepRoyCommAborigPple.html. Ross, Malcolm (ed). 1960. Poets of the Confederation. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart. Roy, Arundhati. 2004. ‘What We Call Peace Is Little Better Than Capitulation to a Corporate Coup’, Excerpt from the 2004 Sydney Peace Prize Lecture, Sydney Morning Herald, Common Dreams, 3 November, www.commondreams.org/views/2004/11/03/ what-­we-­call-­peace-­little-­better-­capitulation-­corporate-­coup. Royal Commission on the Donald Marshall, Jr. Prosecution: Digest of Findings and Recommendations. Chief Justice T. Alexander Hickman et al. Halifax, 1989, www.novascotia.ca/ just/marshall_inquiry/_docs/Royal%20Commission%20on%20the%20Donald%20 Marshall%20Prosecution_findings.pdf. Rutty, Christopher, PhD and Sue C. Sullivan. This Is Public Health: A  Canadian History. Canadian Public Health Association, www.cpha.ca/sites/default/files/assets/history/ book/history-­book-­print_all_e.pdf. Sabry, Omar. 2015. Torture of Afghan Detainees: Canada’s Alleged Complicity and the Need for a Public Inquiry. Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives/Rideau Institute on International Affairs, September, www.rideauinstitute.ca/wp-­content/uploads/2015/09/ Afghan-­Detainees-­002.pdf. Saul, John Ralston. 2009. A Fair Country: Telling Truths About Canada. 2008; rpt. Toronto: Penguin Canada. Schwartz, Daniel. 2015. ‘Truth and Reconciliation Commission: By the Numbers’, CBC News, 2 June, www.cbc.ca/news/aboriginal/truth-­and-­reconciliation-­commission-­by­the-­numbers-­1.3096185. Scott, Duncan Campbell. Deputy Superintendent General of Indian Affairs. ‘Testimony Before the Special Committee of the House of Commons Examining the Indian Act Amendments of 1920’, Library and Archives Canada, Record Group 10, vol. 6810, file 470–2–3, volume 7. ———. 1910. Letter of Duncan Campbell Scott to D. MacKay: DCS to BC Indian Agent Gen. Major D. Mackay. 12 April. Department of Indian Affairs Archives, RG 10 series. Quoted by Wayne K. Spear, “Indian Residential Schools Were ‘Really Detrimental to the Development of the Human Being’.” ———. 2000. Duncan Campbell Scott: Addresses, Essays, and Reviews. Ed. Leslie Ritchie. 2 vols., University of Western Ontario: Canadian Poetry Press, www.canadianpoetry.ca/ confederation/DCScott/address_essays_reviews/vol1/indian_affairs_1867_1912.html. Sinclair, Murray. 2018. ‘Sen. Murray Sinclair: Our Children Do Not Set Out in Life to Fail’, Maclean’s Magazine, 11 January, www.macleans.ca/opinion/sen-­murray-­sinclair­our-­children-­do-­not-­set-­out-­in-­life-­to-­fail/. Snelgrove, Corey. 2013. ‘Rex Murphy and the Frames of Settler Colonial War’, Corey Snelgrove: Musings, 21 October, http://coreysnelgrove.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/rex-­murphy­and-­the-­frames-­of-­settler-­colonial-­war/. Spady, Samantha Helen. 2013. Attawaspiskat: The Politics of Emergency. Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (University of Toronto) MA Thesis, https://tspace.library.utoronto. ca/bitstream/1807/42649/1/Spady_Samantha_H_201311_MA_Thesis.pdf.

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Spear, Wayne K. 2010. ‘Indian Residential Schools Were ‘Really Detrimental to the Development of the Human Being’, Wayne K. Spear, 10 March, https://waynekspear. com/2010/03/10/indian-­residential-­schools-­2/. Sprague, Jeb. 2012. Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti. New York: Monthly Review Press. Sproule-­Jones, M. 1996. ‘Crusading for the Forgotten: Dr. Peter Bryce, Public Health, and Prairie Native Residential Schools’, Canadian Bulletin of Medical History, 13 (2): 199–224. Starblanket, Tamara. 2018a. Suffer the Little Children: Genocide, Indigenous Nations and the Canadian State. Atlanta: Clarity Press. ———. 2018b. ‘ “Kill the Indian in the Child”: Genocide in International Law’, in Irene Watson (ed), Indigenous Peoples as Subjects of International Law, pp. 171–199. New York and Abingdon: Routledge. Sunderland, Elsie and Trevor Bell. 2016. ‘Letter: The Precautionary Principle, Methylmercury and Muskrat Falls’, St. John’s Telegram, 17 August, updated 30 September 2016, www. thetelegram.com/opinion/letter-­to-­the-­editor/letter-­the-­precautionary-­principle-­ methylmercury-­and-­muskrat-­falls-­136819/. ‘TABLE of the Aboriginal Population of Canada [. . .] the Whole Referring to the Year 1871’, Introduction to Censuses of Canada, 1665 to 1871, Statistics Canada, www.statcan. gc.ca/pub/98-­187-­x/2000001/4198819-­eng.pdf. Talaga, Tanya. 2017. Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City. Concord, ON: Anansi. ‘TB and Aboriginal People’, History of Public Health, Canadian Public Health Association/Association Canadienne de Santé Publique, www.cpha.ca/tb-­and-­aboriginal-­people. Thornton, Russell. 1987. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Titley, Brian. A Narrow Vision: Duncan Campbell Scott and the Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1986. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. 2015a. Canada’s Residential Schools. The History, Part 1: Origins to 1939. The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 1. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-­Queen’s University Press. ———. 2015b. Canada’s Residential Schools. The History, Part 2: 1939 to 2000. The Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, Volume 1. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-­Queen’s University Press. ———. 2015c. Honouring the Truth, Reconciling for the Future: Summary of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Ottawa: Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Findings/Exec_ Summary_2015_05_31_web_o.pdf. ‘Tuberculosis Death Rate in High-­burden Countries Worldwide in 2016’, Statista: The Statistics Portal, www.statista.com/statistics/509760/rate-­of-­tuberculosis-­mortality-­in­high-­burden-­countries/. Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 1948. United Nations Organisation. https://www. un.org/en/universal-­declaration-­human-­r ights/ United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Adopted 13 September 2007. United Nations, www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf. Vowel, Chelsea. [Âpihtawikosisân]. 2013. ‘The Often-­ignored Facts About Elsipogtog’, Toronto Star, 14 November, www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/11/14/the_ oftenignored_facts_about_elsipogtog.html. ———. 2016. Indigenous Writes: A  Guide to First Nations, Métis  & Inuit Issues in Canada. Winnipeg: HighWater Press.

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Wattam, Jocelyn. 2016. ‘The Legacy of Duncan Campbell Scott: More Than Just a Canadian Poet’, First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada, July, https://fncaringsociety.com/sites/default/files/Duncan%20Campbell%20Scott%20Information%20 Sheet_FINAL.pdf. ‘White Paper, Red Paper’, Ch. 8 of Stolen Lives: The Indigenous Peoples of Canada and the Indian Residential Schools, www.facinghistory.org/stolen-­lives-­indigenous-­peoples-­canada-­and­indian-­residential-­schools/chapter-­8/white-­paper-­red-­paper. Wolfe, Patrick. 2006. ‘Settler Colonialism and the Elimination of the Native’, Journal of Genocide Research, 8 (4), December: 387–409, www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/ 14623520601056240?src=recsys. Woo, Grace Li Xiu. 2003. ‘Canada’s Forgotten Founders: The Modern Significance of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Application for Membership in the League of Nations’, LGD: Law, Social Justice & Global Development (1), https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/ elj/lgd/2003_1/woo. Woolford, Andrew and Jeff Benvenuto. 2015. ‘Canada and Colonial Genocide’, Journal of Genocide Research, 17 (4): Special Issue on Canada and Colonial Genocide, 373–390, www. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14623528.2015.1096580.

6 CONSTITUTIONAL GEOGRAPHIES AND CARTOGRAPHIES OF IMPUNITY Human rights and adivasis/tribes in contemporary India Kalpana Kannabiran1 Can you tell me, we women being mothers, what kind of future we are giving to our children? Are we not passing on our past as their future? Have we undertaken these innumerable treks to do just that? (Santhal woman to anthropologist Narayan Banerjee 1982. Quoted in Mazumdar 2016: 179)

1 Introduction The Report of the High-­Level Committee on Socio-­Economic, Health and Educational Status of Tribal Communities of India (2014) details the situation of adivasi/indigenous communities in India: Scheduled Tribes (ST), de-­notified tribes and particularly vulnerable tribal groups. The report sets out the terrain for a consideration of human rights of indigenous/adivasis/tribal/aboriginal communities in India.2 Sixty per cent of the forest area in the country is in tribal areas. Fifty-­one of the 58 districts with forest cover greater than 67 per cent are tribal districts. Three states – Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand – account for 70 per cent of India’s coal reserves, 80 per cent of its high-­g rade iron ore, 60 per cent of its bauxite and almost 100 per cent of its chromite reserves. Forty per cent of those displaced by dams are tribal peoples. A look at violent conflict, whether in Schedule V States or in Schedule VI States, shows that ‘the state is involved in all of these conflicts in some way or another.’ Not surprisingly, the areas where these wars are being waged (with the state as party) are tribal areas with rich mineral reserves. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) guarantees impunity to state perpetrators of extrajudicial murder and assault, and there are a large number of peaceful mass movements against the appropriation of tribal homelands by the state and by corporations (Xaxa Report 2014).

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The definition of what is a tribe, and who is recognized as belonging to a ‘Scheduled Tribe,’ far from being a matter of academic and historical interest alone, is critical to the application of human rights standards and specific constitutional protections – rights to equality, non-­discrimination, life and liberty and the guarantee of autonomy in governance under Schedules V and VI of the Indian constitution, for instance.3 While most of these protections are available to groups named in the Constitution (Schedule Tribes) Order 1950, there are tribal communities that fall within the categories of Scheduled Castes (SC) and Other Backward Classes, and some that do not fall into any of these categories (Munshi 2012; Radhakrishna 2016; Sundar 2016). Around 91  percent of the Scheduled Tribes live in rural areas; while about 9 percent of all Hindus are ST, close to 87 percent of Scheduled Tribes declare themselves as Hindu, 33 percent of all Christians are ST and close to 79 percent of ‘other religions’ are ST, the last an indication of the strong presence of autochthonous religions among tribes/adivasis (Deshpande 2015: 5). The Scheduled Tribes report ‘owning’ larger amounts of land when compared to SC, which might be suggestive of an adivasi understanding of access to forests as ownership; however, this coexists with sharp disparities in monthly per capita expenditure (MCPE), with MPCE for Scheduled Tribes being the lowest among all social groups (Rs. 813). In general, according to Deshpande, indicators of ST standard of living show that they are the most marginalized among social groups with clear and persistent disparities. Against this background, this chapter presents a framework for approaching the field of human rights with reference to adivasi communities in India. It opens a window to understanding adivasi/indigenous rights in India by introducing arguments around the law in relation to the experience of being adivasi in India.

2 First principles: Constitutionalism, human rights and sovereignty The definition of what is a tribe, and who is recognized as belonging to a ‘Scheduled Tribe,’ far from being a matter of academic and historical interest alone, is critical to the application of human rights standards and specific constitutional protections – rights to equality, non-­discrimination, life and liberty, and the guarantee of autonomy in governance under Schedules V and VI of the Indian constitution, for instance. We begin therefore with the constitution. The Constitution of India, in a key fundamental rights protection, Article 15 on the right against discrimination, in clause 15(1) makes an analogous reference to tribe – race and place of birth – recognizing that discrimination against tribes takes the form of racial discrimination and territorial distinctiveness (Kannabiran 2012). Article 19 of the Constitution of India is commonly understood, through text and case law, as a provision that protects freedom of speech, expression, assembly, association, movement, residence and calling.4 The first clause of Article 19 reads as follows: 19(1) All citizens shall have the right (a) To freedom of speech and

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expression; (b) To assemble peaceably and without arms; (c) To form associations or unions; (d) To move freely throughout the territory of India; (e) To reside and settle in any part of the territory of India; (f) omitted; and (g) To practise any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business. Clauses 19 (2) to (4) set out the reasonable restrictions to speech, assembly and association in the interests of public morality, decency and integrity and sovereignty of the state. These aspects and their restrictions are what figure most often in animated debates around Article 19. Clause 5 of Article 19 reads as follows: 19 (5) Nothing in sub clauses (d) and (e) of the said clause shall affect the operation of any existing law in so far as it imposes, or prevent the State from making any law imposing, reasonable restrictions on the exercise of any of the rights conferred by the said sub clauses either in the interests of the general public or for the protection of the interests of any Scheduled Tribe (emphasis added). In other words, an important part of Article 19 protections have to do specifically with the protection of interests of Scheduled Tribes (Clause 5), as distinct from other marginalized groups, through limitations on the right to freedom of movement [sub-­clause 1(d)] and the right to freedom of residence [sub-­clause 1(d)]. This little-­cited fundamental rights protection for the Scheduled Tribes in India serves as my point of departure for examining the larger question of human rights and indigenous communities/tribes in contemporary India.5 Human rights are fairly well understood and delineated in great complexity with reference to regions, countries, states and peoples – notably with reference to ‘territories.’6 Broadly, what does the human rights framework, as commonly understood today, consist of? The United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights serves as a useful point of departure. Inherent dignity and inalienable rights of all persons are constitutive of freedom, justice and peace; freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear; life, liberty and security of person; recognition as a person before the law; freedom from slavery, servitude, inhuman/degrading treatment and discrimination; freedom from arbitrary arrest, detention and exile; entitlement to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal in the determination of one’s rights and obligations; the right to the presumption of innocence in a criminal trial; the right against arbitrary interference with privacy, family, home; the right to property, which importantly for the present purposes has two facets – the right to own property and the right not to be deprived of property; freedom of thought, conscience, religion, opinion and expression; the right to peaceful assembly and association; the right to participate in government; the right to social security and the entitlement to realization of social, economic and cultural rights indispensable for one’s dignity and the free development of one’s personality; the right to work, which includes protection against unemployment and provision of social protection; the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-­being; the right to education; finally, Article 29(2): ‘In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society’ (emphasis added).

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It is important, even as we set out, to take note of Talal Asad’s insistence on the need to recognize ‘the complex historical terrain on which human rights have travelled’ from Christendom to the present times of neoliberalism. Especially problematic, in his view, is the fact that responsibility for safeguarding human rights is vested in individual sovereign states, whose jurisdiction is circumscribed by their national economy. As a result, harm wilfully perpetrated on the economy of one country by another, notwithstanding the resulting irreparable damage and suffering, does not constitute a violation of human rights of those affected in large numbers by such harm (Asad 2009). ‘As with all cultural material,’ he observes, ‘the “culture of law” is soaked in complex inequalities of power. And as with all law, it is necessarily dependent on violence. “Human rights culture” therefore is not simply a persuasive and reasoned language that comes down from a transcendent sphere to protect and redeem individuals. It articulates inequalities in social life everywhere and at all times’ (Asad 2000). Foregrounding universal individual rights might echo the tenor of neoliberalism or, worse still, pave the way for the harnessing of human rights as ‘swords of empire,’7 as Harvey cautions us, creating a hierarchy of primary rights (to private property and profit) and derivative rights (to the United Nations charter). Stepping away from this is imperative, both to be able to focus on the ‘diversity of political-­economic circumstances and cultural practices’ across the world (Harvey 2005: 178) and, significantly, to decide on ‘which universals and what rights should be invoked in particular situations. . . [and] how universal principles and conceptions of rights should be constructed’ (Harvey 2005: 179). Here, the question before us is, How do we weave together the rich and fraught history of adivasi experience in a manner that leads us to a more nuanced construction of human rights itself? What are the possible ways of extricating ‘human rights as justice’ from its entanglement in webs of subjugation and disentitlement that prompt Asad to pose the question, Is human rights discourse the only language to talk about justice? (Asad 2000). While a detailed discussion of this intense debate is beyond the scope of the present exercise focussed on adivasi communities, it is possible to consider ‘the conditions for constitutionally domesticating the circulation of power in complex societies’ through an interreading of Habermas and Ambedkar. Habermas’ delineation of the relationship between communicative reason, deliberative democracy, constitutional patriotism and popular sovereignty that emerge from communicative reason and deliberative democracy (Habermas 1996) and Ambedkar’s insistence on constitutional morality offer for us a possibility of examining and understanding afresh the question of human rights that confronts the lifeworlds of adivasis/tribes in contemporary India. Upendra Baxi (2008) points us to another possibility  – constitutional insurgency  – through an interreading of Ambedkar (who posits a contradiction between politics and socio-­economic life marked by discrimination) with Antonio Negri (who speaks of the dialectic between the constituted and the constituent power of the multitude incessantly struggling to create new worlds). The concepts that circulate in this interreading  – self-­determination, autonomy, sovereignty, moral orders, justice, constitutional insurgencies and human

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rights – and the form and content of their articulation help us move away from the focus on the sovereign state of which Asad warns us to explore the fields of popular sovereignty and moral self-­determination at the level of a constitutional collective – the Scheduled Tribes, or an international community of belonging, for instance ‘indigenous peoples.’ This exploration may hold possibilities for a more sustained interrogation of power and arbitrary/capricious rule, especially under neoliberal regimes. If we agree that ‘[a] constitution is a political document which gives legal content to a set of pre-­existing rights, secured politically by people’s struggles’ (Kannabiran 2003: 41), the significance of popular sovereignty is immediately established. Baxi observes that, notwithstanding its roots in Christendom, human rights under the multi-­religious Indian constitution is distinctive in several ways – for one, the ‘religious freedoms’ of the majority Hindu religion are significantly restricted (notably, through the constitutional ban on untouchability), but also (and importantly for our present purposes) there is a full recognition of the collective rights of religious minorities and social groups that are subject to systemic, structural discrimination (2008: 19). Closely related to this is Xaxa’s pertinent observation that Christianity and missionary work in India had brought tribes within the ambit of congregational life, spilling over the boundaries of individual tribes to a wider identity – initially religious but soon spreading to an associational life based on a recognition of common histories of exploitation and oppression – and stirring a self-­conscious assertion of an adivasi identity (2016: 44). We return here, therefore, to associational freedoms under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution which enable the expression of popular sovereignty, constitutional patriotism, constitutional morality and significantly, constitutional insurgencies. It is this dense nesting of human rights principles that constitutes transformative constitutionalism. I will attempt from this point onwards to address these questions with reference to ‘concrete particulars’ (which will help us understand events and issues in practical terms) in relation to adivasi communities (Delaney 2003). The constitutional framework in India reaffirms these inalienable rights, providing specific justiciable, fundamental rights protections to the Scheduled Tribes as a territorially defined, internally diverse, constitutional collectivity. To return to the opening observation on Article 19 protections under the Indian Constitution for the Scheduled Tribes, there are, I  suggest, strong reasons for mapping human rights of adivasi communities on a distinctive terrain, even while keeping sight of the core principles around which such rights may be articulated or indeed affirmed. The questions of autonomy, popular sovereignty and transformative constitutionalism (encompassing constitutional patriotism, constitutional morality and constitutional insurgency) are the wayfinders in this terrain. The importance of meaning can scarcely be understated in this context. There is a rich wealth of work on indigeneity, the distinctiveness of adivasi lifeworlds and production systems, the incorporation of tribal peoples into wage labour (rural and urban), and the occupation of tribal homelands and displacement of tribal communities (indeed, their decimation) through state run development projects and repressive statecraft (see especially Radhakrishna 2016; Sundar 2016).

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There is also work on stories, storytelling, languages (and aphasia, or the loss of language, to echo Devy) and performative traditions in indigenous communities. The tradition–modernity dichotomy has been interrogated both through the assertion of indigenous modernity which preserves traditions and grows them – a process in which collective memory is critical (Halbwachs 1992), and through the critique of Eurocentric, Western ideas of modernity that mask genocidal violence and annihilate difference. The question of human rights and indigenous communities will be examined in this chapter through a close look at vast, interlinked landscapes and critical geographies of adivasi experience. Is there an alternative way of conceptualizing human rights through the ‘creation or recreation of substantive and open democratic governance structures’ (Harvey 2005: 176)? In opening the field of human rights and its application to adivasi/tribe/indigenous communities, however, the major limitation is a definitional one, where enumeration in the list is necessary for application of specific protections – i.e., special constitutional safeguards and special legislation. Within the broader expanse of human rights, however, it is possible to argue for the ‘commonality of conflicted lives’ (to borrow from Sundar (2016: 7) to articulate rights for communities similarly placed but governmentally distributed across categories – as, for instance, with de-­notified tribes not classified as Scheduled Tribes, and ‘indigenous peoples’ (Xaxa 2016).

3  Territory and geographies of adivasi experience [T]erritoriality [is] a social (and political, economic, cultural) process that unfolds not only in place but through time. It thereby allows us to more easily see territories as social products. And learning to see through territory is valuable in learning to understand the world: the world as a whole and the worlds within which our lives are lived. (Delaney 2005, Introduction)

Tribal pasts in India are extremely complex and multi-­layered, as Guha demonstrates through his close examination of mediaeval South Asia that rigorously asserts the need to ‘banish social and ecological stasis from the woodlands of the world’; he maps for us the ‘diverse socio-­political trajectories by which various communities [have] arrived at their modern situations’ (Guha 1999: 201). This is a valuable caveat, especially at a time when flattening and homogenizing narratives of ‘indigeneity’ might undermine the complexity of the fields of human rights for diverse tribal communities, each with its own past that lingers on, shaping collective memory and the geography of experience: ‘But we Santhals are fools, aren’t we? All of us adivasis are fools. Down the years, down generations, the Diku have taken advantage of our foolishness. Tell me if I am wrong. I only said, “We adivasis will not dance anymore.” What is wrong with that?’ (Shekhar 2015). The figure of the ‘diku’ (non-adivasi/outsider) crystallizes the danger of dispossession in adivasi homelands in Schedule V Areas, and yet, in the context of Schedule

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VI Areas, Baruah cautions us to the dissonances embedded in ‘the indigenous-­ outsider binary’ (Baruah 2008: 16). Questions of human rights are embedded in this complex multi-­layered porosity of inter tribe/inter group relations. The criminalization of approximately 200 nomadic, peripatetic and foraging and petty trading communities under the Criminal Tribes Acts of the British government asserted colonial territorial power through surveillance, the use of police force and state custody, and, significantly, brought into play notions of proprietorial control by the state of commodities, trading, access to lands and forests, and the freedom of movement and autonomy of livelihoods (Radhakrishna 2008). The continuing repercussions of this move by the colonial government are visible in the case of the custodial torture and murder of Budhan Sabar in West Bengal in the late 1990s.8 Appropriation of land by the state has been historically tied to the appropriation of livelihoods and collective loss of liberty for adivasi communities – both in a more general sense, as well as in the specific sense of incarceration and paramilitary control. Sundar draws our attention to reports of jails in Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh that were packed beyond capacity with adivasi prisoners – Chhattisgarh, for instance, had an occupancy rate of 252 per cent of capacity – with adivasis jailed for minor forest offences unable to pay bail or preventively detained for being ‘Maoists’ in areas of counter insurgency operations by the police and paramilitary forces that specifically targeted adivasis (Sundar 2016: 15).

3A  Adivasi women The immiserization of adivasi communities and their precarity in exploitative labour arrangements and intermittent migration (which has its beginnings in colonial policy and rule) has specific impacts on women. The lack of traditional restrictions on women’s labour and mobility perhaps accounts for the preponderance of adivasi women in the migrant labour force historically. However, Mazumdar (2016) observes that the circular, short-­term pattern of adivasi women’s migration severely constricts their freedom by drawing them into regimes of accumulation with the harshest conditions of labour mortgage and recruitment for the harshest forms of manual labour. Kishwar’s discussion of Ho women of Singhbhum is particularly illuminating. Their vulnerability to sexual abuse at these insecure worksites, and their vulnerability to abuse by dikus in their homelands increasingly under occupation by forest guards, police and settlers, aggravates their vulnerability within their own communities  – witnessed in ‘the loss of usufructuary rights of tribal women due to rape by dikus’ (Kishwar 1982). This continues to be a major pre-­ occupation across adivasi communities in relation to property, usufruct/ownership rights over land, access to education and public employment and political representation today. Historically, the construction of the adivasi woman’s sexuality has been deeply problematic – right from renowned colonial anthropologists to iconic leaders of revolutions and lesser beings, ‘working’ in tribal areas has for non-­tribals meant co-­habiting with tribal women, or taking tribal ‘wives.’ Access to tribal areas has been mediated through sexual access to tribal women  – the exploitation of

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tribal women by non-­tribal settlers in the agency areas being a well-­worn strategy for dispossessing entire communities. Apart from the multifarious ways in which adivasi women are trapped routinely in webs of dispossession – from land, labour, ancestral rights, sexual and reproductive autonomy, for instance – their vulnerability to collective sexual assault, especially as part of state counter-­insurgency offensives in situations of conflict, needs close examination (Human Rights Forum 2013). The beginnings of impunity and custodial sexual assault – with no reprieve from courts –were visible with Mathura in Maharashtra in the late 1970s.9 We see this repeated in later years, especially in Chhattisgarh and Manipur – Thangjam Manorama and Soni Sori embodying human suffering and the feminist resistance against the realities of state impunity (Kannabiran and Menon 2007). The armed might of the state silences and stigmatizes, both. It silences, literally by eliminating those that speak; it silences by disallowing voice through repression; and it silences by stigmatizing and criminalizing survivors, as we witnessed in the case of Soni Sori. However, in attempting to understand impunity in relation to adivasi communities, while being mindful of the particular, it is important to draw in an understanding of the material contexts of sexual assault. The experience of harm and suffering is closely tied to larger (hope-­ filled) questions of accountability and justice in the face of chronic, aggravated and cumulative dispossession.

3B  The question of land The single most recurrent theme in accounts of adivasi struggles, rights, assertions and counter assertions is ‘land’ – simultaneously, forest, grazing lands, homelands, villages (habitations/hamlets/settlements), commons, homes and territory (with demarcated boundaries and explicit jurisdictional and juridical characteristics). The land is also mobile with the pastoral and other nomadic, the peripatetic and the foraging communities moving back and forth, re-­drawing their territories and intermittently settling into sedentary rhythms for varying lengths of time. In inhabiting land, there are specific relationships that are constructed between territory, identity and experience – lifeworlds that are the subject of collective memory, recalled in specific forms of ritual, kinship practice and forms of worship. There are two aspects of territoriality that merit specific mention at this point: residence and mobility. What does the term ‘village’ signify? In arid areas, ‘a few adobe homesteads near a source of water,’ in mountain terrain, ‘a clutch of wooden homes clinging to the slopes,’ or the pastoral Bakkarwal and other peripatetic communities might spend the whole year in tents (Rao and Casimir 2003: 14). An oft-­forgotten reality is that villages are places that are regularly served by peripatetic entrepreneurs and nomadic specialists who have a keen sense of every aspect of village life in the villages they traverse seasonally. And yet, Berland observes, ‘there is no village study that either systematically records the visits of peripatetic artisans and entertainers, or calculates the impact, if any, of their transactions on the village economy or social organization’ (Berland 2003: 108).

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An important part of the relations to land has been the inherent right of mobile, nomadic communities to move without restraint  – mobile territoriality. The description of the Koravas offered by Meena Radhakrishna is striking. An itinerant trading community, the Koravas traded in grain, salt, cattle and bamboo between interior districts and the coastal areas in the mid-­19th century, reaching stocks to far-­flung areas on bullocks and donkeys (Radhakrishna 2008: 7–8). Several forest tribes were linked to the outside world through barter relations with peripatetic communities, and through other contact with rural and urban agglomerations (Rao and Casimir 2003: 13–15) – the Chenchus of Nallamalla, for instance, who were traditional guides, palanquin bearers and wayfinders for Hindu pilgrims passing through the Nallamalla forest, dotted as it is by pilgrimage sites. So the forest itself had boundaries that were porous, the people dwelling in the forest carrying the boundaries with them in their incessant travels. This helps us see the forest as constitutive of the constitutional guarantee of right to life for the largest section of adivasi communities. The dependence of adivasi communities on the forest is substantial, with both shifting and settled agriculture closely tied to access to forests. The actual area under shifting cultivation is estimated to be about 22.78 lakh hectares and the number of families drawing sustenance from this is close to 6.07 lakhs. The centrality of the forest to every aspect of adivasi collective life makes it ‘the leitmotiv of their material and spiritual existence’ (Munshi 2012: 4). In thinking through the category of tribe, it is important to bear in mind the diversity of groups that are clustered in this administrative classification – diversity in terms of lifeworlds, as well as diversity of politics. Sundar reminds us that political strategies deployed by STs range from armed struggle, to mass mobilization around displacement by big dams and mining projects, to mass organizations campaigning around forest rights and food sovereignty; their politics also vary from being footsoldiers of hindutva (as in Kandhamal and Chota Udaipur) to being part of state-­sponsored militias, like the salwa judum in Chhattisgarh, Shanti Sena in Odisha or Jharkhandi Sendra (which is politics and livelihood both), to focussing on asserting customs and forging spaces (that may be gendered in problematic ways – particularly on the question of women’s position within these new resurgent formations) (Sundar 2016: 3–4; Ramdas 2014). A cursory look at the geographies of adivasi experience points us towards possibly framing the territorial imperative quite differently from adivasi perspectives. Devy draws our attention to the fact that adivasi art constructs space and imagery in specific ways, where verbal and pictorial space is demarcated by an extremely flexible framing – the lines between art and non-­art are blurred and porous and ‘Adivasi paintings merge with their own living space as if the two are no different at all’ (2006: 71). More importantly, as Delaney observes, ‘cultures create and “produce” territories . . . through the process of reproducing and re-­creating themselves.’ In other words, ‘territories are not simple artifacts by any means. Rather, they are fundamentally constitutive of the social orders whose features they express’ (Delaney 2005, ‘The Social Life of Territory’).

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We witness one such production of territory in the delineation of autonomous areas under Schedules V and VI of the Constitution of India. Although the form is borrowed from the colonial classification into partially excluded areas and excluded areas, the delineation under the constitution provides for autonomy in government, adivasi/tribe representation in government either in autonomous councils in Schedule VI Areas or the Tribes Advisory Councils in Schedule V Areas, freedom from interference in possession of land, and freedom from usury and indebtedness. It also stipulates that the boundaries of the scheduled area may be altered only through presidential notification. The relationship between a scheduled area and Scheduled Tribes residing in villages in the scheduled area is an intimate one. The constitutional geography is critical to the definition and identity of the tribes therein, and becomes the basis for their assertion of rights at every level. Although it is true that excessive power is vested in governors and the neoliberal state has folded government into land acquisition and resource extraction under armed guard, making the exception a permanent condition of rule in scheduled areas; and although it is also true that new juridical categories like ‘encroachers’ are invented to empty forests of resistance to dispossession, the constitutional geography set out in Schedules V and VI is sealed by the non-­negotiable fundamental right protection in Article 19, quoted in the beginning of this chapter. The right to personal liberty in this context takes on a distinct collective meaning for the Scheduled Tribes, setting these protections a class apart from the general delineation of the individual right to personal liberty under a liberal interpretation. The conditions of interference that are impermissible are set out alongside the delineation of territory: tribe and territoriality are inextricably linked, such that ‘[w]e should refuse the idea that claiming the “right to stay put” is about “traditional stasis” ’ (Butler and Athanasiou 2013: 24).

4 Dispossession We enter the discussion of ‘dispossession’ in the context of human rights of adivasi communities through the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, Section 3 (1), which states: Whoever, not being a member of . . . a Scheduled Tribe. . . (iv) wrongfully occupies or cultivates any land owned by, or allotted to . . . a member of . . . a Scheduled Tribe or gets the land allotted to him transferred; . . . (v) wrongfully dispossesses a member of . . . a Scheduled Tribe from his land. . . xv) forces or causes a member of . . . a Scheduled Tribe to leave his house, village or other place of residence, . . . Shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months but which may extend to five years and with fine.

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The significance of this statutory provision lies in the fact that it captures the everyday, disaggregated accretion of adivasi dispossession – through the wrongful occupation/usurpation/‘transfer’/usfructuary rights of lands in scheduled areas to individual non-­tribal occupants.10 Although the meaning of dispossession – and through it of possession – is often flattened to construct possession as ownership of private property under capitalism, the distinction between ownership and possession is at the heart of contestations around adivasi territoriality and the regimes of dispossession that bind adivasi communities down. Rao and Casimir set out a distinction between ownership and access, by pointing out that in pre-­colonial times what was important was access to land when one needed it, suggesting that ownership of land was less directly linked to power and status (2003: 16–17). While the neoliberal turn, to use Harvey’s expression, does mark the inaugural moment in the accumulation of dispossession (2005), regimes of dispossession in tribal homelands in India are marked by histories of occupation under different state regimes and by dominant social groups on the sub-­continent. As Levien observes (2015: 147), ‘the concept of regimes of dispossession encourages us to see dispossession as a form of coercive redistribution that states use to facilitate different forms of accumulation and class interests in different periods.’ Further, significantly for our elaboration of human rights, he suggests that because it is a political process mediated by states, it can be stopped through non-­compliance. While Levien applies this concept to land under capitalism, I suggest that it is useful to understand the adivasi experience through the concept of regimes of dispossession, where territoriality (as distinct from land) is at the core and geographies of experience become intelligible through the prism of territory (Delaney 2005). For adivasis more than any other group, the life experience of entire communities is intimately connected to their spatial organization – whether homelands or the mobile territory of peripatetic communities (several of which are Scheduled Tribes) – and hence the significance of mapping geographies of experience (Delaney 2005). Dispossession itself has been complex and layered, homogenizing livelihoods and lifeworlds while de-­legitimizing them. The most common description of foragers and hunter-­gatherers, for instance, has been that they have lived in isolation. Yet, there is ample evidence that for centuries, foraging communities have lived in contact with rural and urban agglomerations (Rao and Casimir 2003: 13); studies have shown that very few nomadic communities subsist solely on foraging – a significantly larger number sustain themselves in a mixed economy of foraging and trading in wild produce (Rao and Casimir 2003: 23–24). Significantly for our purposes, there is evidence of shifts that communities have made from cultivation to foraging and peripatetic livelihoods consequent on displacement, thus challenging the linear narratives of tribal development and progress from nomadism to sedentarism (Rao and Casimir 2003: 22–25). Social relations have been at the centre of the stigmatisation of tribal communities. In the case of the foragers, for instance, forager/non-­forager relations are characterised by a ‘suspicious subservience met by contemptuous paternalism’ (Rao

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and Casimir 2003: 23) – with foragers forced to reckon with a society that treats them as almost subhuman. Social humiliation is enmeshed in dispossession, as in the case of the Bhil, who turned foragers and bow-­and-­arrow hunters into sedentary, landless labourers and impoverished plough cultivators; or the Challa Yanadi, who were thrown into pauperized wage labour and the sale of forest produce to government agencies from foraging after their eviction from Sriharikota (Rao and Casimir 2003: 24). Dispossession and extraction of forest produce and mineral resources are closely interlinked. The earlier category through which this was understood was exploitation – exploitation of land and underground resources and exploitation of tribals who lived on the ground that was being emptied out around and beneath them (Guha 2012: 45; Xaxa 2012). An important aspect of research on the question of land and dispossession in relation to tribal communities is the argument that while the state and the market view land as a commodity, in the tribal lifeworld, land has a complex material-­symbolic-­ spiritual-­historical significance that militates against commodification (Ekka 2012; Fenelon & Hall 2008, 1876) and the forest is ‘the leitmotiv of their material and spiritual existence’ (Munshi 2012: 4). Further, for peoples who live in a symbiotic relationship with land, water, forests, habitats and habitations, the death of water is a living, continuous dispossession – the conversion of ‘living water’ to stagnant, ‘dead water’ that becomes a death trap for life-­forms that depend on it: ‘What does it mean for the health of a region’s water to dam the circulation of rivers over land?’ (Padel and Das 2016: 226). And yet it is this very intractability that governments have sought to defeat – a necessary condition for the dispossession that follows. The ‘grammar of territory’, to borrow from Delaney (2005), is irredeemably and profoundly altered through processes of ‘simplification’ and ‘standardization’ (Scott 1998). In Kumar’s (2012) view, this was effected through three changes: commercial over subsistence use (accumulation of dispossession, to echo Harvey [2005]); de-­legitimization of communities (cultures of dispossession, to echo Bhandar and Bhandar [2016]); and unrestrained resource exploitation (regimes of dispossession, to echo Levien [2015]). This new grammar is introduced through bureaucratic writing. The ascendancy of written records over orality, speech and practices of sociality functions to shrink access and negate entire modes of thought and relationality between peoples, communities and environments/habitats that did not depend on the particular forms of the written word that constitute modernity. Akhil Gupta’s (2012) examination of structural violence is particularly pertinent to our understanding of the predicament of adivasi/indigenous communities: What are the specific ways in which writing functions as a key modality for the perpetration of structural violence by the state? There is a large body of work that speaks of tribal ‘access to land,’ ‘land transfer regulation’ and its unenforceability, ‘land alienation,’ ‘displacement’ and ‘eminent domain.’ All of these terms have their origin in statist discourse where the ‘enabling legislation’ coexists with its opposite, giving rise to what Nitya Rao terms a ‘legal anomaly’ (Rao 2012, emphasis added). Speaking of the Santhal Paraganas as late

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as 2003–04, Rao points to the interpretation of jhum, or shifting cultivation, as ‘illegal’ by forest officers – whose resolution of illegality is to force bribes in return for permission to cultivate. The legal anomaly in this instance is caused by the co-­existence of Rule 10(i) of the Santhal Parganas Protected Forest Rules, which confers legal rights on Paharias to jhum; and the revised guidelines of the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980, that obstructs such cultivation. The trope of ‘legal anomaly,’ which is the direct result of the juridification of the geographies of adivasi experience, in India takes several forms  – conflicting legal provisions where the provision enabling access is inevitably defeated; non-­ implementation of legislation by the executive; reductionist interpretations of legislation through administrative law, where the formulation of rules at the level of states defeats the core purpose/statement of objects and reasons of a legislation (as in the case of Panchayats [Extension to Scheduled Areas] Act, 1996); and the overriding powers of eminent domain in a constitutional era where a colonial principle overrides constitutional geographies. Together these and multifarious other manifestations of such anomaly, legitimized through the marking of a legal regime, imbricate adivasis in webs of cultural trauma, human rights wrongs and constitutional violations that make their everyday lives in a constitutional terrain a place where the past lingers in far-­reaching ways. In the period of neo-­liberal reforms, ‘it has been the female shifting cultivators and graziers who have borne the brunt of this violence by the state to restrict and deny them access to the forests’ (Ramdas 2014: 59). Underlying the social, political and symbolic violence that characterizes the encounter of the tribal people with the non-­ tribals on the one hand, and the state and corporations on the other, is the economic violence that results in dispossession. In fact, the fields of economic violence are best understood in relation to tribal homelands. Mining, the construction of dams, the building of wildlife sanctuaries, industries and now special economic zones have posed the biggest threat to the survival and livelihood especially of indigenous adivasi communities. The Twenty-­Ninth Report of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes presented to the president in 1990 summarizes the problem succinctly. The redefinition of the forests as state property, and thereby the creation of a market-­driven state monopoly over forests, and the establishment of a powerful forest bureaucracy alongside the complete erasure of the adivasi from the administration of the forestscape, has created the conditions for an incessant confrontation between the state and adivasi communities over use of land, livelihoods and the right to survival in homelands (BD Sharma Report 1990, para 32). Padel and Das (2016: 226) situate the persistent and chronic impoverishment of Odisha’s adivasi communities in the chase for aluminium. The concerted policy of highland clearance premised on the argument that the ‘backward’ lifestyles of adivasi peoples must be bettered through making land more profitable. In the process, hundreds of villages are emptied out, causing aggravated suffering and trauma from both the outcome – homelessness – and the process – use of disproportionate force during eviction. The current debates on dispossession and accumulation have foregrounded different intersecting axes of dispossession – particularly relevant to an understanding

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of the adivasi predicament is the triangular intersection of the accumulation of dispossession (Harvey), regimes of dispossession (Levien 2015) and cultures of dispossession (Bhandar and Bhandar 2016). With respect to the last, the question of the right to the freedom of religion – the freedom to practise and propagate religion as well as the right to manage religious affairs of the community autonomously is critical. Deshpande’s observation that 79 per cent of those who report their religious affiliation as “other” are Scheduled Tribes – i.e., not Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jain, Buddhist or Zoroastrian – is suggestive of the strong continuing presence of autochthonous religions in tribes (Deshpande 2015). The practice of religion is closely tied to spaces of worship and communal living, and rituals surrounding work (that already has a territoriality), residence and collective memory. What are the specific ways in which dispossession and its regimes trigger and sustain cultures of dispossession, marking them on the lost homeland, lost cultures – the metaphysical and the physical fused in the regimes of dispossession? Mining projects in the Niyamgiri hills in Odisha, for instance, deprived adivasis of the right to worship Niyam Raja, who resides in the forests, and dispossessed them of places of worship and opportunities to propagate their religious beliefs.11 In a similar manner, the submergence of adivasi villages (all affected villages, but given the specific territorial grammar that scheduled villages invoke, we may focus attention on scheduled areas alone for the present purposes) deprives entire village communities of their spaces for local government, schools, community living and meeting, thus shrinking the boundaries of these areas without presidential sanction, which is a constitutional requirement. The archaic colonial rule of ‘eminent domain’ is in direct contradiction to the justiciable protection of Scheduled Areas under Article 19, set out at the beginning of this chapter: [T]he property of subject is under the eminent domain of the state, so that the state or he who acts for it may use and even alienate and destroy such property, not only in cases of extreme necessity . . . but for ends of public utility, to which ends those who found civil society must be supposed to have intended that private ends should give way. But it is to be added that when this is done the state is bound to make good the loss to those who lose their property. This is the final and most critical signpost of dispossession with far-­reaching consequences to the right to life and liberty of adivasi and traditional forest-­dwelling communities across the country.12 A  report of the Official Working Group on Development and Welfare of Scheduled Tribes during the Eighth Five-­Year Plan (1990–1995) on the rehabilitation of tribal people concluded that of the 1.694 million people displaced by these projects, almost 50 per cent (814,000) were tribal people. This observation was based on a comprehensive study of 110 projects (Government of India 1993, cited in Greenpeace India 2011: 12). The impact of ecological and economic insecurity presents other manifestations in Attappady block in Kerala, consisting of three gram panchayats that are habitations of extremely vulnerable

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tribal communities – Irula, Kudumba and Muduga. In 2013, Attappady witnessed the deaths of at least 36 infants who died either soon after birth or were stillborn (D’Rozario 2013). That Attappady is an illustration of the situation of the Scheduled Tribes nationally is borne out by the fact that the daily per capita expenditure of Scheduled Tribes is about half that of the general category. Multidimensional poverty is at 81 per cent, compared to 66 per cent among SCs; child mortality rates are highest among Scheduled Tribes; and 46.6 percent of adivasi women suffer from chronic malnutrition  – as evident from extremely low body mass index (Sundar 2016: 9). As Akhil Gupta (2012: 6) argues, ‘extreme poverty [is] a direct and culpable form of killing made possible by state policies and practices.’ Displacement, then, needs to be understood as a process that consists of several layers of interlocking, simultaneous, sequential and inter-­ generational dispossessions – a process fraught with violence on multiple, intersecting axes. Felix Padel (2011: 5) invokes the image of sacrifice, juxtaposing the practice of human sacrifice among the Konds of Orissa in the colonial period, at one end with the sacrifice of Kond lives in the name of ‘peace’ by the British (far in excess of those sacrificed in Kond ritual over several years); and at the other end ‘human sacrifice in its modern form, in the idea that a nation’s development depends on the “national sacrifice” of its tribal minority’ (Padel 2011: 310) – a genocidal sacrifice. We now have before us the core themes for a consideration of human rights of adivasi/tribal communities: land, faith, spirituality and religion, culture, assembly, displacement, the ‘outsider’ diku  – zamindars, moneylenders, shopkeepers  – occupation/dispossession, reclamation from other species of forest-­folk, colonization (the land adrift!) . . . and through this run the crisscrossing highways of impunity.

5  Towards an adivasi human rights imaginary We return to the innumerable treks of the Santhal woman through desolate landscapes of dispossession, connecting a dispossessed past with an anticipation of dispossession as the only future for her children. The critical question is, what is the move through which dispossession may be countered?13 Butler and Athanasiou observe that it is important to think about dispossession as a condition that is not simply countered by appropriation, a term that re-­establishes possession and property as the primary prerogatives of self-­authoring personhood. . . . We must elaborate on how to think about dispossession outside of the logic of possession . . . that is, not only avoiding but also calling into question the exclusionary calculus of proprietariness in late liberal forms of power. (2013: 6–7) I will attempt in this concluding section to trace some connections that emerge from collective engagements with the constitution and law with respect to adivasi rights in India. Popular sovereignty has given voice to practices of sustainability,

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environmental protection, the nurturing of ecological systems, traditional knowledge systems and the indispensable right ‘to stay put’ – to refuse to move.14 It is possible to extend Sarbani Sen’s (2010) periodization of popular sovereignty to the specific phases of adivasi resistance: the colonial period that provided the pre-­history for the constitutional articulation of specific collective and territorial rights for the Scheduled Tribes, which we have referred to briefly; the foundational moment of constitution making, where the ideas and philosophies of tribal autonomy, mobility and lifeworlds were written into the Constitution through a representative process (can we afford to forget the figure of Jaipal Singh Munda in the constituent assembly?); and the post foundational phase, where we have the small, yet determined, struggles across the Indian subcontinent to find survival, voice and visibility – the resistance to POSCO, Vedanta, Narmada, Polavaram; and the resistance in Chhattisgarh and Manipur, among others. This third phase has witnessed several intersecting strategies: law-­making;15 challenging state violence on adivasi communities and thereby challenging impunity through collective mobilization and strategic litigation;16 non-­violent protest against the AFSPA;17 and forcing the implementation of the Forest Rights Act through the filing and monitoring of claims by adivasi citizen groups across the country.18 Particularly important in triggering a cascading resistance against impunity and jurisprudential dissociation – setting a new method in human rights advocacy – was the 1979 Open Letter to the Supreme Court protesting against the trial court judgement in Mathura’s case.19 If we use the frameworks of popular sovereignty as our point of departure, it can scarcely be contested that pluralism and diversity (of all life-­forms) should lie at its core. A close look at the struggles for survival and dignity by constitutional collectivities like the Scheduled Tribes underscores the indispensability of imagining lifeworlds of freedom and dignity even while reckoning with practical unattainability of justice as its core problem in the troubled present. The right to liberty for adivasi communities is expressed in terms of territoriality – homelands that could be mobile or fixed, which confer a particular identity on its people, enabling distinct livelihood practices. Relations of land have been at the core of the adivasi engagement with the law and the constitution both in the case of the peasant and non-­peasant communities – engagements that have signalled major victories through taking struggles into courts of law. Since a majority of adivasi communities are forest dwellers, the homeland issue is not limited to land but extends to their presence in the entire forestscape. The concerns of these communities are not limited to livelihood and residence, but spread out over issues of ecology, environment, conservation, regeneration and knowledge systems that are all part of the political economy of the forest. Because of their familiarity with the forest life, they are easy targets of wildlife protection and forest conservation authorities and groups. The official recognition of their vulnerability, paradoxically, opens avenues of dispossession through incorporation by the state.

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A central concern that arises from their location in the forestscape is that of governance, autonomy and self-­determination, all issues that have been the focus of struggles in recent times around the issue of forest rights as well. However, it is just this focus that poses a threat to the interpretation of sovereignty in relation to settlement by the state under neoliberalism. And yet, it is that very autonomy – the sovereignty of the people intertwined with their right to autonomy in their homelands that is embodied in the adivasi slogan ‘maava naate maava raaj’ (‘our land, our rule’). Article 19(5), along with Schedules V and VI of the Indian Constitution, specifically protect adivasi homelands and provide us with the language, tools and strategies to counter callous, hegemonic and violent national government that persists in trying to limit the reach of the constitution. The Panchayats Extension to the Scheduled Areas Act (1996) and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (2006) are designed to regulate governance and political autonomy. The intense struggles and deliberations around these legislations and the fight to ensure state compliance to their core principles were and continue to be expressions of popular sovereignty and constitutional insurgency by adivasi networks across the country. To return to Asad’s concerns discussed at the beginning of this chapter, although the field of justice may be opened up in many different ways, it is productive to use constitutionalism to promote the close connection between justice and popular sovereignty. What aspects of constitutionalism are indispensable for this idea of justice? If we agree that pluralism and diversity without prejudice are ideally the pulse of a vibrant and just society, and therefore central to the idea of constitutional patriotism, how does the constitution speak to this imperative? Transformative constitutionalism, then, is an approach to mapping an adivasi human rights imaginary framing development as a bounded endeavour in which justice and freedom are spatially and socially hedged in and held together by the state – vested through popular sovereignty with the responsibility for protection of citizens against harm – with a specific set of constitutional obligations towards adivasis/Scheduled Tribes.20 These are not responsibilities easily or willingly borne by any government, but they are undeniably the constitutive responsibility of the democratic state that can discipline governments, especially when subject to pressures from movements for civil liberties, human rights and adivasi rights.

Notes 1 A shorter version of this chapter was published in Economic and Political Weekly, LI: 44–45, 5 November 2016, pp. 92–10. 2 Different terms are used to describe indigenous communities in India and the rest of the world. Xaxa (2016) and Radhakrishna (2016) provide a comprehensive account historicising the deployment of descriptors for indigenous peoples. This chapter takes note of this discussion in addressing the question of human rights across these descriptions – with a focus on treatment and discrimination based on identity/category. 3 We are speaking of 8.6 percent of the country’s population with 705 different communities enumerated in the category of Scheduled Tribe under Article 342 of the Constitution of India. Of this, the Scheduled Tribes of the North East constitute 8.7 per cent

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of the total ST population, while those in the Schedule V Areas of central, eastern, and southern India and the islands comprise more than 90 per cent this last cluster includes the 75 tribes classified as ‘particularly vulnerable tribal groups’ and some de-­notified tribes (Sundar 2016). 4 My arguments on Article 19 of the Indian Constitution were first presented in “Constitutional Conversations on Adivasi Rights” (Kannabiran 2015). 5 Xaxa in fact observes that the category of “indigenous peoples” has been challenged in India ‘precisely because it is loaded with rights claim over land and territory with which they are intricately linked’ (Xaxa 2016: 51). 6 I borrow here David Delaney’s definition of territory as distinct from any other spatial formation (Delaney 2005). 7 A characterisation by Bartholomew and Brickspear, quoted in Harvey 2005. Or, as Asad warns us, ‘As soft and hard law it is inextricably entangled with imperialist strategies and the capitalist drive for profit’ (Asad 2009). 8 Paschim Banga Kheria Sabar Kalyan Samity v. State of West Bengal & Ors. WP No. 3715 of 1998. 9 Tukaram v. State of Maharashtra 1979 SCR (1) 810. Mathura, an adivasi girl, was raped in police custody. The case triggered a national campaign for reform of rape law. 10 A preliminary review of cases under the AP Land Transfer Regulation Act in the Bhadrachalam ITDA alone, conducted by the Council for Social Development, Hyderabad, has revealed the preponderance of litigation that either asserts non-­tribal control or places adivasi possession in suspension pending judicial decision (anticipatory dispossession). 11 Supreme Court in Orissa Mining Corporation Ltd. v. Ministry of Environment and Forest, (2013) 6 SCC 476. 12 See Levien 2015 for a detailed analysis of land acquisition under neoliberalism and Ramanathan 2010 for a discussion on eminent domain and sovereignty. 13 In thinking through the possibilities of a distinct human rights imaginary situated in the historical experience of adivasis, I have drawn immeasurably from the work of Carolyn Finney (2014). 14 This is an aspect of the right to liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution of India that was forcefully argued by K.G. Kannabiran in 2008 and 2009 in the context of the Polavaram Dam case. 15 Land transfer regulation legislations; Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (1989); Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (1996); the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (2006), for instance (see Radhakrishna 2016). 16 Budhan Sabar’s case (see note 5) and Nandini Sundar and Ors v. State of Chhattisgarh (also known as the Salwa Judum case); and the numerous cases challenging forced displacement across the country, for instance. Especially important is the Samata case, which was a precursor and torchbearer for the articulation of popular sovereignty and transformative constitutionalism: Samata vs. State of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1997 SC 3297. 17 Irom Sharmila’s protest and the protest of the women of Manipur is immediately relevant, although it must be stressed that the violence of this law has been disproportionate in Kashmir. 18 See Ramdas (2014). 19 An Open Letter to the Chief Justice of India (1979) 4 SCC 17–22. Letter written by Professors Upendra Baxi, Vasudha Dhagamwar, Raghunath Kelkar and Lotika Sarkar. 20 For a detailed elaboration of the possibilities and trajectories of transformative constitutionalism, see Kannabiran (2012).

References An Open Letter to the Chief Justice of India. 1979. 4 Supreme Court Cases, pp. 17–22. Asad, Talal. 2000. ‘What Do Human Rights Do? An Anthropological Enquiry’, Theory & Event, 4 (4).

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———. 2009. ‘Reflections on the Origins of Human Rights’, Lecture delivered at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, Georgetown University, on 28 September 2009. Published on 17 July 2013, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd7P6bUKAWs (accessed on 3 June 2016). Baruah, Sanjib. 2008. ‘Territoriality, Indigeneity and Rights in the North-­east India’, Economic and Political Weekly, 43 (12–13), 22 March: 15–19. Baxi, Upendra. 2008. ‘Preliminary Notes on Transformative Constitutionalism’, Presented at BISA Conference: Courting Justice II, Delhi, April 27–29. Unpublished. Berland, Joseph C. 2003. ‘Servicing the Ordinary Folk: Peripatetic Peoples and Their Niche in South Asia’, in Aparna Rao and Michael J. Casimir (eds), Nomadism in South Asia, pp. 104–124. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Bhandar, Brenna and Davina Bhandar. 2016. ‘Cultures of Dispossession: Rights, Status and Identities.’ In Darkmatter: In the Ruins of Imperial Culture, www.darkmatter101.org/ site/2016/05/16/cultures-­of-­dispossession/ (accessed on 3 June 2016). Butler, Judith and Athena Athanasiou. 2013. Dispossession: The Performative in the Political. Cambridge: Polity Press. Delaney, David. 2003. Law and Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ebook. Delaney, David. 2005. Territory: A Short Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Ebook. Deshpande, Ashwini. 2015. ‘Being Adivasi in India: Changing Economic Status of Tribal Communities’, Critical Development Studies (1), March. Hyderabad, Council for Social Development. Devy, Ganesh. 2006. A Nomad Called Thief: Reflections on Adivasi Silence. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan. D’Rozario, Clifton. 2013. Deaths of Unnamed Children: Malnutrition and Destitution Among Adivasis in Kerala. In the matter of: Peoples Union of Civil Liberties vs Union of India & Ors. Supreme Court of India (WP No. 196 of 2001), May. Ekka, Alex. 2012. ‘Displacement of Tribals in Jharkhand: A Violation of Human Rights’, in Dev Nathan and Virginius Xaxa (eds), Social Exclusion and Adverse Inclusion: Development and Deprivation of Adivasis in India, pp. 52–62. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Fenelon, James V. and Thomas D. Hall, 2008. ‘Revitalization and Indigenous Resistance to Globalization and Neoliberalism’, American Behavioral Scientist 51: 1876, http://abs. sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/51/12/1867 (accessed on 6 July 2010). Finney, Carolyn. 2014. Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Greenpeace India. 2011. Singrauli: The Coal Curse (A Fact Finding Report on the Impact of Coal Mining on the People and Environment of Singrauli), www.greenpeace.org/ india/Global/india/report/Fact-­f inding-­report-­Singrauli-­Report.pdf (accessed on 24 October 2016). Guha, Ramachandra. 2012. ‘Forestry in British and Post-­British India’, in Indra Munshi (ed), The Adivasi Question: Issues of Land, Forest and Livelihood, pp. 25–58. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan. Guha, Sumit. 1999. Environment and Ethnicity in India, 1200–1991. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gupta, Akhil. 2012. Red Tape: Bureaucracy, Structural Violence and Poverty in India. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan. Habermas, Jurgen. 1996. Between Facts and Norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy. Cambridge: Polity Press. E-­book. Halbwachs, Maurice. 1992. On Collective Memory (edited, translated and with an introduction by Lewis A. Coser). Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Human Rights Forum. 2013. ‘The Terrible Cost of an Inhuman Counter-­Insurgency’, (accessed on 23 June 2016). Kannabiran, Kalpana. 2003. Wages of Impunity: Power, Justice and Human Rights. Hyderabad: Orient Longman. ———. 2012. Tools of Justice: Non-­Discrimination and the Indian Constitution. New Delhi: Routledge. ———. 2015. ‘Constitutional Conversations on Adivasi Rights’, op-­ed, The Hindu, 24 July. Kannabiran, Kalpana and Ritu Menon. 2007. From Mathura to Manorama: Resisting Violence against Women in India. Feminist Fineprint series. New Delhi: Women Unlimited. Kishwar, Madhu. 1982. ‘Challenging the Denial of Land Rights to Women’, Letter to Justice Bhagwati, Chairman of the Committee for the Implementation of Legal Aid, admitted into the Supreme Court of India as a writ petition on 20 August 1982, www. manushi.in/articles.php?articleId=1549&ptype=campaigns#.V1EdM9dWanc (accessed on 3 June 2016). Kumar, Sanjeeva. 2012. ‘State “Simplification”: Garo Protest in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Assam’, in Indra Munshi (ed), The Adivasi Question: Issues of Land, Forest and Livelihood, pp. 59–74. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan. Levien, Michael. 2015. ‘From Primitive Accumulation to Regimes of Dispossession: Theses on India’s Land Question’, Economic and Political Weekly, 50 (22): 146–157. Mazumdar, Indrani. 2016. ‘Unfree Mobility; Adivasi Women’s Migration’, in Meena Radhakrishna (ed), First Citizens: Studies on Adivasis, Tribals and Indigenous Peoples in India, pp. 178–206. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Munshi, Indra. 2012. ‘Introduction’, in Indra Munshi (ed), The Adivasi Question: Issues of Land, Forest and Livelihood, pp. 1–22. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan. Padel, Felix. 2011. Sacrificing People: Invasions of a Tribal Landscape. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan. Padel, Felix and Samarendra Das. 2016. ‘Bauxite Business in Odisha’, in Nandini Sundar (ed), The Scheduled Tribes and their India: Politics, Identities, Policies and Work, pp. 223–253. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Radhakrishna, Meena. 2008. Dishonoured by History: Criminal Tribes and British Colonial Policy. Hyderabad: Orient Longman. ———. 2016. ‘Introduction’, in Meena Radhakrishna (ed), First Citizens: Studies on Adivasis, Tribals and Indigenous Peoples in India, pp. 1–30. Oxford India Studies in Contemporary Society. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Ramanathan, Usha. 2010. ‘On Eminent Domain and Sovereignty’, Seminar 613. Rao, Aparna and Michael J. Casimir. 2003. ‘Nomadism in South Asia: An Introduction’, in Aparna Rao and Michael J. Casimir (eds), Nomadism in South Asia. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Rao, Nitya. 2012. ‘Displacement from Land: Case of Santhal Parganas’, in Indra Munshi (ed), The Adivasi Question: Issues of Land, Forest and Livelihood, pp. 117–124. Hyderabad: Orient BlackSwan. Ramdas, Sagari R. 2014. ‘Women, Forestspaces and the Law: Transgressing the Boundaries’, in Kalpana Kannabiran (ed), Women and Law: Critical Feminist Perspectives, pp.  58–84. New Delhi: Sage. Report of the High Level Committee on Socio-­Economic, Health and Educational Status of Tribal Communities of India, Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India. 2014 (Xaxa Report 2014). Scott, James C. 1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sen, Sarbani. 2010. The Constitution of India: Popular Sovereignty and Democratic Transformations. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

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Shekhar, Hansda Sowvendra. 2015. ‘The Adivasi Will Not Dance’, in The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories. New Delhi: Speaking Tiger. Sundar, Nandini. 2016. ‘Introduction: Of the Scheduled Tribes, States and Sociology’, in Nandini Sundar (ed), The Scheduled Tribes and their India: Politics, Identities, Policies and Work, pp. 1–46. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. The Twenty-­Ninth Report of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Government of India, 1990 (The BD Sharma Report). Xaxa, Virginius. 2012. ‘Tribes and Development: Retrospect and Prospect’, in Dev Nathan and Virginius Xaxa (eds), Social Exclusion and Adverse Inclusion: Development and Deprivation of Adivasis in India, pp. 23–35. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 2016. ‘Formation of Adivasi/Indigenous Peoples’ Identity in India’, in Meena Radhakrishna (ed), First Citizens: Studies on Adivasis, Tribals and Indigenous Peoples in India, pp. 33–52. Oxford India Studies in Contemporary Society. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Cases cited Abbreviations in case citations AIR: All India Reporter SC: Supreme Court SCC: Supreme Court Cases WP: Writ Petition SCR: Supreme Court Reports Nandini Sundar and Others v. State of Chhattisgarh, 2011 AIR (SC) 2839. Orissa Mining Corporation Ltd. v. Ministry of Environment and Forest, (2013) 6 SCC 476. Paschim Banga Kheria Sabar Kalyan Samity v. State of West Bengal & Ors. WP No. 3715 of 1998. Samata v. State of Andhra Pradesh, AIR 1997 SC 3297. Tukaram v. State of Maharashtra, 1979 SCR (1) 810.

7 EMPOWERMENT Gaddi women of Himachal Pradesh, India Molly Kaushal

India is home to almost 461 tribal and Indigenous communities who occupy different ecological zones across the country and belong to different ethnic and linguistic groups. These communities follow different modes of livelihood and have distinct social structures and organizations. They also differ in terms of cultural interactions and exposure to other communities, and the relationship they share with them. The position and role of women also vastly differs from one community to another. Some of these communities practise polygamy, and yet there are others that are polyandrous. The geographic spread of tribal populations in India has been classified into three distinct ecological zones. While the north and northeastern zone comprise the sub-­Himalayan region and the mountain valleys of the eastern frontiers, the central or the middle zone spreads through plateaus and mountainous belt between the Indo-­Gangetic plain in the north and Krishna river towards the south. The southern zone comprises those parts of south India that falls south of river Krishna. Anthropologists have classified the diverse tribal population into several geographically defined groups, such as: Himalayan Belt – this covers groups living in sub-­Himalayan regions of North and North-­West India. The states of Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh come under this belt, and tribes inhabiting these mountainous regions belong to both Mongoloid and Indo-­Aryan stocks. North-­Eastern Belt – These groups belong primarily to Mongolian racial stock and populate the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura. Central and East Indian Belt  – This region has the largest population of tribal groups. Gond, Bhumij, Ho, Oraon, Munda and Santhal are some of the major tribal groups in this region and they are spread across the states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal. The majority of these groups are Proto-­Australoids.

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Western Belt – It covers the states of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Gujarat, among others. Bhils are the largest group in the region and they belong to the Proto-­ Australoid stock. Southern Belt  – Groups such as Todas, Chenchus, Irula, Kurumba and others inhabit the southern states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. They belong predominantly to Negrito, Caucasoid, and Proto-­ Australoid stock. Islanders  – The Andamanese, Onge and Sentinilese tribal groups inhabit the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and the Lakshadweep Islands. Some of the Indian tribes follow Hinduism, others Christianity and yet others Buddhism, Islam and other religions. The dominant speech families to which they belong are Dravidian, Austric, and Tibeto-­Chinese. Some of the groups are pastoral and others practise settled agriculture; others engage in shifting cultivation. Many are employed and have white-­collar jobs; others migrate to urban centers to be daily wage labourers. Marriage patterns also vastly differ among them. Some are monogamous and others polygamous. Polyandry can be observed in parts of Himachal Pradesh and Garhwal in the Western and Central Himalayan zones, and in Ladakh in the North Himalayan zone. The Todas in the South and some communities in the North-­East are also polyandrous. Though the dominant form of descent among the Indian tribes is patrilineal, there are communities that are matrilineal, matriarchal and matrilocal. Inheritance can be strictly through the male line or strictly through the female line. Among some of the groups, women have the right to land and in others they only enjoy maintenance rights. There are groups that practise bride price while among several others dowry is prevalent. Some groups such as Gonds, Bhils, Meenas and Santhals have had contacts with the Caste Hindus from ancient times, while many others have come into contact with the outside world only after Independence. Given this enormous diversity and heterogeneity among the tribal and indigenous communities, it is difficult to attempt any generalization about the position of women among the tribal and indigenous communities. Discourse on tribal women in anthropological literature in India can be divided into an early phase where women’s issues were invisible or women were seen as exotica and objectified in terms of their physical attributes and sexual practices; they were depicted as either sexually free and promiscuous or as chaste and pure. Further, they were seen as either hard-­working, strong, and enjoying a high status in the family and community, or as drudges without any rights or status. Later studies, however, pointed out that such an understanding of Indian tribal women arose because of the manner in which the word “status” was being employed in these writings. Indian anthropologist V. Xaxa, in his essay “Women and Gender in the Study of Tribes in India” (Xaxa 2004) writes that the term “status” here implied prestige and honor, which were analyzed in relation to the European Enlightenment or in relation to larger Indian society. “Hardly any attempt has been made to study them in terms of the values prevalent in tribal society” (ibid: 348). Gradually

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a shift began to happen and ethnographies began to appear with specific focus on the role, position and rights of women within the context of specific communities. The rise of feminist discourse in anthropology from the 1970s onward also led to a better understanding of gender relations in these communities. Another trend that emerged in later writings focused on issues of women and development. Here again we encounter differing opinions. Women were seen as either “active participants in the conservation of their culture or as helpless victims of the forces of globalization, cultural change and modernization” (Mehrotra 2004: 61). Senior Indian anthropologists like T. N. Madan and D. N. Majumdar had argued earlier that a rigid view based on dichotomies of low and high status is misleading and there are many intermediate statuses (Majumdar, D. N. and T. N. Madan 1956). Gender construction among both tribal and non-­tribal communities depends not on any singular factor but develops through a dialectic relationship with modes of production, social structures, religious practices, cultural interactions and historical trajectories, which together contribute towards how men and women come to be constructed as social entities. There are now several ethnographic studies on specific communities that reflect the complex nature of gender construction. These studies show that if women are privileged in certain areas of social and economic activity, they may be divested of higher status in some other areas and vice versa. For example, among the matrilineal Khasi society in the North East, the inheritance is in the female line, from mother to youngest daughter, but it is the mother’s oldest brother who is the manager of the property. It is the male adults who dominate in the public domain and constitute the village court. Political matters are handled and represented by these men (Nathan 1997). Among the hunter-­gatherer Birhor tribe in the state of Jharkhand, in East India, the men have control over meat distribution while the women have power over market exchange. Further, the men among the Birhor dominate the magico-­r itual sphere and also lead in political affairs (Nathan, ibid). Many scholars argue that swidden cultivation is the earliest form of cultivation, and in it men and women enjoyed equal rights and obligations. In contrast, settled cultivation deprived women of their right to the land and the taboo on women touching the plough was one of the ways through which they were divested of their right to land (Menon 1992; Nathan, ibid). It has been argued that control over ritual and political spheres by men is a strategy employed by men to divest women of their control over land (Nathan, ibid). However, there are also studies that show instances where control by men over state institutions has not led to loss of control over land by women (Xaxa 2004). Another important practice that figures predominantly in the discourse on tribal women is bride price. While earlier studies cite it as advantageous to women’s position in the family and community, recent studies have argued that it is more a bane than a boon as it turns women into a disposable commodity (Nongbri 2000). The majority of anthropological writings on tribal women have thus focused on the transition from an egalitarian society to a hierarchical and male-­dominated society, where women are at a position of disadvantage. How do women negotiate their position in this changed patrilineal, patriarchal social structure? Is there a scope for

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empowerment here? While it is impossible to arrive at any generalization, specific case studies embedded in socio-­cultural, economic and political practices and institutions can certainly throw light in this direction. This chapter takes up the case study of the Gaddi women of the Bharmour region in the Himalayas to precisely look at those places of empowerment.

The area and the people In the Dhauladhar mountain ranges of the Himalaya nestles the valley of Bharmour, the homeland of Gaddi pastoralists, who traditionally herd sheep and goats, migrating seasonally with their herds to upper and lower ranges of this rugged terrain. Anthropologically and administratively classified as a tribe, the Gaddis have never been an insular group.1 Their worldview, socio-­cultural and religious practices have much in common with the larger Hindu community. And yet they are distinct in the way they perceive the universe and their own position in the cosmic order of things (Kaushal 2001). Their language, a part of the western Pahari dialect, retains influences of both Gujarati and Rajasthani languages and there is also a profusion of archaic Sanskrit terms and inflection. Often one finds inflection of Gujarati language as well. This is a pointer towards a highly mobile community, perhaps made up of varied migrant groups from different parts of India. The term “Gaddi” is a generic term used for the entire community but within the community it is reserved for the Kshatriya or Rajput castes. Other castes among the Gaddis include Brahmins, who are at the top of the caste and ritual hierarchy; Sippi, who are weavers and local oracles, are in the middle; and Halis are at the lowest rung and practice agriculture. They are also the traditional carcass removers and healer chanters. The land that the Gaddis inhabit is lovingly called Gadderan, which means the royal seat of their supreme deity, Lord Shiva, who like the Gaddis is a nomad and a sheepherder. There are several oral narratives that talk about the Gaddis either as an immigrant population or as created by Shiva himself, and inhabited here by him (Kaushal 2004a). Besides being a caste-­based society, the Gaddis are patrilineal, patrilocal and patriarchal. Looking at the day-­to-­day life of a Gaddi woman, not much difference can be observed in her position in the family and social structure from other women in a similar patriarchal system. But a closer look at the spaces available to a Gaddi woman for negotiating a position of power within this social system throws light on the many ways in which she is able to negotiate her space within this family structure. This ability to negotiate, in many ways, is closely linked to the strict laws for land inheritance and need for a male heir that existed among the Gaddis when they were the subjects of the erstwhile rulers of the Chamba dynasty in this region. Both political and socio-­economic structures underwent change after the merger of the princely State of Chamba with India in 1948. The contemporary Gaddi society cannot be defined in any singular terms, as there has been increasing change and diversity in their modes of living, livelihood patterns, mobility, level of education, family structures, place of residence and so forth in recent years. A sizable middle class has emerged among the community

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and its youth migrates to big cities in search of jobs on a regular basis. Sheep-­ herding, though still a major cash economy, now competes with horticulture as a viable alternative. Old practices have given way to middle-­class family structures. This may have had some kind of liberating impact on the Gaddi woman in certain ways, but in many other ways it has reduced her ability to negotiate her empowerment within the patriarchal family structure. As we shall see in the later part of this chapter, the Gaddi women traditionally were equipped with spaces created by older structures of inheritance and marriage systems, which helped them negotiate a position of power and authority within the family. The language, myth and rituals still retain the cultural memory of these earlier practices, and even today the community may fall back upon them when need arises. These practices may not be commonplace, but they are not totally forgotten or abandoned. In fact, in the remoter parts of the valley they are still visible, though not much talked about in more prosperous areas.

Women’s roles in Gaddi family and society Female roles are defined first and foremost in relation to family. Daughters are highly valued for their physical labour and from a very early age start helping in the household activities. They cook, clean and wash, bring water and fodder from the forest, take the cattle out for grazing and during the agricultural season help carry manure and seeds to fields and do weeding, pruning and harvesting. The most significant change in a women’s life comes through marriage, when she enters a new lineage group. From being a full member of her paternal kin group, she now becomes a mere “relative” of her natal family. The new lineage she enters into accepts her gradually over the years and accords her a very low social and ritual status within the clan membership. I begin by looking at the social construction of the space that she enters upon marriage and explore the various possibilities available within this space for a negotiation of her position. The smallest social unit of the Gaddi society is the household and it revolves around the hearth of the house. This space is arranged hierarchically according to age and gender. A family that shares a common hearth, chullh, constitutes one tol (household) and usually comprises husband, wife and their unmarried children. The daughter leaves the family hearth upon marriage, though her right over the natal hearth never entirely ceases. When the first son marries, he may or may not establish his separate hearth until his siblings also get married and bring home their wives. However, it is not uncommon to see sons establishing separate hearths after marriage while continuing to live in the family house. It is easy to come across houses where the four corners in a room provide for four different hearths, dividing the inhabitants into four tols. These tols together constitute a tabbar (family). Establishing a separate hearth is not necessarily linked with a complete division of ancestral property, which may not take place until the death of the father and even after that in some cases. House, livestock, rights in the grazing run and an area for storing hay might not be divided even after the death of both the parents.

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They continue to be shared by the next generation. This may be rare, but it is not uncommon. The property, if divided before the death of the father, is equally divided between the sons and the father. The father’s share goes to his widow after his death. In a joint household, the hearth space (chaunka) is the territory of the eldest female of the family, who is usually the wife of the male head. Though the fire and oven symbolize the patrilineal space, it is the married-­in women who control the area and keep the fire alive. They control the distribution of food and feed the living members of the family as well as the manes (pitar). The hearth of the house is symbolically the most significant area, around which the family organizes itself hierarchically. It stands both for unity and fission in the family. Family tensions, be they of a social or ritual nature, tend to revolve around the hearth. The control of this area represents power and authority. It is demarcated into male and female spaces, senior and junior spaces, inner and outer spaces and seating arrangements here display the hierarchical position of household members. To the immediate right of the oven, in kanseru, which is the most prestigious place in the hearth area, sits the male head. To the immediate left of the oven sits the female head or the cook (majhaini). Next to the male head in an anti-­clockwise direction sit other male members of the family according to their age. Small children are generally not allowed in the chaunka, which is built on a slightly raised platform. They sit in front of the platform facing the oven, and may keep their plates on the platform. The new daughter-­in-­law is also not allowed to sit and eat in the chaunka. She sits a little away from it in the left corner. It is in fact the prerogative of the mother in-­law to allow the daughter-­in-­law to come into the chaunka and cook. If the daughter-­ in-­law attempts to cook food on her own, it is interpreted as an attempt to usurp the mother in-­law’s position of authority. The daughter-­in-­law is never allowed to serve food to the members of the family, even when she has cooked it herself. Ritual hierarchies also tend to revolve around the hearth and are reflected in the rules that govern the acceptance of food. This aspect is more profound and explicit when it concerns leftovers. A mother may eat the leftovers of her son, a wife may eat her husband’s leftovers, children may eat their father’s leftovers, the adult males may never eat anyone’s leftovers and a daughter-­in-­law may eat everybody’s leftovers. But no one may even touch the plate in which the daughter-­in-­law has eaten. In any case she is the last one to take her meals after everyone else has eaten and then wash everybody’s unclean plates. Thus her status to a certain extent is that of an outsider and lowly position within the family hierarchy. She may never sit on her mother-­in-­law’s bed and even the touch of her skirt can be contaminating. If by chance the lower edge of her skirt touches her younger brother-­in-­law, she must take his hand and touch her forehead with it as a mark of respect. However the real tension between the mother-­in-­law and daughter-­in-­law is over the control of the hearth. This space inside the house, which showcases the female authority, is completely under the control of the mother-­in-­law. This is an area where the raw produce, which is controlled by the male head, is transformed into the rasa, nutritional sap that is consumed by the living as well as the ancestors.

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The oven is in some sense the family womb and the fire in it represents the lineage. Gaddis often refer to the human body being made from the ashes of the hearth (chullh ki dhur se bana). The hearth represents the space of the first ancestor of the lineage and is usually inherited by the youngest son. The rasa belongs to the female head of the house. It is this rasa that feeds and perpetuates the lineage. The raw produce can be handled and cooked by any of the female members but is handed out and distributed only by the one who controls it and to whom it rightfully belongs. The mother-­in-­law, as the wife of the male head, wants to display this control in no uncertain terms. In fact, the hearth of the family represents the female head and is referred to as “mother-­in-­law”. Is then the daughter-­in-­law an outsider and only a partial member of her husband’s lineage, despite the fact that after marriage she is ritually transferred into her husband’s clan as its full member? The Gaddis acknowledge this transfer and consider her to be a full member of their lineage, but are quick to add that the lineage is perpetuated by the male and not by his wife. It is their blood, bone and flesh that the child inherits. Many passionate narratives are built around the woes of a daughter-­ in-­law. I summarize here one of them that was constructed jointly by both men and women during one of the interviews during my fieldwork. This involved three women, Punnodevi from village Pulani, Kanta and Kaushalya from Bharmour and two men, Shobharam from Kharamukh and Manakchand from Seri. Punnodevi and Shobharam explained: “The daughter-­in law sits outside the chaunka, near the door. The mother-­in-­law makes her do all the work, including cooking, but it is she who will make the chapati [roasted wheat bread] and serve it to the family”. Kanta and Kaushalya added: “We ourselves will never attempt to sit on the chaunka in the presence of our mother-­in-­law or take over the task of preparing and serving the meal out of respect for her”. Shobharam, an impulsive talker, added, Unless of course she is very old and not well or else very lazy she will not give up her right on the chaunka. These days the position of women is better. But earlier she was treated very badly by both her parents and in-­laws. Parents would not marry her off till she was very old – about thirty, thirty-­two – because of the free labour they received from her. After marriage she was sent to her husband’s house with just one dress and a pot. The in-­laws treated her almost like a slave. In her husband’s house she occupied the space near the door, only slightly inside the area, where low caste Sippis were allowed to sit. Manakchand, a young boy from Seri, who had been listening quite patiently till now, suddenly protested: “Everyone is not like that. There are many who are different. Not everyone is bad. There are also those who say ‘It is cold, lari [that is how the wife of the son is addressed], come, you also sit near the chullh [oven], come up in the chaunka.’ ” This statement by Manakchand both confirms and contests what others are saying. The calendar of daily activities of household members reveals that the daughter-­in-­law takes care of almost all the household duties and agricultural

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activity. Male members are often absent either due to pastoral activity or other jobs outside the house. Mother-­in-­law chips in by cooking, looking after the children, by taking cattle for grazing, going to the fields to look after the growing crops, weeding and pruning. It is true that a lot depends on the cordial relationship that exists between them. This cordiality and mutual help may continue even after the hearths have been separated. I already mentioned that the separation of hearth does not always entail a complete division of the property, and even when the property is divided, the father’s share goes to his wife after his death and will later be distributed among the children. The ageing mother comes to depend more and more on her children. All this prevents open hostilities among the members of the family and they manage to establish a good working relationship. Besides, there are a number of rituals and social occasions that help establish a gradual bonding between the daughter-­in-­ law and the siblings of her husband. Significantly, the daughter in-­law also manages to establish networks outside the house in places like the grazing area, forests and water sources. Daughters-­in-­law, daughters, young boys and old men frequent these places. Here she develops sisterhood networks with other daughters-­in-­law, catches a few moments of privacy with her husband and sometimes may even meet her lover and scheme an elopement with him. Inside the house, tensions over the hearth area are mostly taken care of by establishing a separate hearth and household for married sons, who continue to live in the same house and jointly hold at least a part of the ancestral property. Despite the passionate narratives of Shobharam and Punnodevi about the exploited existence of daughters and daughters-­in-­law, a fair amount of evidence exists to the contrary. This is not to say that their portrayal of women is incorrect, but what is more significant is the fact that within this patriarchal, patrilineal and patrilocal family space, women are able to exercise choices and negotiate a better position for themselves. Very strong ties continue to exist between a woman and her natal family after marriage and even after the death of her parents. Though at the time of the marriage there is a ceremony marking the transfer of the woman from her paternal lineage to that of her husband, she is in practice never fully alienated from her clan. She continues to pray to her father’s lineage deity, along with the lineage deity of her husband’s clan. She is invited to all the festivals that are celebrated to pay homage to the ancestors and the lineage deity. One of the folk songs sung during a festival is known as basoa and is sung at the festival of the same name, held at the beginning of the Gaddi agricultural cycle. Festivities start a month in advance. All the women of the clan get together every evening to sing this song, which narrates the pathos of a woman whose father is too old and brother is too young to fetch her back home. The mother in-­law, who has no intention of letting her go, keeps giving her odd jobs to finish before she can leave. The woman in the end commits suicide and turns into a bird after her death. She then flies away home to join the festivities. The agricultural cycle begins with the sighting of this bird. This song is a reminder of her strong ties with her family. But it is also a reminder of the fact that at this time of the year her parents

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require her services and therefore she must be sent back home. After the death of her parents, her brothers, real or classificatory, are honour bound to invite her home for festivals, religious and social ceremonies. Her ties with the natal family do not cease, even after her own death. Members of her paternal lineage ceremonially mourn her death in the same manner as they would mourn the death of a male member of the extended patrilineal kin group. The most important part of funeral rites among the Gaddis is a prescribed period of 11 days of mourning, when a blanket is spread under the remains of the dead person. All the members of the kin group sit together on the blanket for 11 days, avoid the use of certain spices and meat and eat only once a day. When a married-­out woman of the kin group dies, the mourning takes place at both her in-­laws’ and her parents’ place. Nanku from Seri explains: Even after the marriage a woman continues to have a relationship with her family. Her parents if alive must mourn her death for nine days, brothers for seven days and brother’s son for five days. On the ninth day the blanket is removed and on the tenth or eleventh day as advised by the priest a he-­goat is sacrificed both at her in-­laws’ place and her natal place. Significantly, the sacrifice of the goat, which is described as a ritual to remove death pollution, is believed to also provide a new body for the departed soul. Both the husband’s kin group and her own paternal kin group facilitate this process, which clearly shows that her inclusion into one group does not entail her exclusion from the first one. Thus a Gaddi woman, while gaining entry into a new gotra (lineage), is not necessarily giving up the membership in her natal clan. She has both rights and obligations towards her family and its lineage deity. The members of her paternal family have the right and are also obliged to invite her to all family rituals and social functions, particularly those which involve the worship of ancestors and the lineage deity. They are also obliged to mourn her death ceremonially, as they would do in the case of a male member of the group. She continues to be a member of the natal clan as a sister of its male members, with whom she shares the relationship of both doodh (milk), and khoon (blood). Newell, who was one of the earliest colonial administrators to write about the socio-­cultural practices of the Gaddis, made a similar observation: “Her position in one clan is never explicitly affirmed to the exclusion of her rights in the other clan – with marriage her place in her natal clan is never fully extinguished” (Newell 1962: 15). In fact, the Gaddi woman can always return to her natal clan if her marriage fails. She has the right to ask for sustenance as well as negotiate a second marriage. Her brothers share very close ties with her and her children, and have reciprocal obligations towards one another. A sister’s children are held in high esteem by her brother and his wife, who are obliged to touch their feet even if they are mere babies. Besides the father’s lineage deity, the Gaddi woman inherits another deity from her mother. This deity is called Kailu and is inherited strictly matrilaterally. The mother inherits it from her mother and passes it on to her daughter, who in turn passes it on

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to her own daughter. The woman upon marriage brings it with her to her husband’s house, but no member of his clan may ever participate in the worship of this deity. Kailu is worshipped secretly on Thursdays, which is also considered an ideal and most auspicious day for holding marriages. Kailu is represented by a walnut fruit, which, in the Gaddi belief system, represents seed. It is worshipped during the marriage ceremony, and a walnut kept atop the marriage canopy in red cloth signifies the unborn son, or a son born before marriage. Phanti, an old midwife, explains, “Walnut is Kailu. He is the seed. He bestows children. When a child is born, the woman must go to her natal village and pray to him. His shrine may be located in the maternal grandmother’s or great grandmother’s village. The woman will go there and worship him”. Thus, despite a very strong denial of the woman’s role in the perpetuation of the patrilineal clan and despite the claim that it is the father who provides the seed, blood, bone and flesh of the child, the presence of Kailu in the Gaddi religious pantheon provides a counter-­text to this patrilineal discourse. It is the recognition of the role of the female seed and the maternal line in reproduction. Here the perpetuation of the clan rests with the woman: it is her matrilateral deity Kailu, her seed that keeps the hearth of the family alive. Gaddi women often refer to the hearth as representing their mother-­in-­law, especially when contracting a second marriage. Kailu is spoken of, somewhat in jest, as the woman’s lover (stri ka yaar) who clings to the hemline of her skirt, bestows children and, when angry, causes miscarriage (for Kailu worship see Newell 1967). In short then, he stands for fertility and sexuality – raw, secret and dangerous. The in-­coming woman is imbued with this power, which is dangerous but necessary for the growth of the patrilineal family. This counter-­text invests the power of fertility and procreation totally in the female domain. Neither her husband, nor any other male or female member of his family, not even her own son after the age of 12, may ever take part in Kailu worship or even come in contact with ritual objects used in this worship. However, this text is still in the realm of the ritual. Gaddi women successfully negotiate their empowerment in the social realm as well.

Negotiating empowerment I have already mentioned the utility of daughters in their father’s house in terms of various services they provide free of cost. Parents, I was told, in earlier days were not eager to part with her services, not until a replacement had been found. Two ways that the Gaddis employed to secure this replacement were strategies and forms of marriage. The Gaddi marriages are based on equal status of “wife givers” and “wife takers”, and the transfer of women takes place in both directions, so there are no actual wife takers or wife givers. Marriages are contracted in the nearby villages, and two villages for a very long time continue to supply women to each other. Musafir from Bharmour recalls: It was difficult to find a girl those days. They would refuse straight away or ask for batta-­satta [exchange of sisters]. That is, you give us a girl in exchange.

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Those who had more girls would ask you to be ghar-­jawantri [a son-­in-­law who in this case comes to reside with her wife’s family]. They will make you work for seven years in their house. Keep you as a puhal [shepherd]. Even after seven years of service they would sometimes dilly-­dally. But one could go to the court. After seven years of service they will marry their daughter to you. They could put other conditions as well. There was a custom of tal-­bal. They would promise to give the girl, but put a condition. The prospective groom had to go over to their place anytime they asked for him and work in their fields, help in the construction work or in any other activity for which extra labour was required. This was also for seven years. Ghar-­jawantri and tal-­bal forms of marriages are no longer in vogue today. The direct exchange of sisters is also not common anymore, but it is not altogether extinct and, in fact, even today the most ideal form of marriage is considered to be one based on repeated exchange of women in a reciprocal flow. Phillimore, who worked on marriage patterns among the Gaddis, observes: “The pattern of repeated reversal of the direction of affinal alliance continues unmodified, and the reciprocal exchange of brides remains the most evident fact and guiding principle” (Phillimore 1982: 339–340). One of my informants, Jagdish, explained: “Suppose I get married. I’ll see to it that my collateral and my wife’s collaterals get married to each other. Maximum marriages take place this way. Marriages between my kins and my affins is the most desirable form of alliance, but not the only means of alliance”. The existence of batta-­satta and ghar-­jawantri is explained in terms of scarcity of women. Thus, initially, it was hard for a man to find a bride for himself. A woman’s position, on the other hand, was stronger. She could elope with another man and contract a second marriage. Some sort of compensation was paid to the husband and not much stigma was attached to this form of marriage. Her children from her previous marriage continued to enjoy full rights in their father’s clan, including rights of inheritance. Elopement could also take place before the primary marriage and, though not acknowledged, some form of compensation may have been due to the parents of the girl. Given this scenario where a woman’s labour was highly required and brides were so hard to come by, the Gaddi woman was in a stronger position to negotiate her space in her husband’s family. The first indication of this was the separation of the hearth soon after the marriage, as explained in the previous section. That she could contract a second marriage without a long-­term stigma attached to it once again points towards her position of advantage. On the contrary, for a man to divorce his wife was extremely difficult, especially if he already had children from the first marriage. The only way out was to make her life difficult to such an extent that she left on her own accord and the onus of the breakdown fell upon her. This possibility was largely hampered by the fact that, in the case of batta-­satta, it could lead to a double breakdown by spilling over to his sister, who was married to the brother of his wife. In the case of a ghar-­jawantri, it meant another seven years of service at his future father-­in-­law’s house. Thus, despite a low and inferior ritual

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status of the woman in her husband’s family, she had more scope for negotiation than the Gaddi man. And that she successfully managed to negotiate her space within the framework of her marital family is indicated by the fact that breakdown of a marriage among the Gaddis is not very high and marriage by elopement is not common. An even stronger power of negotiation is invested with the woman who is located at the periphery of a patrilineal family framework. Negotiation of boundaries here is more intense and more visible. I now turn my attention to the widows. A typical setting for a second marriage is when a woman is widowed. Widow remarriage is called gudnoj and is quite common among the Gaddis. Upon her husband’s death, a woman may marry either his younger or elder brother. Marriage with the younger brother is more desirable and more common. One could even say that the younger brother has the right to inherit his elder brother’s widow. Such a marriage is most likely to take place when a widow has been left issueless. But a second marriage can happen with or without children and a woman cannot be forced to marry her husband’s brother against her will. She may instead choose to marry the hearth of her deceased husband’s house. Thereafter she is allowed to form an alliance with any of the male members of her husband’s kin group and have children from such an alliance. These relationships are not discussed openly and the name of the father (genitor) is never asked or revealed. Children from this alliance, even if born ten years after her husband’s death, inherit the name and an equal share in the property of the deceased person. The only precondition involved is that the wife continues to live in her dead husband’s house. These children are called chaukhandu (“born within the four walls”) and no special stigma is attached to them. They enjoy full membership in the dead man’s clan. While I was discussing this aspect of remarriage with 70-­year-­old Nanku (male), 20-­year-­old Jagdish (male), a graduate, contested, “How is it possible?” Nanku retorted: “Why is it not possible? After all, the brothers [bhyalti –all the male siblings and agnatic collaterals] sit with the bridegroom during samoot and sandi [marriage rituals]. Kangana [sacred thread] is tied to all of them. They open this thread together. Then there is pachaink [a surrogate bridegroom], who participates in all the marriage rituals. What does it mean? It means that they are all responsible for the woman being married into their kin group and if by chance something goes wrong they’ll all take care of her”. Jagdish appeared quite convinced after this. But if one takes a closer look, one realizes that such an alliance is directly linked with the right of inheritance of land. Land at the time of the kings was not a private property. There were holders and users of land, but no ultimate owners. The inheritance was strictly in the male line. A daughter or her husband and even her children could not inherit her father’s ancestral land and property. Newell has discussed the process of acquisition and inheritance of cultivable land in some detail and I quote from him: On finding a piece of cultivable land the citizen was issued with a grant. For two years he was exempt from further charges after which he paid revenue

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charge to the Rajah’s representative, the land officer. Subject to the continued payment of this revenue charge, the right to use the land was inherited among males and otherwise could not be sold or disposed of, although if he was unable to pay the revenue the land would escheat to the ruler. After the death of the original cultivator, the land passed equally to a man’s natural sons. In the absence of brothers it passed to other members of the clan who might redistribute the land within the clan. Land could not be inherited through adoption without the permission of the clan. Land, unlike some other parts of India, could not pass to the daughter’s husband in the absence of male heirs. Thus the claims to cultivable rights in land were exercised exclusively by male members of the clan within the village and there was no possibility of any woman exercising direct rights in land cultivation. (Newell 1962: 14) Women, thus, like the land, belonged to the men of her husband’s clan. If the ownership rights of the first claimant ceased, there were others to lay claim. The importance and necessity of having a male heir led to widow remarriage. Given this scenario, the widow was able to negotiate her space and exercise her freedom to marry one of the brothers or any other male within the clan. She could also choose to marry the hearth and have an alliance with any male without being obliged to reveal his identity. As an issueless widow, she could inherit her husband’s land and use it till her death. The possibilities that she might return to her natal family, contract a second marriage outside the clan or elope with a man of her choice allowed for a negotiation of her space more powerfully. Now I come to the third category of women, who stand outside the boundaries of the marital family. Though very insignificant in number, their presence in the Gaddi society is of great symbolic and social value. These women, at an early age, decide to remain unmarried and are called Saddhan. However, the term Saddhan should not be confused with categories of people like sanyasis or sadhus (i.e., renouncers and ascetics), though etymologically it is derived from these. In fact, the Gaddi community knows no sadhus or sanyasis belonging to its ranks. Mendicants, ascetics and renouncers known to the community are all outsiders, who have migrated to Bharmour from various parts of India. Even the most sacred temple complex of Chaurasi in Bharmour was looked after by a naga-­baba (one of the sects among Indian ascetics), Shri Krishna Giriji Maharaj, and later by his disciple Prema Giriji, and both were non-­Gaddis. It is now looked after by a trust and the serving priest is a householder. Though there is a constant flow of visiting sadhus and naga-­babas into Bharmour, no local person has been ever known to have renounced the worldly life. The Saddhan lives with her parents and looks after them and her younger siblings. Often her choice to remain unmarried is guided by the absence of older siblings or a direct male inheritor in the family. There are three Saddhans in Sachuin village and I was able to meet two of them. They did not see their Saddhan-­hood as a religious calling and described it as choice guided by practical necessity.

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The most distinguishing mark of a Saddhan is her clothing. More often than not, they dress up like the male members of their community, especially if they take up an occupation traditionally associated with men. However, the choice rests with them. Of the three Saddhans, two were shepherds and they sported cropped hair, wore men’s attire and behaved like any other male member of the community. The third Saddhan sported long hair, wore women’s clothing and was more conventional in her lifestyle. I may point out here that the motif of taking upon oneself the identity of another person through wearing his/her clothing or a clothing in his/ her name is a recognized and common practice among the Gaddis.2 Saddhans who adopt the male dress are treated as male by the community and are seen as male, rather than female. They take up practices such as herding, which is otherwise a strictly male occupation. They are also allowed to plough and sow seeds, a taboo for other women. This is a very relevant marker of their male identity. The field is treated like a womb and penetration of this womb and planting of seed is clearly a male role. Allowing the Saddhan to penetrate the field and plant the seed is thus a clear acknowledgement of her male status. They are also allowed inside the temples that are otherwise forbidden to women. They travel to high mountain peaks, which are under the control and vigilance of deities who do not tolerate the presence of women inside their shrines. Saddhans travel and live in high pastures with men who usually belong to their extended patrilineal kin group. They are allowed to sit, smoke and dine with men freely and openly. But most significantly, they inherit the ancestral property, and if there are other brothers, the Saddhan gets an equal share in land and livestock and other movable or immovable property. What is the idiom that defines a Saddhan? How does the community look upon them? Are they renouncers? Are they male or female or are they asexual, without a gender? Phillimore, who worked with the Gaddi Saddhans of Kangra District in Himachal Pradesh, views them in a broader Hindu tradition of female asceticism, at one level, but another level seeks to highlight their asexual persona. There is also a total denial of sexuality to them by the community, which he views as the only means available to accommodate this deviation and control her sexuality. He states: “Saddhins are viewed in their community as renouncers of a certain kind and to become a saddhin is acceptable precisely because the status finds legitimacy from its association with a greater ascetic tradition” (Phillimore 1991: 341). He also contends that “a saddhin [sic] is never classified socially as a male. Being a saddhin is an unambiguously female gender role which exploits the renunciatory idiom of removal from the everyday world, yet which paradoxically serves to entrench saddhin securely within the world, not to remove them from it” (ibid: 341). What is it that defines a Saddhan? The ascetic tradition that Phillimore invokes is not something that the Gaddis practise. And is a Saddhan giving up, renouncing something or acquiring an added dimension to her personhood? Dilyarani, a female nurse from Sachuin village, contended, “Saddhan has done away with her desire [sexual]. She is pure. She has become a man”. Is it then her chastity, as also highlighted by Phillimore (2002), that constitutes her claim to maleness? But

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purity in the male is not looked upon in terms of a lack of desire; it is ascribed to the lack of menstruation. A Saddhan is definitely impure when menstruating and is obliged to maintain menstrual taboos. She has to withdraw from sacred pastures for a period of three days when thus contaminated (bitti). Significantly, post-­menopausal women among the Gaddis are also treated as male-­like and are allowed to participate in certain male domains. A post-­menopausal woman is past the childbearing age, whereas the Saddhan voluntarily withdraws from this role, though she is biologically capable. Whether she dresses like a male or not, the fact that she has withdrawn from the main female role allows her to take up the role of the other gender. Whether a Saddhan is sexually active or not is a debatable issue within the community and the response to it is one of ambivalence. Depending on which “side” one takes, a Saddhan’s sexual inactivity is either highlighted or contested. Dilyarani (female), who belongs to the same village where all the three Saddhans come from and who shares kinship ties with them, highlighted their chastity. Male members of the village were at best defensive about them. As put by one of the informants: “They are after all our sisters. How can we malign them or agree with those who malign them?” Nanku from Seri had the following experience to narrate: “For a minute I was fooled. She looked absolutely like a man. She greeted me and shared a biri [smoked] with me. It was only later that she told me who she was. I came to know only later that she was Saddhan,” and he chuckled at this point. Nanku was amused at discovering that his male company had turned out to be a Saddhan and not a real male. But when I asked him categorically whether a Saddhan is a male or not, he said: “She is. She has become a man, so she is a man”. Saddhan is then not one who is neither this nor that, or either this or that. She is both a female and a male, though she has withdrawn from the female role of procreation. Her self-­proclaimed male status is not denied, nor is her physical gendered self taken away from her. The attitude towards her is neither one of deep respect (as in the case of Kangra Saddhins) nor of rejection. The response to her is rather one of ambivalence and amusement. Saddhan is a category that the Gaddis may not be fully comfortable with but are definitely tolerant of, and she is very much an accepted member of the Gaddi society. So far as the control and release of female sexuality is concerned, it functions in the interest of the patrilineal family and is evident in all the female roles that we have encountered here. Saddhan is no exception. If at one level this control and manipulation of female sexuality creates conditions for her subjugation, at another level it empowers the woman to negotiate this socially “usurped” space through the very same idiom. It is more pronounced in the case of those women who are either on (in this case, the widows) or outside the borders of the conjugal family (Saddhan). The widow negotiates her space by releasing her sexuality to secure a male heir for the clan and a Saddhan negotiates her space by withholding her sexuality and becoming the male heir in the family. The choice of both is acceptable and compatible with the interests of the patrilineal family structure. The married woman

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negotiates her space by holding a threat of a crossover to the other side of the boundary from the central space she occupies. Her strength lies in the services she provides to the family in both biological and socio-­economic terms. But most significantly it is she who holds within her the seeds of a potential anti-­structure and provides a counter-­text to the patrilineal discourse through her matrilateral deity Kailu, strong ties with the natal family and her capacity to elope with a lover. To keep her at the centre of the patrilineal space, very early in the marriage she is provided with control of her hearth and a separate household, and she thus becomes the female head of her household. Despite the apparent subjugation of daughter-­in-­laws that we saw in the earlier section, a Gaddi married woman has the power within the existing family framework to negotiate a better deal for herself if she chooses to do so.

Gender and mythology Despite the patrilineal overtones of the Gaddi discourse on gender, the Gaddis acknowledge the significance of the feminine principle at both mythological and biological levels. To begin with, the Gaddi land itself signifies a union of the masculine and the feminine principles and draws a continuum between the two. The valley is seen as jalhairi (water reservoir), that is, the yoni basin of Shiva. This yoni basin is Parvati, the female counterpart of Shiva, who is embedded in it as Mount Mani Mahesh Kailash. The Mount, as one of the versions of the Gaddi epic Saveen explains, is not only the sacred abode of the divine couple but also a physical manifestation of Shiva on Earth. The auspicious and blissful nature of the universe flows from this union. This yoni basin is the water reservoir needed for the germination of seed. It contains the rasa, the female fluid. In Saveen, Parvati distributes this rasa to all organic and non-­organic bodies. This rasa provides the flesh for the human child. The Gaddis acknowledge that the flesh comes from the mother and bones from the father. In Saveen, Kartikeya, son of Shiva, in anger throws his flesh to the mother and bones to the father, from whom he had received them in the first place. In one of the oral tales, Parvati creates the female and male forms by mixing black gram and rice. Black gram symbolizes male seed and rice the female seed. The Gaddis clearly hold that conception occurs only when the seed is received and mingled with the female fluid (rasa). This rasa constitutes the nutritional sap that ensures growth, vigour and vitality. It flows in the female breast in the form of milk and comprises 32 streams which the human child feeds on and retains till the age of 32. Separation from the female beginnings indicates maturity on the one hand and a period of non-­g rowth, gradual decay and a non-­fertile, purely male state on the other hand. Such a conception of human growth and body is in consonance with the conceptualization of the Gaddi seasonal calendar. Not surprisingly then, in one of their marriage rituals, the Gaddi groom before departing for the bride’s house rejuvenates his powers to procreate by sucking on his mother’s breasts. In other words, he revives the fecund female energies in

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him. The main marriage ceremony among the Gaddis is lagan, which consists of a simple but a very symbolic act. The father of the bride places a babru (fried bread, signifying the male seed) in the hands of the bride. Her hand is covered on top by the groom’s hand and supported from below by her father’s hand. The mother of the bride sprinkles water on the babru. This brings to mind a ritual diagram drawn during the Shiva worship. The diagram, which is called prithavi mandala, contains Sumeru Parvat Kailash (the mythological mountain abode of Shiva representing the axis mundi) in its centre and represents the seed embedded in the prithavi kund (the womb of the Earth). This seed is drenched in nine streams of the sacred Ganga river (Kaushal 2004b). This seed is Shiva; during the cosmic dissolution the Earth disappears, the lone seed remains. In Saveen Shiva seeks from his consort the sparkling female waters to regenerate and recreate the universe. Saveen also contains a very elaborate and detailed description of Shiva’s marriage with Parvati. It is Shiva who is shown to be pining for Parvati, who plays the role of the reluctant bride, in a sharp contrast to the classical version of Shiva – Parvati Vivah (marriage), in which Parvati undergoes a rigorous penance for thousands of years to obtain Shiva as her husband. In Saveen, Parvati’s divine status is established right in the beginning. Shiva at his very first encounter recognizes her as the Goddess from the trident mark on her forehead. He himself, on the other hand, is required to give various proofs of his divinity, which lead to his revelation as the cosmic man and the unfolding of the phenomenal world. However, in very subtle terms, Saveen stresses that though the world has originated from Shiva, it is Parvati who is the prime cause behind the creation. Shiva and Shakti unite at the very dawn of creation. It is Shakti who throws a challenge to Shiva, thereby making him unfold the manifest world. Another significant acknowledgement of the feminine principle is embedded in the story relating to Chaurasi, a temple complex at Bharmour, which serves as the religious, social, cultural and political centre for the Gaddis. Chaurasi was, to begin with, a purely female space. It was the sacred grove of the goddess Bharmani, the original ruler and titular deity of Bharmour. Shiva overnight turned it into an all-­ male space by establishing his eighty-­four Siddhas (ascetic followers of Shiva) there in the form of lingam (oval-­shapped stone representing the phallic form of Shiva). Bharmani was asked to leave. Before leaving she gave her place to a female Siddha deity called Likhnakari, later venerated as Lakhna, the goddess of fate (vidh mata). She not only accords fate and age but also sees to the growth of the seed into a fully formed human embryo, providing it with limbs. Her yantra (mystic diagram) helps in safe and easy delivery. Thus, even Shiva’s intervention could not make Chaurasi a totally male space. Whether it is metaphysics or ritual, mythic or the social realm, the feminine principle figures prominently at all levels. Well-­being and auspiciousness flow from the union of the male and the female principles. The myth seeks creative transcendence, whereas the realm of the social allows for negotiation and empowerment within these spaces that do not threaten but keep the boundaries of the patrilineal family order intact.

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Notes 1 Scholars of Tribal Studies have often argued that the term “tribal” in the context of India is complex. Identification of certain groups of Indian people as tribes was directly linked with the initiation of census surveys of the colonial government as a tool for governance and control. The groups identified as tribals were never really insular or necessarily racially distinct. Since time immemorial there has been a sustained and continuous interaction among the tribals and non-­tribals which has exerted a two-­way influence on their culture, thought, religion and social practices. See Introductory Address by Niharranjan Ray in K. S. Singh (ed), The Tribal Situation in India, 1972: 3–24; G. Devy (ed), Painted Words: An Anthology of Tribal Literature, 2002. 2 It is relevant to mention that this idea of taking upon the identity of another by either dressing up like him/her or by wearing clothes in his/her name is quite common among the Gaddis. This is especially true in the context of chelas and chelis (male and female human mediums of specific deities), who don the dress of specific deities during certain rituals. This is called the lana (dress) of the deity and it facilitates their total identification with the deity. Many Gaddis wear attire made in the name of one of their ancestors, who died without leaving offspring behind. These ancestors are called autar, and wearing clothes made in their name is a way of identifying with them. This usually happens in cases where the spirit of the ancestor is believed to feel that it has been forgotten or ignored by the kin group. The clothing symbolizes identification with the ancestor and perpetuation of his memory. This motif of taking up the identity of the other is marked in the case of the saddhans who adopt a male appearance and are then treated like men in certain ways by the community.

References Devy, G. N. (ed). 2002. Painted Words: An Anthology of Tribal Literature. New Delhi: Penguin Books. Kaushal, Molly.2001. ‘Divining the Landscape  – the Gaddi and His Land’, in Geeti Sen and Ashish Banerjee (eds), Human Landscape, pp. 31–40. New Delhi: Orient Longman. ———. 2004a. ‘From Mythic to Political Identities: Folk Festivals and Cultural Subtexts’, in M. D. Muthukumarswamy and Molly Kaushal (eds), Folklore, Public Sphere and Civil Society, pp. 186–196. New Delhi: IGNCA, NFSC. ———. 2004b. ‘Theatre of the Self: Ritual Performances Among the Gaddis’, Indian Horizons, 49 (3–4), ICCR, New Delhi. Majumamdar, D. N. and T. N. Madan. 1956. An Introduction to Social Anthropology. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. Mehrotra, N. 2004. ‘Situating Tribal Women’, The Eastern Anthropologist, 57 (1): 61–73. Menon, G. 1992. ‘Socio-­Economic Transition and Tribal Women’, in B. Chaudhuri (ed), Tribal Transformations in India, Vol. 1, pp. 88–109. New Delhi: Inter-­India Publications. Nathan, Dev. 1997. ‘Gender Transformations in Tribes’, in Dev Nathan (ed), From Tribe to Caste. Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Studies. Newell, W. H. 1962. ‘The Submerged Descent Line Among the Gaddi People of North India’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Research Institute, London: 92 (1): 13–22. ———. 1967. The Scheduled Castes and Tribes of Bharmour Tehsil of Chamba District. Simla: Government of India Press. Nongbri, T. 2000. ‘Khasi Women and Matriliny: Transformations in Gender Relations’, Gender, Technology and Development, 4 (3): 359–395. Phillimore, Peter. 1982. ‘Marriage and Social Organization Among Pastoralists of the “Dhola Dhar” ’, D. Phil Thesis, Department of Anthropology, University of Durham. ———. 1991. ‘Unmarried Women of the Dhaula Dhar: Celibacy and Social Control in Northwest India’, Journal of Anthropological Research 47: 331–350.

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———. 2002. ‘Private Lives and Public Identities: An Example of Female Celibacy in Northwest India’, in Elisa J. Sobo and andra Bell (eds), Celibacy, Culture and Society: The Anthropology of Sexual Abstinence, pp. 29–46. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Punjab State Gazetteer. 1904. Chamba State, Vol. xxii Part A. Ray, Niharranjan. 1972. ‘Introductory Address’, in K. S. Singh (ed), The Tribal Situation in India, pp. 3–24. Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Studies. Singh, K. S. (ed). 1972. The Tribal Situation in India. Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Studies. Xaxa, Virginius. 2004. ‘Women and Gender in the Study of Tribes in India’, Indian Journal of Gender Studies, 11 (3): 345–367.

Bibliography Bhasin, Veena. 1988. Himalayan Ecology Transhumance and Social Organization: Gaddis of Himachal Pradesh. New Delhi: Kamla Raj Prakashan. Chaudhuri, Buddhadeb (ed). 1982. Tribal Development in India: Problems and Prospects. New Delhi: Inter-­India Publications. Devy, G. N. 2006. A Nomad Called Thief: Reflections on Adivasi Silence. New Delhi: Orient Longman. Kaushal, Molly. 1998. ‘Sacred Response to Environment: The Gaddi and His Mountain’, in B. N. Saraswati (ed), Cultural Dimensions of Ecology, pp. 65–71. New Delhi: UNESCO Chair in the Field of Cultural Development and IGNCA. ———. 2001a. ‘Cultural Categories of Space and Time’, in B. N. Saraswati (ed), The Nature of Man and Culture: Alternative Paradigms in Anthropology. New Delhi: IGNCA, Aryan Books International. ———. 2001b. ‘The Gaddi Epic Saveen – Singers and Performance Contexts’, in Molly Kaushal (ed), Chanted Narratives the Living Katha Vachana Tradition, pp.  37–41. New Delhi: IGNCA, D.K. Printworld. ———. 2006. ‘Folklore of Himachal Pradesh’, in Encyclopaedia of World Folklore, pp. 30–39. Westport, CT and London: Greenwood Press. ———. 2012. ‘Negotiating Spaces: Gender and Empowerment in the Gaddi Society’, in Malashree Lal and Sukrita Paul Kumar (eds), Chamba Achamba: Women’s Oral Culture, pp. 300–320. New Delhi: Sahitya Academy. Kelkar, G. and Dev Nathan. 1991. Gender and Tribe: Women, Land and Forests in Jharkhand. New Delhi: Kali for Women. Miri, Mrinal (ed). 1993. Continuity and Change in Tribal Society. Shimla: Indian Institute of Advanced Studies. Singh, J. P., N. Vyas and R. S. Mann (eds). 1988. Tribal Women and Development. Jaipur: Rawat Publishers.

8 GENDER IN AUSTRALIAN INDIGENOUS LITERATURE AND MAORI AND PACIFIC ISLAND LITERATURES Anne Brewster and Chris Prentice

Gender in Australian indigenous literature Indigenous literature has been an important forum for exploring issues of gender, demonstrating that gender is always shaped and informed not only by race and indigeneity but by other factors such as political movements, ideologies and rhetoric, generation and class. Although indigenous1 people had taken up alphabetic writing and print in many forms (including letters, pamphlets, newspaper articles, stories, petitions and manifestos) since the arrival of Europeans, the body of work we identify as Aboriginal literature in English emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. These two decades constituted an Aboriginal renaissance of political activism and cultural regeneration in which Aboriginal political and cultural identities were shaped in response to a variety of global movements, such as the Black Power and Red Power movements in the US; the liberation struggles in Africa, Papua New Guinea and South America; and global indigenous affiliations under the banner of the United Nations. While both men and women were prominent in the activism of the 1960s and 1970s, the literature of the Aboriginal renaissance was dominated by male writers. An important exception is Kath Walker (who changed her name to Oodgeroo Noonuccal in 1988) who was the first Aboriginal writer to publish a book of poetry. Her book We Are Going (1964) was followed by two further collections, Dawn Is at Hand (1966) and My People (1970). Oodgeroo’s poetry addressed various gendered social justice issues including the abuse of Aboriginal women by white men. The poem ‘The Protectors’ (1970: 27), for example, decries Aboriginal women’s lack of protection by the law. The other two major poets of this early period were Jack Davis, who published four books over 20 years – The First-­Born (1970), Jagardoo (1978), John Pat (1988) and Black Life (1992) – and Kevin Gilbert, who published People Are Legends (1978),

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The Blackside (1990) and, posthumously, Black from the Edge (1994). He also published several edited anthologies, a play and two important treatises: Because a White Man’ll Never Do It (1973) and Aboriginal Sovereignty (1993). Both writers wrote extensively on Aboriginal masculinity. The other literary genre that was prominent during this period was theatre, which was also dominated by the products of male writers, such as Kevin Gilbert’s The Cherry Pickers (the first production/rehearsed reading was in 1971. The play was published in 1988), Robert Merritt’s The Cake Man (1978), Gerry Bostock’s Here Comes the Nigger (1976) and Jack Davis’ Kullark (1979). Prior to the Aboriginal renaissance there were a small number of Aboriginal life stories published in the 1950s and 1960s, mostly by men, such as David Unaipon’s My Life Story (1951), Ronald Morgan’s Reminiscences of the Aboriginal Station at Cummeragunga and Its Aboriginal People (1952), and Unaipon’s ‘Leaves of Memory’ (1953). Following this, throughout the late 1970s and 1980s the production of life writing increased. Initially there were more Aboriginal men’s life stories being produced than women’s.2 These were an important archive of Aboriginal masculinity, focusing on a range of themes including traditional legends, stories and male cultural practices especially those relating to the land (Dick Roughsey 1971; Jack Mirritiji 1976; Grant Ngabidj 1981; Bill Neidjie and Keith Taylor 1989); life on a penal settlement (Willie Thaiday 1981); mission life (Jimmie Barker 1977); station life and traditional practices (Clancy McKenna 1978; Jack Sullivan 1983); station life and boxing (Bill Cohen 1987); family history (Phillip Pepper 1980; James Miller 1985); urban living and political activism (Robert Bropho 1980); personal quests such as the recovery from alcoholism (Koorie Dhoulagarle 1979); Christianity (Lazarus Lamilami 1974); the development of professional careers (Charles Perkins 1975); and working on pearling luggers (Thomas Lowah 1988). Although the rate of production then slowed, the 1990s saw the continuation of station life stories such as the tracker stories of Jack Bohemia (1995), and stockman and drover stories, notably those of Jack McPhee (Jack McPhee and Patricia Konigsberg 1994, Sally Morgan 1989) and Morndi Munro (1996). A number of biographical stories of men prominent in the political arena were also published in the 1990s, such as Joe McGinness and Edward Koiki Mabo. Other Aboriginal men’s life stories include those by Jack Davis (1991; an exploration of childhood); Bill Dodd (1992; the story of recovery from an accident); Warrigal Anderson (1996; the story of a lifetime of not having a birth certificate and hiding from the authorities); and Wayne King’s affirmation of his homosexuality (1996). There is also Gordon Matthews’ account of identifying as Aboriginal, later to discover that he was South Asian (1996). There are very few early publications of women’s life stories. However, a wave of women’s life stories began in the period spanning the late 1970s and mid-­1980s. These were mostly the life stories of significant national and community figures, such as Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal) (1972), Evonne Goolagong (1975), Margaret Tucker (1977), Monica Clare (1978), Ella Simon (1978), Shirley Smith (1981), Eliza Kennedy (1982), Janet McKenzie (1982, 1983), Ida West (1984),

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Labumore (Elsie Roughsey) (1984) and Marnie Kennedy (1984). The two books by Faith Bandler, a black Australian of Vanuatan heritage, Wacvie (1977) and Welou My Brother (1984), were also significant. In the late 1980s Aboriginal women’s life writing gathered momentum with the publication of Sally Morgan’s My Place (1987), which described the author’s discovery of her Aboriginal heritage and her piecing together of family history. Morgan’s book sold well and popularized the genre; in Ruby Langford Ginibi’s words, ‘her book was the first to open the country up’.3 The genre proliferated in the following decade, giving rise to about 20 books, mainly by women.4 During this time the focus of Aboriginal women’s life stories widened to include the histories of other family members, for example, Sally Morgan (1989), Ruby Langford Ginibi (1992, 1994, 1999), Rita and Jackie Huggins (1994), Rosemary van den Berg (1994) Mabel Edmund (1996) and Doris Pilkington (1996, 2002). Following the 1990s, the publications of life stories started to slow down.5 Two books which appeared two decades later, Jeane Leane’s Purple Threads (2011) and Dylan Coleman’s Mazin Grace (2012), revived Aboriginal life storying by blending it with fiction. Women’s life stories differ from men’s life stories in that they are largely histories of the family, and frequently transgenerational, telling more than one person’s story (see Horakova 2011). As such they are strongly gendered and reflect women’s pivotal role in communal and family life which, Marcia Langton suggested in 1981, had become ‘matrifocal’ (Langton 1981: 18). As heads of households, Aboriginal women had in effect assumed responsibility for the continuation of Aboriginal values and practices. They act as a buffer to pressures to conform to mainstream Australian life as O’Shane (1976: 33) and Daylight and Johnstone (1986: 2) have suggested. Aboriginal women’s life stories show us how families, by maintaining a distinct way of life, function to resist assimilation. Many life stories have been authored by women who were born between 1920 and 1950 and lived through the eras of Protection (1900s–late 1930s)6 and Assimilation (1937–67).7 Many had experienced the impact of the policy of removing fair-­skinned children from families. This process occurred from the beginning of the 20th century and lasted almost 70 years. Government policy makers and officials claimed they were providing protection for neglected, abused or abandoned mixed-­descent children. However, the removals were also motivated by the intention of assimilating mixed-­ descent indigenous people  – socially, culturally and biologically  – to the mainstream white population. The impact of the policy of child removal on Aboriginal people as a collective has been devastating. In 1995 the Australian federal government commissioned an investigation into the removal of children, under the auspices of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Its 680-­page report, titled Bringing Them Home (1997), estimated that ‘between one in three and one in ten’ children had been removed from their families during this period. The report circulated widely in the public sphere and led to the increased visibility of Aboriginal history. It enhanced interest in Aboriginal women’s life writing and its gendered acts of cultural and familial restitution.

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Many Aboriginal women authors have emphatically affirmed the truth effects of life writing. They consider that their task is to record indigenous history in order to correct the silences and omissions of official history. These authors chronicle indigenous history both for their own families and for wider local, national and global audiences. They often distinguish their work in its documentary function from fiction. Ruby Langford Ginibi, for example, described herself as a ‘true storyteller’ (Langford 1994: 109), insisting on the facticity and referentiality of her stories. She said, ‘I’m not interested in fiction. Don’t need to be, because I’m too busy writing the truth about my people’ (Langford 1994: 109). Several Aboriginal women life writers nonetheless also have produced fiction, for example Doris Pilkington Garimara, whose first book, Caprice (1991), was a fictionalized version of her mother’s life story. Her second book, Follow the Rabbit-­Proof Fence (1996) (Philip Noyce’s film adaptation of it, Rabbit-­Proof Fence [2002], shot the book to fame), was also a story about her mother’s life. Another early example of the intersection of fiction and life story is Monica Clare’s Karobran: The Story of an Aboriginal Girl (1978), a fictionalized life story, which can also be regarded as the first Aboriginal novel. However, it was not until the 1990s that indigenous fiction started to become an established genre. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, the male writers Bruce Pascoe, Philip McLaren and Sam Watson took the lead. Watson’s novel The Kadaitcha Sung (1990), in particular, raised important issues in its treatment of gender.8 It combines gritty realism with fabulist indigenous cosmology in a story of revenge and counter-­revenge where spirits, indigenous male warriors and white men are entangled in a narrative of collusion, murder and retribution. The vengeful masculine violence of the protagonist, Tommy, is largely sanctioned by the mythic cosmology. The cosmological elements of the novel’s violence function in some measure as an assertion of contemporary indigenous men’s links with the past and as a recuperation of identity (which Heim [1998] argues is the case with some Maori novels). In The Kadaitcha Sung, Tommy Gubba, the main character, is initiated as a Kadaitcha (sorcerer), in order to combat a renegade Kadaitcha named Booka. Race and gender politics are intertwined, and Tommy’s indigeneity and masculinity intersect with whiteness. Although he is the son of a Kadaitcha man, his mother is a white woman. (The term ‘gubba’ is a colloquial Murri Aboriginal term for a white person). Tommy considers himself a ‘mongrel hybrid’ (Watson 1990: 153) and rails against the ‘accursed’ white blood ‘in his veins’ (Watson 1990: 251). So while Tommy hates comprador indigenes such as Booka, he feels guilty about his own mixed heritage. The violence embedded within the novel’s thematics is thus not only directed at the colonizers but is an allegory of the intense conflict of two contradictory worlds (white and black) which affects Tommy’s body and psyche. Throughout the novel, moreover, both black/black and black/white violence (between men and between men and women) is sexualized, and women characters are victimized and brutalized. Tommy’s relationships with women  – even his relationship with his mother – are sexualized. Sexuality is the currency of negotiation for women with both men and spirits. While the white scoundrels are censured in their rape of indigenous women, Tommy’s exploitation of indigenous

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and white women’s sexuality is figured in an almost picaresque style of masculinity; like the gods and spirits, he is represented as fickle, headstrong and beyond the moral censure of the mortal world. Sam Watson was a co-­founder in 1971 of the Brisbane chapter of the Australian Black Panther Party. Although the Australian Black Panther Party was short-­lived and did not undertake armed military action, it made an impact upon indigenous political organization in the 1970s and generated a powerful discourse of black pride and militant masculinity. It provided a cultural and discursive context for the depiction of masculine violence in The Kadaitcha Sung.9 In 1971 one of the leaders of the Sydney chapter, Gary Foley, for example, said that ‘violence is natural to an Aboriginal because he has been subject to it since birth’ and ‘Violence is their means of survival. All the Black Panther Party is doing is utilising and redirecting this violent feeling’.10 Historically the movement has been characterized by images and narratives of indigenous masculinity, but musician and broadcaster Marlene Cummins, who was involved in the Brisbane chapter, insists that ‘us women were on the front line too’ (Black Panther Woman, 1:24). It is only recently that the gender politics of the Black Panther Party has come under scrutiny with the appearance of the documentary Black Panther Woman (directed by Rachel Perkins 2014), featuring Marlene Cummins, which exposes the gendered, sexualized violence associated with the Brisbane chapter. Many Aboriginal women writers’ work – in both poetry and fiction – has been preoccupied with exploring the effects of gendered violence (Brewster 2019). It is a dominant theme in Aboriginal women’s literature. In the late 1990s, novels by Melissa Lucashenko and Alexis Wright addressed this issue directly. Alexis Wright’s first novel, Plains of Promise (1997), describes the transgenerational effects of trauma – occasioned by removal from their mothers and from country – across three generations of women in one family. The search to return to country shapes Ivy Koopundi and her daughter Mary’s very different life stories, although both shared the trauma of having lost their mothers. Ivy’s life is one of almost unimaginable cruelty – sexualized abuse at the hands of a Christian missionary, her Aboriginal husband and the mental health institution in which she is later incarcerated. Mary’s experience of gender politics within an urban Aboriginal activist community some decades later in some ways echoes Ivy’s. Melissa Lucashenko’s first novel, Steam Pigs (1997), set in contemporary Brisbane, also focuses on gendered violence. The protagonist, Sue Wilson, undergoes a rite-­de-­passage as she reclaims her indigeneity and frees herself from a debilitating relationship with an Aboriginal man, Roger. Unable to escape an environment of alcohol and substance abuse, gambling and the neglect of children, Sue has found herself caught in a cycle of domestic violence. Eventually she undergoes a transformative transition through a friendship with two lesbian feminist activists and leaves Roger. Through her feminist friendships she comes to understand that Aboriginal women share experiences of white Australian racism with other minority women, for example Jewish and Chinese women. Steam Pigs is overtly informed with feminist consciousness-­raising politics of the 1980s and 1990s. It graphically

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portrays the entanglement of class, gender and race. Sue reflects on how she has learned to internalize shame by believing that ‘there’s nothing more to being Aboriginal than drinking and fighting and being poor’ (Lucashenko 1997: 147). This troubled self-­image is further exacerbated by the fact that she was ‘brought up white’ and considered a ‘coconut’ (Lucashenko 1997: 145). In the novel, Sue’s growing understanding of the politics of violence against women enables her to reject the idea, for example, that black men’s violence against women is ‘part of being Murri’ (Lucashenko 1997: 145). If the novel narrates the story of Sue’s rejection of gendered violence within the Aboriginal community, it also attributes that violence in part to the systemic violence of an urban environment where, as Roger reflects, racism is ‘so ordinary to us that it’s part of breath itself ’ (Lucashenko 1997: 19). However, in essays published through the 1990s, Lucashenko makes it clear that colonization is not the only source of the ‘lateral’ gendered violence within Aboriginal communities and argues that black men should not ‘cling to the rhetoric of oppression’ (Lucashenko 1996: 388). In Steam Pigs she critiques gendered and racialized violence not only through its grim, gritty realism but also through its humour, which satirizes both white and Aboriginal heteronormative masculinity. In the urban pub scenes she mercilessly parodies young white men. Roger, Sue’s Aboriginal boyfriend, is also satirized. We are told that there are ‘three different categories of bloke’ in Roger’s mind, namely, ‘normal fullas’, ‘stiffs’ and ‘the sorry cunts who might as well’ve been drowned at birth, the latter including Datsun drivers, screws, coppers and poofters’ (126). Sue’s rejection of classed, gendered, heteronormative violence and her growing awareness of the ways in which she can refashion her identity as a woman parallel her political understanding of how her Aboriginality had been oppressed. As she begins to free herself from the violent relationship with Roger and break the cycle of poverty, moving out of the neighbourhood and enrolling in education classes, Sue begins to define her Aboriginality differently; she ‘saw the city through different, more confident eyes, saw for the first time the possibility of claiming it as her own, a part of her life and her psyche’ (240). Sue ‘remembered anew’ that Brisbane was Yuggera country and that ‘her belonging roots reached deep into the soil, anchoring her like an old river gum’ (240). After the 1990s, women fiction writers continued to explore the issue of gendered violence and the ways in which it is entangled with colonization, dispossession and poverty – that is, with race and class. Examples include Vivienne Cleven’s Her Sister’s Eye (2002), Alexis Wright’s Carpentaria (2006), Marie Munkara’s Every Secret Thing (2009) and Ellen van Neerven’s Heat and Light (2014). Despite the often grim scenarios depicted in these books, the women in them are not represented as being without agency and strong survival skills. We see the dynamic vernacular humour in Steam Pigs, for example, which bears witness to the wisdom and strength of Aboriginal women and their political will. Munkara and Wright also make use of humour, particularly (but not solely) to satirize whiteness. Vivienne Cleven and Ellen van Neerven’s fiction also depicts powerful sovereign women who deploy psychical, spiritual and bodily resources in the face of violence.

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While gendered violence has been prominent in Aboriginal women’s fiction, it has been less visible in life writing. A significant exception is Doris Pilkington Garimara’s third book, Under the Wintamarra Tree (2002). While many Aboriginal women life writers are reticent to talk publicly about their marital lives, Under the Wintamarra Tree describes frankly the violence which prompted Pilkington Garimara to leave her marriage. In the book’s epigraph, Pilkington Garimara affirms overtly that writing her life story was for her an experience of profound healing that she offers up to other indigenous and non-­indigenous women who have suffered domestic violence. Issues relating to gender and violence against women and children were foregrounded in a wave of women’s poetry from the 1990s onwards. One of the first books in this period was Lisa Bellear’s Dreaming in Urban Areas (1996), which forthrightly addresses the issue of violence against Aboriginal women and children. Bellear’s female personae target Aboriginal male perpetrators who appear to be known to them and who they call ‘brother’ or ‘uncle’ – generic terms of kinship or respect – demanding that they be held to account. In the same year, Kerry Reed-­ Gilbert published her first book of poetry, Black Woman Black Life. Several poems in this book also confront the issue of gendered violence directly. Reed-­Gilbert confirms her personal interest in this topic in an interview where she states, ‘I come from domestic violence’ (Brewster 2016: np). In Black Woman Black Life, she maps the demise of a violent marriage. Reed-­Gilbert’s husband was white, but she also has had personal experience of Aboriginal men’s violence, namely the highly publicized shooting murder, by her father, Kevin Gilbert, of Reed-­Gilbert’s (white) mother in 1957. While she insists that what her father did was a crime, Reed-­Gilbert unpacks the multiple factors affecting Aboriginal men’s violence and the ways in which race and class inform masculinity and men’s anger. She identifies as ‘indigenous first,/woman second’ (Reed-­Gilbert 1996: 28). Her understanding of herself as a woman is ‘as a woman of this land’, that is, in terms of her sovereign relationship to other indigenous people and to land. The introduction of the trope of land into her gendered identity emphasizes how she is embedded in a racialized colonial economy of expropriation which affects Aboriginal men and women differently. Following the foundational work of Bellear and Reed-­Gilbert, women poets continued to be centrally concerned with the topic of gender as it intersects with race. Romaine Moreton, in Post Me to the Prime Minister (2004), explores how race and sexuality inform each other in majoritarian representations of Aboriginal women. In the poems ‘Objectify my sex’ and ‘Mr Slave Mentality’, the persona demonstrates how violence against Aboriginal women is normalized in assumptions about their sexual availability. The persona talks about how, merely by stepping onto the street, she has to defend herself against a sexualizing gaze. The persona suggests that it is because she is indigenous that she is sexualized; her presumed sexual availability is contingent upon her raced identity. She describes how, in being differentiated from white women who have been characterized by chastity and purity, indigenous women’s sexuality is coded as licentious and promiscuous.

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This is a theme taken up by Jeanine Leane in Dark Secrets (2010), which investigates the transgenerational effects of racialized and sexualized violence. The poems in this book portray Aboriginal women in the settler period, when many were indentured to domestic service, focussing on the relationship between these Aboriginal women and their white mistresses. They represent the complicity of white women in the colonizing mission, pointing to the role they played in facilitating Aboriginal women’s incorporation into the settler nation via their incorporation into the domestic order. Aboriginal women were vulnerable in white homes, and the poem ‘Agony in the Garden’ depicts the rape of one such woman. Leane’s poetry demonstrates how Aboriginal women’s sexuality was a dangerous site of desire for settlers and was thus relegated to the realm of immorality and vice. However, Leane’s poetry is not unfailingly sombre. The last poem of the sequence, ‘Dark Secrets II’, satirizes damaging stereotypes of sexualized Aboriginal women; in an exuberant, triumphal tone, the poem’s persona asserts and reinhabits her own desire. In addition to work by Moreton and Leane, poetry about gendered racialized violence can be found in Charmaine Papertalk-­Green’s Just Like That (2007), Yvette Holt’s Anonymous Premonition (2008) and Elizabeth Hodgson’s Skin Painting (2008). Discussions in the scholarly arena about sexualized violence against Aboriginal women from the 1990s onwards have been inflected by a widespread debate, dubbed ‘the Bell-Huggins debate’, about the speaking positions of white feminists and commentators. This debate was sparked by the article ‘Speaking About Rape Is Everyone’s Business’, published in 1989 by white feminist anthropologist Diane Bell and Aboriginal elder Topsy Napurrula Nelson.11 Bell’s radical feminist appeal to the importance of ‘the universality of key experiences of women’ (Bell and Nelson 1989: 415) provoked a response in a later issue of Women’s Studies International Forum by 12 Aboriginal women, including Jackie Huggins, disputing the radical feminist proposition that intra-­racial rape in Aboriginal communities is ‘everyone’s business’. They argued that ‘our internal conflicts have been exacerbated by colonisation and white women have always been part of that process’ (Huggins et al. 1991: 506) and made the further accusation that ‘in many cases our women considered white women worse than white men in their treatment of Aboriginal women, particularly in the domestic service field’ (Huggins et al. 1991: 506). They further argued that ‘we find more cohesion with socialist feminists than radical feminists as our fight is against the state’ (Huggins et al. 1991: 506) and that ‘sexism does not and will never prevail over racial domination in this country’ (Huggins et al. 507). Throughout the 1990s white feminists responded to the challenge arising from the Bell-­Huggins debate and to other work by indigenous scholars, such as Aileen Moreton-­Robinson’s important book Talkin’ up to the White Woman: Aboriginal Women and Feminism (2000), reflecting on their own positions of privilege and entitlement and on their complicity in the reproduction of white power. Their critical work focussed on the practice of developing ethical cross-­racial research methodologies (see Larbalestier 1990; Pettman 1992; Yeatman 1993; Brewster 1995). This renovation of feminism in Australia was part of a broader global feminist

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project responding to women of colour and minority women’s critiques of the universalizing tendencies and ‘possessive investments’ (Moreton-­Robinson 2000) of first-­world feminism. This interrogation is an ongoing project with indigenous and non-­indigenous scholars addressing the politics and ethics of white and non-­ indigenous scholarship and advocacy (see Dreher 2010; Brewster 2015). Another important intervention by Aboriginal writers in the representation of gender is the queering of heteronormative sexuality. Writers such as Vivienne Cleven and Ellen van Neerven have mounted queering investigations into the entanglement of race and gender, challenging both hegemonic masculinity and stereotypes of Aboriginal femininity. In Vivienne Cleven’s first novel, Bitin’ Back (2001), the young protagonist, Nevil, assumes the identity of the writer Jean Rhys. Set in the fictional rural town of Mandamooka, the novel humorously destabilizes the hypermasculinity of the beer-­ drinking, boxing, pig-­ hunting, sports-­ loving townsmen through parody. Underlining the narrative humour is an undercurrent of menace, however, as Nevil’s transgressive border-­crossing risks violence and ostracism. His mother and uncle comically attempt to quarantine him from the town as they fear the town’s reaction to Nevil assuming a white female identity. The ending resolves the town’s demands that Nevil conform to the practice of hegemonic heteronormative masculinity, but it also provides a new opening for Nevil; he emerges a (masculine) hero by playing triumphantly in the football game and for standing up physically to the bully Mad Dog. But he has the last word by insisting cheekily at the end of the game that he is nonetheless a (white) woman. The narrative thus demonstrates the mutually constitutive nature of race and masculinity as it destabilizes the binaries of white/black and masculinity/femininity. Another example of queer poetics is found in Ellen van Neerven’s story ‘Water’, in her collection Heat and Light (2014). In the futuristic world of ‘Water’, the government is in the process of establishing a second country, Australia2, for Aboriginal people to live on as a self-­governing polity. They are creating this country by using land-­fill to join a number of small islands into a second, small continent. The Aboriginal protagonist, Kaden, is a cultural liaison officer responsible for coercing a population of amphibian plant people who live on the islands to cooperate with the project. The plant people’s society is non-­hierarchical, and their gender is fluid – it ‘is not predetermined’ (van Neerven 2014: 78). When Kaden develops an intimate relationship with one of the plant people, Larapinta, her lover, assumes female characteristics in her response to Kaden’s female body. Kaden eventually learns that the plant people are actually the ancestral spirits of the Aboriginal people of the region. She decides that she can no longer play the role of the government officer and instead joins other Aboriginal people and the plant people in sabotaging the government’s engineering project of joining the islands together. In the course of the story, we realize that the position of the plant people is homologous to that of Aboriginal people. The fact that Kaden is originally complicit in the ‘othering’ of the plant people indicates that she has a lot to learn about her own Aboriginal heritage, from which she had felt disconnected. When Kaden develops a relationship with Larapinta, this intimacy destabilizes a

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range of binaries including human/unhuman, natural/unnatural and masculinity/ femininity, which allows her to redefine her Aboriginality.

Gender in Maori literature Maori literature in English became nationally and internationally visible during the 1970s, the early years of the so-­called Maori renaissance of cultural expression and political assertion. However, Maori writers had been publishing in English from at least the 1940s and 1950s. During these decades, J. C. (Jacqueline) Sturm (Taranaki)12 published poems and short stories in magazines and literary journals, and in 1955, her story ‘For All the Saints’ was the first story published in English by a Maori writer. Sturm’s stories generally depict experiences of social inequality and feelings of alienation. Her women narrators, often socially marginalized, immerse themselves in imagination, fantasy or daydream to escape or to cope with difficult realities in predominantly urban settings in the 1950s. Despite her pioneering place in Maori literature in English, Sturm’s stories were only published as a collection, The House of the Talking Cat, in 1983. In 1964, Hone Tuwhare (Ngapuhi) published the first collection of poems by a Maori poet, No Ordinary Sun. Like Sturm’s early stories, Tuwhare’s early poems often did not specify a Maori subject, though ‘Tangi’ finds Death ‘in the calm vigil of hands/in the green-­leaved anguish/of the bowed heads/of old women’ (16), evoking the place of women in the Maori funeral rite of the title. Many of his poems foreground working-­class perspectives and themes, the lyric subject often a working man (for example, the steel worker in ‘Monologue’), and the poems capturing the masculine idiom. From the early 1970s, Maori and Pacific literature in English gained greater national and international visibility through publication of short story collections and novels. In contrast to Indigenous Australian writing, there was no real dominance of either male or female Maori writers, with first publications by male and female Maori writers appearing relatively close in time: Witi Ihimaera’s (Te Aitanga-­ a-­ Mahaki, Rongowhakaata, Ngati Porou, Ngati Kahungunu, Tuhoe) and Patricia Grace’s (Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa, Te Atiawa) first story collections (1972 and 1975); their respective first novels (1973 and 1978); Heretaunga Pat Baker’s and June Mitchell’s historical novels (1975, 1978, respectively), and Vernice Wineera Pere’s collection of poems (1978). While 1970s feminism challenged conventional gender roles and expressions of male dominance in the surrounding Pakeha culture, Maori cultural discourse – reflected in literary works  – emphasized rebuilding Maori community strength and coherence in the wake of large-­scale urbanization during the 1940s and 1950s. Gender relations prioritized Maori political and cultural unity rather than risking the potentially divisive strategies of (white, Western) feminism. Maori feminist positions of the 1970s included contesting Pakeha women’s definitions of sexism and criticizing Pakeha generalizations about ‘traditional’ Maori gender roles as being sexist. Alternatively, some Maori women cast sexist gender roles as

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the result of colonial patriarchal power dynamics, with or without the collusion of Maori men. In poetry, fiction and drama, Maori writers often represented the effects of colonial cultural disruption in gender-­specific terms. Some poems express a sense of disempowerment, figured  – in terms reminiscent of the frequently masculinist emphasis of decolonization discourses  – either as emasculation or as (self)-­ destructive violence. Tuwhare’s 1972 ‘To A Maori Figure Cast in Bronze Outside the Chief Post Office, Auckland’ presents the poignant experience of displacement through the eyes and voice of a statue. Despite the humour of the era’s idiomatic language, the masculine bravado and sexualized references to passing young women in mini-­skirts appear to mask feelings of loss, longing and disempowerment. Apirana Taylor’s (Ngati Porou, Te Whanau-­a-­Apanui, Ngati Ruanui) 1979 poem ‘Sad Joke on the Marae’ is just as poignant, though angry and ashamed rather than humorous, in its depiction of urban alienation and loss of culture, specifically language. The speaker introduces himself as: ‘Tu the freezing worker/Ngati D.B. is my tribe/The pub is my Marae/My fist is my taiaha/Jail is my home’ (15). Violence and imprisonment are thus figured as the (potential) reality for the dislocated young man whose only social connections arise through drinking. Tuwhare’s poems, largely focused on masculine perspectives and experience, include lyrical evocations of male friendship and camaraderie, sometimes tinged with nostalgia, as in ‘Friend’ (1964) and ‘Dear Cousin’ (1987). Other poems depict a male perspective on the importance of Maori gender complementarity, presenting a cosmological basis for this in the primal parents, Ranginui, Sky Father, and Papatuanuku, Earth Mother. The lyric subject of his ‘Totem Thoughts’ (1984) is a young Maori man who addresses the paired male and female carvings over the entrance to his marae (community gathering place) as ancestral parents locked in a sexual embrace, suggesting both lust (life) and procreation (continuity). Poems such as ‘Papa-­tu-­a-­nuku (Earth Mother)’ (1978) address the Earth as female, as a mother figure, and the lyric subject as variously her offspring and her lover. Such works do not challenge conventional gender distinctions or roles; they could be said, however, to challenge a world view that casts humans as masters of, rather than part of, the wider natural and cosmological world. Some of Ihimaera’s and Grace’s early stories illustrate complementarity of gender roles in Maori family and community settings. Story events or plots are often underpinned by traditional narratives  – myths and legends  – characterizing an ‘essential’ quality of Maori communal life. In Grace’s ‘Between Earth and Sky’ (1980), the narrative follows an expectant mother about to give birth, then meeting her newborn infant for the first time. The story is cast in terms of the legend of Earth Mother Papatuanuku and Sky Father Ranginui. Ihimaera’s ‘One Summer Morning’ (1972) more directly explores themes of gender and sexuality, and the passage from boyhood to manhood, as Hema comes into sexual awareness of both his own changing body and his new interest in girls. Hema’s attitudes towards gender reflect both a conventional mid-­century division of realms and roles, and the emotional (im)maturity of a pubescent boy.

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Some stories present darker themes, such as domestic violence in Grace’s ‘Valley’ (1975), where a woman teacher observes the play violence of young twin boys against each other, their laughter turning to tears. Huriwa, who creates and then destroys his own clay figures, writes ‘The gingerbread man is lost and I am lost too’ (71), and she sees the bruise on his face. Later his mother, with bruises on her arm, collects him from school and tells the teacher they need to go away. In ‘The Geranium’ (1987), Marney’s boorish and bullying husband returns home at the end of the day, roughly grasps her arm as he interrogates her about her day’s housework, resents the visitors who came by and then destroys a gift of beauty and potential they had given her. Grace’s first novel, Mutuwhenua (1978), tells the story of Ripeka/Linda, who gradually overcomes her sense of alienation from her Maori culture and identity in the Pakeha hegemonic culture. Later, having married a Pakeha man against her grandmother’s wishes, she gives birth to a son and makes the crucial decision to give him to her mother to raise, without consulting her husband. However, the decision is contextualized within the terms of appropriate Maori cultural action, supported by her loving family, rather than a feminist contestation of Pakeha marital norms of patriarchal authority. Indeed, although her husband’s response is not spelled out, he has been loving and supportive thus far, and may be assumed to have understood her decision. Most of Grace’s subsequent novels focus on the experiences of women characters, generally in family settings, and thus not in isolation from male family members. The women are mothers, grandmothers, daughters, sisters and cousins; grandmothers are sources of traditional, ancestral and historical knowledge (Cousins 1992; Baby No-­Eyes 1998); mothers are often also educators (Potiki 1986), and sometimes, along with sisters and cousins, cultural activists (Potiki; Cousins; Baby No-­Eyes). However, her novels celebrate the contributions that all family and community members make to the larger processes of cultural and individual survival and nurturance. Her later works feature male protagonists, notably Dogside Story (2001), Tu (2004) and Chappy (2015), but still prioritize gender complementarity and family unity. Ihimaera’s early works generally focus on young male protagonists, often those who have left the family rural home for education and work in the city. Tangi (1973) concerns one such young man’s return to his family home following the death of his father, and narrates his grief, and his guilt over having left for the city. He must decide whether to remain and fulfil his obligations as the eldest son or return to the city to pursue his career. The tension lies in whether his role as a man is defined in relation to family and community, or in terms of individual success and fulfilment, a theme that continues through the later works as well. Beginning in the 1980s, Ihimaera foregrounded issues of gender in relation to leadership. His works present stringent critiques of ostensibly ‘traditional’ patriarchal leadership, as well as affirmation of Maori women’s strength. The inspiration for his focus on Maori women leaders must have been drawn, not only from the roles played by women within his own community, but also from the women who

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assumed prominent positions in activist movements of the 1970s. Among them were Dame Whina Cooper, the inaugural president of the Maori Women’s Welfare League, established in 1951, who went on to lead the Maori Land March in 1975; Dame Mira Szaszy, the president of the Maori Women’s Welfare League in 1973, who spoke out against the lack of speaking rights for women on the marae; and Eva Rickard, a prominent activist for Maori land rights. The 1980s saw feminism assuming a more explicitly important place in cultural debates, including Maori women’s challenge to the race politics of the Anglo-­American women’s movement. The Maori Language Act (1987), making te reo Maori (the Maori language) one of the official languages of New Zealand, marked the success of many years of language activism on the part of Maori women, especially. In Grace’s novel Cousins, both Makareta’s mother, Polly, and later Makareta herself, become active in promoting Maori language and setting up kohanga reo (Maori language preschools), and Makareta is involved in further forms of activism. Within the discourse of Maori sovereignty, some Maori feminists challenged both non-­Maori and Maori patriarchal structures and sexism. Prominent Maori educator, advocate and leader Sidney Moko Mead had responded to a challenge about the question of women’s speaking rights on the marae by arguing, ‘The thing about Maori culture is that the roles of men and women are complementary. Men cannot do some of the things women must do. And there are things women cannot do – and will not be permitted to do, on the grounds of customary procedure’ (McTagget 1984: 84). However, Mira Szaszy argued that such views reinforced ‘the structures that dominate and oppress Maori women’ (ibid 84). In the early 1980s Donna Awatere, who had been an activist with the protest group Nga Tamatoa in the 1970s, published a series of articles in Broadsheet, an important New Zealand feminist magazine, which were published as the book Maori Sovereignty in 1984. Here, she claimed that: Maori women have built the strongest indigenous women’s movement in the world. We have to step outside traditional Maori leadership’s path to provide leadership for ourselves and for Maoridom as a whole. (Awatere 1984: 41) Fictional works also explored questions of gender and sexuality in more challenging ways, earning both praise and condemnation for their representations of women and of conventional gender norms. The novel that probably made the biggest national and international impact in the 1980s was Keri Hulme’s (Kai Tahu) The Bone People (1984), in part because of its treatment of gender and of sexuality. The novel’s female protagonist, Kerewin, describes herself as asexual and a ‘neuter’; she defies gender norms in her actions, attitudes and appearance. The novel’s child figure Simon and his father, Joe, similarly challenge conventional gender assumptions. Simon is described as delicate and ‘effeminate’, with long blond hair, and given to wearing flowery shirts and strong scent, rendering him strange to the inhabitants of the rugged setting of the

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South Island’s West Coast. Joe, sole carer to Simon, is by turns tender and loving and – generally after drinking – shockingly violent towards him. The depiction of violence towards Simon, and the protagonist Kerewin’s complicity, has been one significant strand of controversy around the novel. However, the novel also received a resounding welcome from both Maori and Pakeha critics and readers. While its violence was to some extent contextualized as a painful depiction of the impacts of colonialism, The Bone People’s refusal of gender boundaries and stereotypes, along with its affirmation of affiliative relations outside of the ties of blood or the sexual and legal contract of marriage, saw it often taken up as a feminist text. The first collection of Maori lesbian short stories was Tahuri, by Ngahuia Te Awekotuku (Te Arawa, Tuhoe, Waikato), published in 1989. In ‘Auntie Marleen’, a young girl’s babysitter represents her ‘very first look at what I could become’ (10). In ‘The Basketball Girls’, Tihi goes to a basketball game with Ahi, who has ‘thick, jet-­black hair cut like Elvis but a little longer at the back’ (14), wears dark glasses and never smiles. When Ahi’s dark glasses come off, ‘he’ is revealed to be Cindy, who had earlier disappeared from Tihi’s life. Male ‘policing’ of female appearance and self-­expression is the theme of ‘Olympia’. Critic Aorewa McLeod claims that ‘the overall impression of the stories is of a culture where lesbianism has existed throughout the generations and is accepted’, but notes that the collection ‘has not received recognition as an important new woman’s voice in New Zealand literature’ (McLeod and Nola 1998: 16). Although in Potiki Patricia Grace continued to acknowledge gender roles enshrined in traditional narratives, these roles are treated flexibly in the characters’ everyday worlds. Weaving is generally considered a women’s traditional activity, and carving the preserve of men, but the disabled boy Toko both learns carving at the feet of a master carver and weaves with the women. His disability restricts him from doing many things, but it also liberates him from confinement by gender roles. Grace’s Cousins, by contrast, has largely urban settings and features three female cousins whose lives are shaped by gendered expectations of girls and women. However, the novel also reveals the pressures of new opportunities associated with city life on traditional female roles. Both critical and subsequent fictional challenges to earlier representations of harmonious gender complementarity imply that Maori cultural survival may depend upon examining gender assumptions and identifying the imprint of colonial ideology in patriarchal hegemony. In Witi Ihimaera’s 1986 novel The Matriarch, Tamatea and his cousin Whai reflect on the strength of Maori women’s leadership. Whai admiringly names a number of figures prominent in leadership and activism at the time, among them Donna Awatere and Atareta Poananga, noting their tertiary academic and professional qualifications and describing them as ‘unafraid’, but also remarking on their physical beauty. However, in a two-­part critique in Broadsheet, Maori nationalist feminist Atareta Poananga described The Matriarch as a work of ‘Maori apologism’ (1986: 26), and deplored the novel’s representation of women characters as ‘destructive stereotypes’ (1987: 29). She castigated the novel’s representation of women’s power as occult and predatory, its depiction of rivalries

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among women over men, and its implication of women’s lesser status in traditional Maori cultural and political spaces such as the marae. The Dream Swimmer (1997) deepens Tamatea’s mother, Tiana’s, story, and casts women as successors to leadership. Nevertheless, the protagonist remains Tamatea, and Alistair Fox observes that ‘Ihimaera would spend the rest of his oeuvre in attempting to delineate new possibilities for masculine identity’ (151). The theme of women’s leadership continues in Ihimaera’s novella for young readers, The Whale Rider (1987), where a young girl has to prove herself to her patriarchal great-­grandfather Koro as worthy to be his successor. Tamihana, the Mormon-­convert patriarch in the 1994 novel Bulibasha, insists on male authority over women, and sees masculine qualities of physical strength as more important than education and democracy. His grandson Simeon regards the latter as more appropriate values for Maori leadership after the mid-­20th century. Questions of Maori masculinity more generally underpin these positions. The plays of feminist writer Renée (originally known as Renée Taylor) (Ngati Kahungunu) focus on themes of class as it shapes women’s lives. In Setting the Table (1982a) a group of women victims of rape and abuse explore issues around acts of retaliation against perpetrators. Secrets (1982b) deals with sexual abuse within the family. The historical trilogy Wednesday to Come (1984, 1985), Pass It On (1986), and Jeannie Once (1990a) explores the lives of an intergenerational family of women in contexts of political and economic hardship. Maori themes and characters figure more centrally, however, along with themes of sexuality, in Renée’s fiction (discussed later). Briar Grace-­Smith’s (Ngapuhi, Ngati Wai) play Nga Pou Wahine, first performed in 1995, sought to redress the lack of significant roles in theatre for Maori women. Extending beyond the stereotypical roles that prevailed on stage and screen at the time, the play focuses on Kura Forrester, who dreams of a different life beyond her small-­town home. In this solo play, Kura situates herself in relation to the women of her family who have shaped her. Grace-­Smith is now one of the most significant Maori women playwrights, producing numerous plays and screenplays. During the 1990s, the focus on women’s social and political concerns shifted to a politics of gender that more critically included questions of masculinity. The ‘hypermasculine’ violence characteristic of many of Ihimaera’s patriarchs – Koro in The Whale Rider, Tamihana in Bulibasha and Arapeta Mahana in Ihimaera’s The Uncle’s Story (2000) – has been criticized by Brendan Hokowhitu as reprising colonial stereotypes of savagery, recast as a ‘natural’ inclination towards violence, even when more positively channelled into sporting and military arenas (Hokowhitu 2004: 276). Although he refers to the 1994 film of the same name rather than the 1990 novel Once Were Warriors, by Alan Duff (Ngati Rangitihi, Tuwharetoa), Hokowhitu includes this work among those that perpetuate an image of Maori predisposition to violence. Duff’s Once Were Warriors gained notoriety for its depiction of domestic violence against a woman, child neglect, the rape and suicide of a young girl and entry of young men into gang culture. Prominent Maori scholar and commentator Ranginui Walker described Once Were Warriors as ‘irrelevant’ to

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Maori ‘because [Duff] is not part of the people’s struggle for emancipation and social advancement’ (Walker 1993: 137). However, Ihimaera described the novel as ‘a kick in the guts to New Zealand’s much vaunted pride in its Maori/Pakeha race relations’ (cited in Thompson 1999: 106). Much of Warriors is narrated through the point of view of Beth, wife of Jake Heke and mother to their six children, tracing her journey to realization of the need for Maori to accept responsibility for themselves. However, the novel also indicts a perverted version of Maori warrior masculinity. This masculinity is embodied by Jake, made redundant from work and masking feelings of hopelessness and anger with heavy drinking. He is, by unpredictable turns, the garrulous ‘life of the party’ and a shockingly violent abuser, lashing out at fellow drinkers and especially at Beth, who drinks to cope with her feelings and situation. Their son Nig continues this twisted ‘warrior’ tradition of masculinity by joining a gang that demands he commit violent crimes to earn his ultimately fatal membership. After their daughter Grace commits suicide after being raped during one of Jake’s parties, Beth renounces drinking, ousts Jake and turns her home into a drop-­in centre for homeless Maori youth. The message of self-­reliance is consistent with ideological shifts through the 1990s, with neoliberal political and economic policies promoting individual responsibility and dismantling the welfare state policies that had prevailed since the 1930s. Further male violence in Duff’s subsequent fiction ranges across gang, crime, drinking, domestic and sexual contexts. Just as disturbing as the violence is the misogyny characterizing male characters’ attitudes towards female characters, as well as the narrative depiction of a number of female characters, especially mothers. Women characters are often portrayed, and viewed by some male characters, in dichotomous terms, as either ‘saint’ or ‘whore’. Even more problematically, drunken, violent or sexually/morally ‘loose’ Maori mothers are sometimes contrasted with Pakeha fathers whose chief failing is remoteness, weakness and inability to act on the children’s behalf. Conversely, there are often women (usually non-­Maori) who are idealized by the young men as objects of desire or perfect mothers. Sensitive boys and men who feature in Duff’s works, such as Sonny in One Night Out Stealing (1992), Jimmy in Both Sides of the Moon (1998), Danny in Frederick’s Coat (2013) – those with more intellectual and artistic outlooks on life – tend to be given, at best, unresolved futures, and, at worst, are thwarted by violent fathers, absent or neglectful mothers or criminal associates. Nevertheless, depictions of masculine violence were already present in Maori literature. Along with the male grief-­and anger-­founded, and alcohol-­fuelled, domestic violence of Joe in The Bone People, Bruce Stewart’s short story ‘Broken Arse’ (1979) was described by Peter Beatson as ‘the most gut-­wrenching short story published in this country’ (1989: 23), placing ‘prison violence in the larger context of the social reproduction of violence’ (Heim 1998: 119). Despite exploring the negative impacts of a ‘warrior’ model of Maori masculinity, war is also treated in terms of both pride attained through military service and impacts on family and community relationships. Ihimaera’s The Uncle’s Story

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(2000) features the violent relationship between a proud Maori Battalion veteran and his son, a conflicted Vietnam War soldier, as the son’s homosexuality incurs the father’s wrath. Patricia Grace’s Cousins focuses on the plight of women and families during and after the Second World War, while Tu explores the intergenerational family implications of the actions of brothers who went to war in Europe. In James George’s (Ngapuhi) Wooden Horses (2000), Hummingbird (2003) and Ocean Roads (2006), men are damaged by war and families are torn apart. Women are often presented as figures of hope, regeneration and intergenerational as well as cultural continuity. Although the Homosexual Law Reform Bill passed in 1986 and Te Awekotuku’s story collection was published in 1989, it was the following decade before extended treatment of gay and lesbian characters, relationships and themes emerge in the fiction. Indeed, negotiating the gap between legislation and social attitudes is complicated for Maori writers (and characters) in a context where masculinity has often been defined in warrior terms. It is complicated again when both masculinity and femininity are further defined in terms of family obligation, family continuity, the descent lines of whakapapa (genealogy) – in short, procreation. However, literary treatments of sexuality constitute significant challenges to heteronormative assumptions characterizing Maori identity. Such challenges include the question of how colonialism has affected the entrenchment of heteronormativity. Ihimaera’s Bulibasha features Simeon’s spirited transvestite cousins – described as takatapui in the novel13  – spurned by Grandfather Tamihana but chosen by Simeon for his intergenerational hockey tournament team. Nights in the Gardens of Spain (1995) could be considered Ihimaera’s ‘coming out’ novel, but it is politically cautious in presenting a Pakeha protagonist and a few minor Maori characters to explore negotiation of family and social life with gay identity. In The Uncle’s Story, though, Ihimaera foregrounds Maori protagonist Michael Mahana’s struggle with the proffered ‘choice’ of being Maori or being gay. When Michael learns of a gay uncle, Sam, who had been violently rejected by Arapeta and remained an unspoken secret in the family, he joins with gay and lesbian fellow artists and activists to advocate for a new gay whakapapa, a ‘new tribe’, a new continuity of descent lines to include past unacknowledged or rejected gay family, and those to come, whether or not they are blood relations. Michael’s answer to the choice of Maori or gay identity is thus a refusal of its implied opposition. Renée’s novels extend the treatment of family themes set against critical depictions of racism as well as class divisions, stretching conventions of domestic and gender arrangements to include lesbian characters and relationships, and lesbian motherhood (Willy Nilly 1990b; Does This Make Sense to You 1995; The Skeleton Woman 2002). Her novel Daisy and Lily (1993) features a transgender character, Magda Porohiwi, known as Uncle Auntie, a Maori transsexual queen who had run Magda’s Escort Service. Uncle Auntie dies as the result of a violent attack. Renée’s 2005 novel, Kissing Shadows, tells the story of Vivvie, whose mother, Ruby, was conceived as a result of the rape of her Maori grandmother Emere, and whose life has been shaped by the vicious mutilation of her great-­g randmother Porehuia

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Porohiwi by the rapists as she tried to protect her daughter. Vivvie’s quest is to understand better both her mother and her Maori heritage, in the context of family tragedies and the social prejudices of the times. The writers whose works first began appearing in the 2000s – including Paula Morris, Kelly Ana Morey, Isabel Waiti-­Mulholland, and Whiti Hereaka  – tend to treat gender and sexuality in terms less weighed down by prescribed roles or normative orientations. However, Alice Tawhai (a pseudonym) has produced three short story collections, Festival of Miracles (2005), Luminous (2007), and Dark Jelly (2011), exploring the ‘multicultural ethnic identities, provisional gendered and sexual identities, as well as new family structures that may have replaced the traditional family unit’ (Modlik 2014: 3). The stories encompass representations of gender and sexuality that are by turns dark and dangerous, whimsical and fluid, and poignant. Sexual exploitation and abuse figure in a number of the stories. In ‘Dawnie’ (2005) a young girl is sexually harassed by lecherous ‘Uncle Mick’ while the rest of her family appear oblivious to her discomfort at his comments and touching. ‘Dark Jelly’ (2011) recounts the sexual abuse of a child, Mamae, whose mother goes out to work leaving her in the care of abusive uncles. Non-­heteronormative sexualities are also explored in Tawhai’s stories. The male narrator of ‘Scars’ (2007) has always wanted to be a soldier, but after he comes out as gay and is disowned by his father, he joins the army, where he meets other men threatened by his homosexuality and finds himself a soldier in his own private war. In ‘Where I Married the Sea’ (2011), Mahinaarangi – in a lesbian relationship with Niamh – has long admired her grandmother’s wedding photograph and dreamed of her own wedding photo hanging next to her grandmother’s. However, she laments, ‘it’s never going to happen because I’m queer’ (2011: 157). ‘Pink Frost’ (2011) explores mobility of sexual and gender identity across biological, bureaucratic, social and subjective realms. Jan was born intersex: ‘when she was born, her parents had to choose, because the doctors said she could be either sex’ (48). Her parents had ‘randomly’ ticked male on the form registering her birth, because ‘they hadn’t been allowed to tick both boxes’ (48), and they had chosen a gender-­ambiguous name. However, Jan’s choice to live as a girl brings its own challenges. In ‘Pluto’ (2011), Pluto, a transgender woman, had wanted as a child to nurture her femininity, but her feminist mother was as disapproving of this as she was emotionally distant. Pluto works at a doll factory producing perfect blond, pale-­skinned dolls. Despite sex-­reassignment surgery, Pluto’s dreams of having her own children are thwarted. As her mother unmercifully reminds her, she does not have a uterus. Pluto’s fantasy pregnancies repeatedly ‘fail’; she ‘loses’ her baby as each time this harsh truth is inevitably reiterated.

Gender in Pacific Island literature Pacific Island writers have borne the burden of European representations of their cultures dating back to the 18th century. European (usually male) travellers, writers and artists have produced persistent exoticized and eroticized images.

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Anthropologists have published sensationalized accounts serving primarily Western obsessions with sexuality projected on to Pacific ‘others’. Entertainment and tourist industries perpetuate stereotypes of eroticized Pacific femininity and (hyper)masculinity. While Pacific Island writers have inevitably been constrained to engage with these representations, their works challenge such Eurocentric images with more nuanced perspectives on, and experiences of, gender and sexuality. The first published book by a Polynesian woman, Florence (Johnny) Frisbie (Cook Islands), was Miss Ulysses of Puka Puka (1948). Frisbie was a teenager when she wrote this account of growing up in the Cook Islands. In 1950, Alistair Campbell (Cook Islands) published his first poetry collection, Mine Eyes Dazzle. Although much of his writing refers back to his Cook Island heritage through his Tongarevan mother, the gendering of self through cultural and familial heritage is more overtly a theme in his later fictional writing. In Vincent Eri’s (Papua New Guinea) novel The Crocodile (1970), the male protagonist Hoiri worries about the incursion of white culture while admiring its apparent power and prestige. When his wife Mitoro, enamoured of white culture and consumer products, is taken by a crocodile, she becomes ‘the symbol of the radical losses sustained by black culture as a result of . . . colonial power’ (Devlin-­ Glass 1993: 71). Although the relationship between Hoiri and Mitoro suggests a male perception of women’s instrumental value as childbearers and home-­makers, Devlin-­Glass cautions against imposing Western notions of romantic love onto Papua New Guinean culture, where meanings inaccessible to outsiders may be in play. Indeed, Hoiri describes his marriage to Mitoro as enabling ‘two partners to stand upright as properly formed human beings’ (Eri 1970: 108). Nevertheless, fractious and even violent relationships between husbands and wives figure in a number of Pacific Island works. Albert Wendt’s (Samoa) first novel, Sons for the Return Home (1973), concerns a mixed-­race relationship between a young Samoan man and a young Pakeha New Zealand woman, both university students. Both sets of parents disapprove of the relationship, and the Samoan mother (none of the characters is named) is complicit in the woman’s decision to have an abortion. Learning of this, the son renounces his mother, returns to Samoa and discovers a tragic family history of sexual intolerance and misjudgement. The novel was controversial in the early 1970s for its explicit representations of sexuality and abortion, and was denounced in the Fiji Parliament as ‘pornographic’ (Sharrad 2003: 46). Wendt’s Pouliuli (1977) features largely negative portrayals of women, and of relationships between men and women. Protagonist Faleasa Osovae, in an arranged marriage, finds his wife sexually attractive only when he is degrading and violating her (Keown 2005: 122). His friend Lemigao is a serial sexual exploiter of women. Leaves of the Banyan Tree (1979) largely casts women within restrictive gender roles with little opportunity for agency beyond what status they attain through men, as mothers, wives and sisters. Although Russell Soaba’s (Papua New Guinea) 1977 novel Wanpis casts women largely as enabling or catalyzing male self-­realization, his 1979 novel Maiba presents a female protagonist, the orphaned daughter of the last chief of her village, who

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is raised by an aunt who ill-­treats and neglects her, and is taunted and isolated at school. Yet she succeeds at school and grows up to become a figure of integrity and unity in the face of village corruption and disputes, indicating potentially better prospects for women. Despite a reluctance to accept Western feminism’s framing of gender and gender relations,14 Pacific Island women writers have expressed anger as well as aspirations in such matters. The title poem of Konai Helu Thaman’s (Tonga) first poetry collection, You, the Choice of My Parents (1974), is addressed to the husband chosen for her by the speaker’s parents. It expresses resignation, though ‘You cannot see the real me/ My face is masked with pretence and obedience’. Yet in the final stanza, the speaker declares that ‘when my duties are fulfilled/My spirit will return to the land of my birth/Where you will find me no more’ (13). In ‘My Blood’, a woman challenges the masculinist rhetoric of liberation: addressing her ‘brother’, she insists, ‘My problem is that I/have been betrayed and tramped on/By my own blood’ (6). Although the poem ‘Women’s Lib’ appears on page one, Thaman identifies as feminist only in terms of her inheritance of the strength of women who raised her (Wood 1997: 7). Samoan poet Momoe Malietoa Von Reiche’s first poetry collection, Solaua, A  Secret Embryo (1979), explores love, insecurity, hope and dissatisfaction. ‘My Guest’ conveys tension between the title’s implied hospitality and the hostility expressed by a wife who is threatened by a young woman visitor: ‘You flaunt your pretty dresses in my face,/Your perfume spoils the/Dinner I cook for my husband’ (28). In ‘My Husband’, the speaker feels compared unfavourably with European notions of feminine beauty: ‘He despises me because I/Don’t have the light eyelashes/Of white girls’ (13). In ‘My House Idea’ a woman dreams of a home, a space of security and self-­realization: ‘I’d like a house/With windows that/Face the horizon./Big enough to fit/Me and my five children,/Small enough to contain/ Warmth and hold my/Ideas’ (23). The 1980s saw publication of first poetry collections by Jully Makini and Grace Molisa. Jully Makini published Civilised Girl (1981) – the first book published by a Solomon Islands woman – under the name Jully Sipolo. In ‘A Man’s World’, the speaker recounts everyday examples of female exploitation by male relatives who enjoy greater rights than and exert authority over their sisters and wives. It begins from a child’s perspective: ‘My brother can sit on the table/I mustn’t/He can say what he likes whenever he likes/I must keep quiet/He can order me around like a slave/I must not back-­chat’. Progressing through more adult concerns, ‘Carry out my love affairs behind his back/Custom allows him to thrash both of us if caught’, it concludes, ‘A brother can make a living out of his sisters!’ (10). Yet the title poem complicates any suggestion that Western gender norms offer a viable escape from oppression. Treating the term ‘civilised’ ironically – ‘Cheap perfume/Six-­inch heels/Skin-­tight pants/Civilised girl’  – the final stanza affirms cultural integrity over the trappings of Western ‘civilisation’: ‘Why do I do this?/Imitation/What’s wrong with it?/Civilisation’ (21). In 1983 Grace Molisa (Vanuatu) published her first collection, Black Stone. The poem ‘Custom’ decries the misuse of ‘custom’ as an alibi for continuing oppression

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of women: ‘misapplied/bastardised/murdered/a Frankenstein/corpse/conveniently/recalled/to intimidate/women’ (24). She chooses the English word rather than the Bislama word kastom to avoid being misread as presenting an anti-­culture stance (Marsh 2014). In Colonised People (1987), her ‘Ni-­Vanuatu Women in Development’ (19–20) takes the form of a table of occupations, from ‘Parliament’ and ‘National Development Council’ at the top, to ‘Electrical Fitters, Plumbers, Welders, etc’ at the bottom of the vertical axis, against a horizontal axis of dates from 1980 to 1986, each with a male (‘M’) and female (‘F’) column where numbers in each occupational category are recorded. The ‘F’ columns are filled almost entirely with ’0’. The totals for 1986 are 31,027 for ‘M’ and 5 for ‘F’. The 1980s saw further exploration of gender in writing by male authors. Epeli Hau’ofa (Tonga, born Papua New Guinea) published his scatological-­political satire, Kisses in the Nederends (1988). Protagonist Oilei Bomboki suffers excruciating pain in his anus and the novel traces his search for a cure. The most extreme involves an anus transplant in New Zealand, where Oilei is given the organ of a white woman, only for it to be violently rejected by his body on the operating table. Nevertheless, Keown cites Subramani’s view that the transplant is ‘intended to depict “the fundamental issues of racism and sexism by uniting . . . black and white and male and female” ’ (Keown 65). Teaiwa acknowledges the novel’s refusal to eroticize or objectify the female body; in focusing on the anus, the novel avoids phallocentrism. Further, although Oilei’s relationship with his wife Makarita is fractious, Hovell suggests that the threats of violence between them are actually ‘ “the intimate and secret language of domestic felicity” ’ (cited in Teaiwa 1999: 257), recalling Devlin-­Glass’s caution about cross-­cultural reading. Alistair Campbell’s first novel The Frigate Bird (1989) explores the protagonist’s relationship with New Zealand and the Cook Islands of his birth as gendered spaces. New Zealand is associated with his paternal heritage and the Cook Island of Tongareva with his maternal heritage. The protagonist’s longing to reconnect with his motherland culminates in his attraction to a woman, Tia, who resembles his deceased mother, and he discovers they are related (Keown 91–2). In his second novel, Sidewinder (1991), the marriage fails and the narrator’s sense of guilt is complicated by the feeling of having rejected his mother again. His psychological turmoil is experienced in terms of luridly sexual imagery. The third novel in the trilogy is Tia (1993). Gender shapes the narrator’s psychological struggles to reconcile his dual cultural and spiritual heritages, rather than presenting a realist social critique of gender relations. The notion of the psyche as comprising masculine and feminine ‘sides’ is evoked in a more postmodern, metafictional way in Albert Wendt’s Ola (1991). Ola’s female protagonist, Olamaiileoti Farou Monroe, is a spirited, independent divorcée and world traveller. She rails against social norms that silence girls and women, especially in bodily and sexual matters: ‘Females are fed to believe they mustn’t use four-­letter words, write/talk about sexual matters openly’ (39; italics in original). She defies taboos, though, in a sexually explicit account of her adventures and relationships. Wendt’s metafictional narrative avoids problems of appropriating a woman’s voice by opening with a ‘Foreword’ where the ‘author’

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recounts finding the materials of the novel left on his doorstep in boxes of assorted documents, which he has ordered – curated – into the narrative we read. Wendt has described the novel as a product of his explorations of his own female lineage, and his own feminine ‘side’. Ola therefore both ‘makes a significant gesture towards redefining Samoan tradition in terms less exclusively masculinist’ (Sharrad 2003: 189), and (re)opens considerations of gender at the individual level to encompass something less rigidly binary (Sharrad 2003: 183). Wendt’s 2003 novel, The Mango’s Kiss, also features a female protagonist, Pelepiui Tuifolau, and traces the rise of the Samoan Mau independence movement. Set between the 1880s and the 1920s, it follows Pelepiui from free-­thinking girlhood to strong womanhood, including her marriage to an afakasi (half-­caste) man against her family’s wishes. Like Ola, she is flawed rather than idealized, and her father, like Ola’s, is not the cruel and punitive patriarch seen in many Samoan works but a nurturing parent. The novel alludes to historical figures implicated in stereotypical representations of Pacific culture, where the writer Leonard Roland Stenson is a thinly disguised reference to Robert Louis Stevenson, Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman are conflated in the anthropologist named Dr Mardrek Freemeade, a sex-­ obsessed researcher attracted to young Samoan men.15 However, the most significant contribution to questions of gender and sexuality in Pacific writing has been made by Sia Figiel (Samoa). While Ola remains (self-­ consciously) within the practice of male curatorship of women’s identities, Figiel’s works present the experiences and perspectives of Samoan girls and women. The novels expose both Samoan ‘traditional’ patriarchal oppression and the oppressive effects of European incursions. They reveal the hypocrisies underlying the strict policing of female sexuality by male authority figures, the repressive taboos and the emphasis on respectability masking sexual exploitation of girls and women by men. The novels critique the role of consumer images and products in promoting Western norms of feminine beauty. Figiel’s Where We Once Belonged (1996a) includes sustained engagement with the Mead-­Freeman debate over Polynesian sexuality. Thirteen-­year-­old Alofa’s naïve account of the debate artfully reveals the inadequacy of the anthropologists’ methods and understandings. The twins Derek/Keleki and Freeman/Pagoka-­ua-­ faasaolokoiga, are fa’afafige,16 while another fa’afafige, Sugar Shirley, is an important figure in Alofa’s wider community. Yet there is also violence and tragedy. When she witnesses her father’s sexual liaison with the schoolteacher Mrs Samasoni, Alofa is beaten severely in a deflection of his own guilt. Siniva, another young woman from the village, returns from study in New Zealand as a free-­thinking feminist, only to find herself ostracised, isolated from family and community. She commits suicide. In Figiel’s Girl in the Moon Circle (1996b) ten-­year-­old Samoana and her friends gather under the moonlight to talk about forbidden things. The title also alludes to the menstrual cycle denoting their passage into puberty. They share stories and experiences of sexual exploitation by men, from fathers and other family members to the ‘snow-­cone man’ who offers ice creams as inducements for sexual favours. Inevitably the girls bear the consequences of such exploitation in violent

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punishment, pregnancy, abortion and suicide. Yet Girl’s formal evocation of Samoan culture enacts a reluctance to dissociate from it. As a series of linked stories – in the manner of su’ifefiloi, threaded together like songs in a song cycle, from the practice of weaving together flowers to create a garland – the novel remains close to its oral heritage, and to Figiel’s beginnings as a performance poet. In Those Who Do Not Grieve (1999), women negotiate problems of constraint and opportunity, complicity and agency, around sexual exploitation. In the face of exploitation and the social sanction of ostracism, women turn to the very sources of, and industries that perpetuate, sexual exploitation  – popular film, tourism, commercial art – to support themselves. Figiel’s novels have had a mixed reception; celebrated outside Samoa, they have been controversial within Samoa for their profane language and explicit sexual references, and for showing Samoa in a negative light. Caroline Sinavaiana-­ Gabbard (Samoa) discusses sanctioned spaces of departure from gender norms and for articulating social criticism. In social contexts such as wedding celebrations, older women break with conventional decorum to enact broad physical comedy, including sexually suggestive dancing (1999: 183). In formal theatrical contexts such as fale aitu (literally, “house of spirits”), comedic sketches can dramatize social conflicts within relationships normatively characterized by harmony – like husband and wife – or whose hierarchical nature also places them beyond such criticism. Further theatrical traditions include sexual double entendres, verbal and gestural mockery of norms of male virility and female virtue (187) and practices whereby a comedian dresses up in female costume or plays a fa’afafine role to deliver a punchline, adopting the stereotypical characteristics associated with transvestites in Samoa (187–8). Allowing departures from gender and sexual norms, such practices nevertheless deploy stereotypes for their comedic effects. Rotuman playwright Vilsoni Hereniko’s Last Virgin in Paradise (2001) co-­ written with Teresia Teaiwa (I-­Kiribati, African American), is described as a ‘serious comedy’ and focuses on a group of stock figures implicated in European fantasy and representations of the Pacific: a retired German professor looking for a virgin to marry and take back to Europe, a young woman (the ‘virgin’), desperate to leave her (fictional) home island of Marawa, an American anthropologist researching sexual harassment in Marawa and a Western-­educated Marawan feminist. Victor Rodger (Samoa, New Zealand) explores intersections of race and sexuality, including gay and fa’afafige characters. His 1995 play Sons (rewritten and performed in 1998; published 2007a) presents Noah’s struggle to be accepted by his dying Samoan father and his father’s family, and to learn about the Samoan side of his heritage. Yet in searching for his paternal connection – a theme in a number of Rodger’s plays – Sons also pays tribute to Noah’s mother’s strength in raising him alone. My Name Is Gary Cooper (2007b) concerns a young man whose mother conceived him with an American film crew photographer during the filming of Return to Paradise. To support them, she resorts to work capitalizing on exotic, sexualized images of Pacific women promulgated by films like Return. Later, Gary Cooper

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travels to the United States to find his father, and becomes enmeshed in exotic/ erotic stereotypes, repeating family patterns. Black Faggot (2013) was written after the ‘Enough Is Enough’ Destiny Church march in New Zealand, in which fathers and sons marched together against the Civil Union Bill. Rodger was concerned that ‘[a]t the very, very least, one of those kids will be gay and feeling wretched about themselves as they grow up’ (Listener 2013: 46; italics in original). However, the play is a comedy with characters ranging from an openly gay man to an ‘undercover brother’ trying to prove he is straight, another trying to ‘pray the gay away’, and an ‘island mama’ with a gay son. The title of Tusiata Avia’s (Samoa; living in New Zealand) first collection, Wild Dogs Under My Skirt (2004) refers both to the appearance of the Samoan women’s tattoo and to the pain of having it carved into her skin. The speaker declares in the title poem, ‘I want my legs as sharp as dogs’ teeth/wild dogs/wild Samoan dogs/the mangy kind that bite strangers’ (14). Existing in print and performance versions, characters include the young girl Alofa, Pa’ustina the Pa’umuku (slut or prostitute) Girl, and Aunty Fale. ‘Pa’ustina’ begins, ‘I am da devil pa’umuku kirl/I walk down da street shakeshake my susu/I chew gum an smile wif my gold teeth flashing/I call out to da good womens/sitting sitting in deir house’ (31). In ‘Fings da kirls should know’, Aunty Fale admonishes: ‘Don hang your panty outside./Don forget to wash your panty in da shower’ (41), continuing with a long list of injunctions concerning proper girls’ behaviour. Avia’s second collection, Bloodclot (2009), traces the story of Nafanua, Samoan goddess of war who metamorphoses into an afakasi girl from Christchurch, New Zealand, but whose identity remains liminally poised between these figurations. Fale Aitu/Spirit House (2016) includes ‘TABLEAU’, where a girl faces her mother’s ‘smile like a terrible accident in a quiet street’ (19) in denying that an abusive incident ever happened. In ‘Demonstration’, an anti-­rape demonstrator recalls her own rape, and the effect a blame-­the-­survivor discourse has had on her life (60–65). In 2004, Selina Tusitala Marsh (Samoa, Tuvalu, living in New Zealand) completed her doctoral thesis on the Pacific women poets Thaman, Von Reiche, Molisa, Makini and Trask. She developed the concept of mana tama’ita’i – a name adapted from the Maori notion of mana wahine, or women’s power, prestige or influence – to name a specifically Polynesian form of feminist critique not founded on Western assumptions (Keown 10). Marsh’s first poetry collection, Fast Talking PI (2009), where PI stands for Pacific Islander, challenges the myths that frame Pacific Island identities, especially in the diasporic context of New Zealand. The first section, ‘Tusitala’, presents autobiographical reflections on juggling the demands of being a poet with professional academic and domestic life. In ‘Things on Thursdays’, ‘If Updike could do it/why couldn’t she?/. . ./Surely if he can rent a one bedroomer in Paris/clear his schedule/six mornings a week/and write/. . ./why couldn’t she?’ (11). The second section, ‘Talkback’, critiques stereotyped views of Pacific cultures. ‘Guys like Gauguin’ begins, ‘Thanks Bougainville/for desiring ’em young/so guys like Gauguin could dream/and dream/and take his syphilitic body/ downstream to the tropics/to test his artistic hypothesis’ (36). The third section,

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‘Fast-­Talking PI’, challenges stereotypes of Pacific Island people in New Zealand. It begins: ‘I’m a fast talkin’ PI/I’m a power walkin’ PI/I’m a demographic, hieroglyphic fact-­sheetin’ PI’ (58). Marsh’s poem also pays tribute to other Pacific writers, especially women.

Notes 1 Strictly speaking there are two categories of indigenous people in Australia, Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders, and ‘indigenous’ can be seen as an umbrella term that includes both. Throughout this chapter I use the terms ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘indigenous’ synonymously, as most of the writers referred to are Aboriginal. 2 These three paragraphs draw on material from my entry in the Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature. 3 ‘Talking with Ruby Langford Ginibi’, interview with Janine Little, Hecate, 20 (1) (1994): 103. 4 For a list of these books, see Brewster (2015, xviii) and Haag (2008: 5–28). 5 There were, however, significant life stories from regions or political struggles that had been under-­represented – for example, those of three South Australian authors: Doris Kartinyeri’s Kick the Tin (2000), Lewis Yerloburka O’Brien’s And the Clock Struck Thirteen (2007) (with Mary-­Anne Gale), and Doreen Kartinyeri’s My Ngarrindjeri Calling (2008) (with Sue Anderson). 6 The ‘Protection’ Acts, enacted by the various Australian colonies and states between the mid-­19th century and the early 20th century, gave governments extensive powers over the lives of Aboriginal people. These acts were dismantled from the 1930s onwards. 7 The idea of assimilation was first discussed in the 1930s but was not adopted as official policy until some decades later. It was defined in 1961 as follows:   “In the view of all Australian governments . . . all Aborigines and part-­Aborigines are expected eventually to attain the same manner of living as other Australians and to live as members of a single Australian community enjoying the same rights and privileges, accepting the same responsibilities, observing the same customs and influenced by the same beliefs, hopes and loyalties as other Australians” Native Welfare Council Conference, Commonwealth and State Authorities, Proceedings and Decisions, January 1961, p. 399. Following pressure from Aboriginal lobbying throughout the 1960s for equality and civil rights, by the late 1960s government policy shifted to recognise cultural diversity. In 1968 Prime Minister Gorton continued to define government policy in terms of assimilation but he agreed that this should not be at the cost of destroying Aboriginal culture. The term ‘assimilation’ was subsequently replaced by the term ‘integration’. 8 This discussion draws on an earlier discussion of The Kadaitcha Sung in my chapter ‘Indigenous Writing in Australia and New Zealand’, in Ato Quayson (ed), The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature Vol 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 511–538. 9 This is not to attribute violence to Sam Watson. He has acknowledged that sexualised abuse of women by ‘senior Aboriginal men’ did occur during this period of the Black Panther movement in Australia. He has said that he ‘was party to it’ and has expressed regret that he ‘didn’t have the courage to speak out against it at the time’ (Black Panther Woman 40:45). 10 Bain Attwood and Andrew Markus, The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights: A  Documentary History (St Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1999), p. 255. 11 Diane Bell and Topsy Napurrula Nelson, ‘Speaking About Rape Is Everyone’s Business’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 12 (4) (1989): 403–416. 12 Parenthetical references following Maori names are to the tribal (iwi) descent or affiliation. 13 Takatapui is defined in the Maori Dictionary Online as “a close or intimate friend of the same gender”, but the use of the term to refer to lesbian, gay or homosexual

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men and women is also given and described as a modern usage. (maoridictionary. co.nz). The fact of this modern provenance for the meaning is an indication of how terms and their referents do not necessarily translate exactly, and the cultural freight of particular terms may signify cultural matters that are not transparent to non-­Maori. 14 Despite concerns with gender inequality and women’s oppression in these poems by women from a range of Pacific nations, Arlene Griffen’s (Fiji) University of London M.A. thesis, ‘The Different Drum: A  Feminist Critique of Selected Works from the New Literature in English from the South Pacific’ (1985), stopped short of claiming the works of poets like Thaman, Von Reiche, Sipolo/Makini and Molisa as feminist (cf. Teaiwa 257). Feminist writing was emerging in the 1980s, but largely in the form of reports, conference proceedings and social science analyses. Hawaiian anti-­colonial activist, intellectual and poet Haunani-­Kay Trask (Hawaii), identifies as feminist, but only as shaped by her primary commitment to Hawaiian nationalism. Her first collection, Light in the Crevice Never Seen (1994), was the first Native Hawaiian poetry collection to be published by a major publisher. 15 Writers Robert Louis Stevenson and Herman Melville, the artist Paul Gauguin, and American anthropologists Margaret Mead and Derek Freeman are frequently alluded to in Pacific literary treatments of gender and sexuality. Margaret Mead’s The Coming of Age in Samoa (1928), which argued that sexuality is freely expressed among Samoan adolescents in a permissive society with no sexual neuroses or crises, was countered in 1983 by Derek Freeman, who exposed her study as the result of being ‘duped’ by her informants, and made the counter-­argument that Samoa was a punitive society that placed a high value on virginity, and in which sexual violence and suicide were more common than in Western societies. 16 Also fa’afafine. Literally, the way of a woman; a ‘third gender’ usually relating to individuals born male but who identify as both masculine and feminine, and often dress as female. However, they are also commonly (mis)identified with homosexuals, transvestites or drag queens, and despite Samoan recognition of this gender since the20th century, and some families even choosing to raise a son as fa’afafige, some church-­and tradition-­based disapproval can attach to them.

References Primary works Anderson, Warrigal. 1996. Warrigal’s Way. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. Avia, Tusiata. 2004. Wild Dogs Under My Skirt. Wellington: Victoria University Press. ———. 2009. Blood Clot. Wellington: Victoria University Press. ———. 2016. Fale Aitu/Spirit House. Wellington: Victoria University Press. Baker, Heretaunga Pat. 1975. Behind the Tattooed Face. Auckland: Cape Catley. Bandler, Faith. 1977. Wacvie. Adelaide: Rigby. ———. 1984. Welou My Brother. Glebe, NSW: Wild & Woolley. Barker, Jimmie and Janet Mathews (ed). 1977. The Two Worlds of Jimmie Barker, The Life of an Australian Aboriginal 1900–1972, as Told to Janet Mathews. Canberra: Aboriginal Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Bellear, Lisa. 1996. Dreaming in Urban Areas. St. Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Bohemia, Jack and William McGregor. 1995. Nyibayarri: Kimberley tracker. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Bostock, Gerry. 1976. Here Comes the Nigger. Redfern, Sydney: First produced at the Black Theatre.

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Bropho, Robert. 1980. Fringedweller. Chippendale, NSW: Alternative Publishing Co-­ operative with the Assistance of the Aboriginal Arts Board, Australia Council. Campbell, Alistair1950. Mine Eyes Dazzle. Christchurch: Pegasus. ———. 1989. The Frigate Bird. Auckland: Heinemann. ———. 1991. Sidewinder. Auckland: Reed. ———. 1993. Tia. Auckland: Reed. Clare, Monica. 1978. Karobran: The Story of an Aboriginal Girl. Sydney: Alternative Publishing Co-­operative. Cleven, Vivienne. 2002. Her Sister’s Eye. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. ———. 2001. Bitin’ Back. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Cohen, Bill. 1987. To My Delight: The Autobiography of Bill Cohen, a Grandson of the Gumbangarri. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Coleman, Dylan. 2012. Mazin Grace. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Davis, Jack. 1970. The First-­born and Other Poems. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. ———. 1978. Jagardoo: Poems from Aboriginal Australia. Sydney: Methuen of Australia. ———. 1979. Kullark: The Dreamers. Sydney: Currency Press. ———. 1988. John Pat and Other Poems. Melbourne: Dent. ———. 1991. A Boy’s Life. Broome: Magabala Books. ———. 1992. Black Life: Poems. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Dhoulagarle, Koorie. 1979. There’s More to Life. Chippendale, NSW: Alternative Publishing Co-­operative. Dodd, Bill. 1992. Broken Dreams. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Duff, Alan. 1990. Once Were Warriors. Auckland: Tandem. ———. 1992. One Night Out Stealing. Auckland: Tandem. ———. 1998. Both Sides of the Moon. Auckland: Random House. ———. 2013. Frederick’s Coat. Auckland: Penguin. Edmund, Mabel. 1996. Hello Johnny! Stories of My Aboriginal and South Sea Islander Family. Rockhampton: Central Queensland University of Press. Eri, Vincent. 1970. The Crocodile. Brisbane: Jacaranda. Figiel, Sia. 1996a. Where We Once Belonged. Auckland: Pasifika Press. ———. 1996b. The Girl in the Moon Circle. Suva: Mana Publications. ———. 1999. They Who Do Not Grieve. Auckland: Vintage. Frisbie, Florence (Johnny). 1948. Miss Ulysses of Puka Puka. New York: Macmillan Co. George, James. 2000. Wooden Horses. Christchurch: Hazard Press. ———. 2003. Hummingbird. Wellington: Huia. ———. 2006. Ocean Roads. Wellington: Huia. Gilbert, Kevin. 1973. Because a White Man’ll Never Do It. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. ———. 1978. People Are Legends: Aboriginal Poems. St Lucia: University of Queensland. ———. 1988. The Cherry Pickers. Canberra: Burrambinga Books. ———. 1990. The Blackside: People Are Legend and Other Poems. South Yarra: Hyland House. ———. 1993. Aboriginal Sovereignty: Justice, the Law and Land. Canberra: Burrambinga Books. ———. 1994. Black from the Edge. South Melbourne, VIC: Hyland House. Goolagong, Evonne, Bud Collins and Victor Edwards. 1975. Evonne. London: Hart-­Davis MacGibbon. Grace, Patricia. 1975. Waiariki and Other Stories. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 1978. Mutuwhenua: The Moon Sleeps. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 1980. The Dream Sleepers and Other Stories. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 1986. Potiki. Auckland: Penguin.

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———. 1987. Electric City and Other Stories. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 1992. Cousins. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 1998. Baby No-­Eyes. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 2001. Dogside Story. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 2004. Tu. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 2015. Chappy. Auckland: Penguin. Grace-­Smith, Briar. 1995. Nga Pou Wahine. Wellington: Huia. Haag, Oliver. 2008. ‘From the Margins to the Mainstream: Towards a History of Published Indigenous Australian Autobiographies and Biographies’, in Peter Read, Frances Peters-­ Little and Anna Haebich (eds), Indigenous Biography and Autobiography, pp. 5–28. Canberra: Australian National University EPress. Hau’ofa, Epeli. 1988. Kisses in the Nederends. Auckland: Penguin. Hereniko, Vilsoni and Teresia Teaiwa. 2001. Last Virgin in Paradise. Suva: USP Institute of Pacific Studies. Hodgson, Elizabeth. 2008. Skin Painting. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Holt, Yvette. 2008. Anonymous Premonition. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Huggins, Rita and Jackie. 1994. Auntie Rita. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Hulme, Keri. 1984. The Bone People. Wellington: Spiral Collective. Ihimaera, Witi. 1972. Pounamu, Pounamu. Auckland: Heinemann. ———. 1973. Tangi. Auckland: Heinemann. ———. 1986. The Matriarch. Auckland: Heinemann. ———. 1987. The Whale Rider. Auckland: Heinemann. ———. 1994. Bulibasha: King of the Gypsies. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 1995. Nights in the Gardens of Spain. Auckland: Heinemann. ———. 1997. The Dream Swimmer. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 2000. The Uncle’s Story. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 2003. Sky Dancer. Auckland: Penguin. Kartinyeri, Doreen and Sue Anderson. 2008. Doreen Kartinyeri: My Ngarrindjeri Calling. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Kartinyeri, Doris. 2000. Kick the Tin. North Melbourne: Spinifex Press. Kennedy, Eliza and Tamsin Donaldson. 1982. ‘Coming Up Out of the Nhaalya: Reminiscences of the Life of Eliza Kennedy’, in Diane Barwick and James Urry (eds), Aboriginal History: Volume Six 1982. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Kennedy, Marnie. 1984. Born a Half-­caste. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. Keown, Michelle. 2005. Postcolonial Pacific Writing. New York and London: Routledge. King, Wayne. 1996. Black hours. Sydney: Angus & Robertson. Labumore (Elsie Roughsey) and Paul Memmot. 1984. An Aboriginal Mother Tells of the Old and the New. Fitzroy, Ringwood: McPhee Gribble/Penguin. Lamilami, Lazarus. 1974. Lamilami Speaks, the Cry Went Up: A Story of the People of Goulburn Islands, North Australia. Sydney: Ure Smith. Langford Ginibi, Ruby. 1992. Real Deadly. Pymble: Angus and Robertson. ———. 1994. My Bundjalung People. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. ———. 1999. Haunted by the Past. St Leonards: Allen and Unwin. Leane, Jeanine. 2010. Dark Secrets: After Dreaming (AD) 1887–1961. Berry: PressPress. ———. 2011. Purple Threads. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Lowah, Thomas. 1988. Eded Mer = My Life. Kuranda: Rams Skull Press. Lucashenko, Melissa. 1997. Steam Pigs. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Mabo, Eddie and Noel Loos. 1996. Edward Koiki Mabo: His Life and Struggle for Land Rights. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Makini (Sipolo), Jully. 1981. Civilised Girl. Suva: South Pacific Creative Arts Society.

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Marsh, Selina Tusitala. 2009. Fast Talking PI. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Matthews, Gordon. 1996. An Australian Son. Port Melbourne: Heinemann Australia. McGinness, Joe. 1991. Son of Alyandabu: My Fight for Aboriginal Rights. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. McKenna, Clancy and Kingsley Palmer. 1978. Somewhere Between Black and White: The Story of an Aboriginal Australian. South Melbourne: Macmillan. McKenzie, Janet. 1982. Fingal Tiger. Blackwood, South Australia: New Creation Publications. ———. 1983. Ebenezer. Blackwood: New Creation Publications. McLaren, Philip. 1993. Sweet Water: Stolen Land. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. McPhee, Jack and Patricia Konigsberg. 1994. Bee Hill River Man: Kandulangu-­bidi. Memories of Jack McPhee. Broome: Magabala Books. Merritt, Robert. 1978. The Cake Man. Woollahra: Currency Press. Miller, James. 1985. Koori, a Will to Win: The Heroic Resistance, Survival and Triumph of Black Australia. London; Sydney: Angus and Robertson. Mirritiji, Jack. 1976. My People’s Life: An Aboriginal’s Own Story. Melbourne: Milingimbi Literature Centre. Mitchell, June. 1978. Amokura. Auckland: Longman Paul. Molisa, Grace. 1983. Black Stone. Suva: Mana Publications. ———. 1987. Colonised People. Port Vila, Vanuatu: Black Stone. Moreton, Romaine. 2004. Post Me to the Prime Minister. Alice Springs: Jukurrpa Books. Morgan, Ronald. 1952. Reminiscences of the Aboriginal Station at Cummeragunga and Its Aboriginal People. Fitzroy, VIC: Group of Friends of the Author. Morgan, Sally. 1987. My Place. Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press. ———. 1989. Wanamurraganya: The Story of Jack McPhee. Fremantle, WA: Fremantle Arts Centre Press. Munkara, Marie. 2009. Every Secret Thing. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Munro, Morndi and Mary-­Anne Jebb. 1996. Emerarra: A Man of Merarra. Broome: Magabala Books. Neidjie, Bill and Keith Taylor (eds). 1989. Story About Feeling. Broome: Magabala Books. Ngabidj, Grant and Bruce Shaw. 1981. My Country of the Pelican Dreaming: The Life Story of an Australian Aborigine of the Gadjerong, Grant Ngabidj, 1904–1977. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. O’Brien, Lewis Yerloburka and Mary-­Anne Gale. 2007. And the Clock Struck Thirteen: The Life and Thoughts of Kaurna Elder Uncle Lewis Yerloburka O’Brien. Kent Town: Wakefield Press. Papertalk-­Green, Charmaine. 2007. Just Like That and Other Poems. Fremantle: Fremantle Press. Pascoe, B. 1988. Fox. Fitzroy: McPhee Gribble. Pepper, Phillip and Tess de Araugo. 1980. You Are What You Make Yourself To Be: The Story of a Victorian Aboriginal Family 1842–1980. Melbourne: Hyland House. Pere, Vernice Wineera. 1978. Mahanga: Pacific Poems. Laie: Institute for Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University. Perkins, Charles. 1975. A Bastard Like Me. Sydney: Ure Smith. Pilkington Garimara, Doris. 1991. Caprice: A Stockman’s Daughter. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. ———. 1996. Follow the Rabbit-­Proof Fence. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. ———. 2002. Under the Wintamarra Tree. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Rabbit-­Proof Fence. 2002. Directed by Philip Noyce. Rumbalara Films, Australian Film Commission, The Australian Film Finance Corporation. Reed-­Gilbert, Kerry. 1996. Black Woman, Black Life. Kent Town: Wakefield Press.

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Renee. 1982a. Setting the Table. Wellington: Playmarket. ———. 1982b. Secrets. Wellington: Playmarket. ———. 1985 [1984]. Wednesday to Come. Wellington: Victoria University Press. ———. 1986. Pass It On. Wellington: Victoria University Press. ———. 1990a. Jeannie Once. Wellington: Victoria University Press. ———. 1990b. Willy Nilly. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 1993. Daisy and Lily. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 1995. Does This Make Sense to You? Auckland: Penguin. ———. 2002. The Skeleton Woman. Wellington: Huia. ———. 2005. Kissing Shadows. Wellington: Huia. Rodger, Victor. 2007a. Sons. Wellington: Huia Press. ———. 2007b. My Name Is Gary Cooper. Wellington: Playmarket. ———. 2013. Black Faggot. Unpublished Play. Roughsey, Dick. 1971. Moon and Rainbow: The Autobiography of an Aboriginal. Artarmon: Reed. Simon, Ella. 1978. Through My Eyes. Adelaide: Rigby. Smith, Shirley Perry and Roberta Sykes (ed). 1981. Mum Shirl: An Autobiography. Richmond: Heinemann. Soaba, Russell. 1977. Wanpis. Port Moresby: Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies. ———. 1979. Maiba. Washington, DC: Three Continents Press. Stewart, Bruce. [1979] 1982. ‘Broken Arse’, in Witi Ihimaera and Don Long (eds), Into the World of Light: An Anthology of Maori Writing, pp. 165–178. Auckland: Heinemann. Sturm, J. C. 1983. The House of the Talking Cat. Wellington: Spiral. Sullivan, Jack and Bruce Shaw. 1983. Banggaiyerri: The Story of Jack Sullivan. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Tawhai, Alice. 2005. Festival of Miracles. Wellington: Huia. ———. 2007. Luminous. Wellington: Huia. ———. 2011. Dark Jelly. Wellington: Huia. Taylor, Apirana. 1979. Eyes of the Ruru. Voice Press. Te Awekotuku, Ngahuia. 1989. Tahuri. Auckland: New Women’s Press. Thaiday, Willie. 1981. Under the Act. Townsville: North Queensland Black Publishing Company. Thaman, Konai Helu. 1974. You, The Choice of My Parents. Suva: Mana Publications. Trask, Haunani-­Kay. 1994. Light in the Crevice Never Seen. Corvallis, OR: Calyx Press. Tucker, Margaret. 1977. If Everyone Cared: Autobiography of Margaret Tucker. Sydney: Ure Smith. Tuwhare, Hone. 1964. No Ordinary Sun. Auckland: Blackwood and Janet Paul. ———. 1972. Sap-­wood and Milk. Dunedin: Caveman Press. ———. 1978. Making a Fist of It: Poems and Short Stories. Dunedin: Jackstraw. ———. 1984. ‘Totem Thoughts’, New Zealand Listener, 10 November, 46. ———. 1987. Mihi: Collected Poems. Auckland: Penguin. Unaipon, David. 1951. My Life Story. Adelaide: Hunkin, Ellis and King. ———. 1953. ‘Leaves of Memory’, in Aborigines Friends Association Annual Report, pp. 6–9. Adelaide: Hunkin, Ellis and King. van den Berg, Rosemary and Thomas Corbett. 1994. No Options, No Choice!: The Moore River Experience: My Father, Thomas Corbett, and Aboriginal Half-­caste. Broome: Magabala Books. van Neerven, Ellen. 2014. Heat and Light. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Von Reiche, Momoe Malietoa. 1979. Solaua, A Secret Embryo. Apia: Mana Publications. Walker, Kath (Oodgeroo Noonuccal). 1964. We Are Going: Poems. Brisbane: Jacaranda.

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———. 1966. Dawn Is at Hand: Poems. Brisbane: Jacaranda Press. ———. 1970. My People: A Kath Walker Collection. Milton, Queensland: Jacaranda. ———. 1972. Stradbroke Dreamtime. Sydney: Angus and Robertson. Watson, Sam. 1990. The Kadaitcha Sung. Ringwood, VIC: Penguin Books. Wendt, Albert. 1973. Sons for the Return Home. Auckland: Longman Paul. ———. 1977. Pouliuli. Auckland: Longman Paul. ———. 1991. Ola. Auckland: Penguin. ———. 2003. The Mango’s Kiss. Auckland: Penguin. West, Ida. 1984. Pride Against Prejudice: Reminiscences of a Tasmanian Aboriginal, Ida West. Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. Wright, Alexis. 1997. Plains of Promise. St Lucia: Queensland University Press. ———. 2006. Carpentaria. Artarmon: Giramondo Publishing.

Secondary works Attwood, Bain and Andrew Markus (eds). 1999. The Struggle for Aboriginal Rights: A Documentary History. St Leonards: Allen & Unwin. Awatere, Donna. 1984. Maori Sovereignty. Auckland: Broadsheet Publications, 1984. Beatson, Peter. 1989. The Healing Tongue: Themes in Contemporary Maori Literature. Palmerston North: Sociology Department, Massey University. Bell, Diane and Topsy Napurrula Nelson. 1989. ‘Speaking About Rape Is Everyone’s Business’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 12 (4): 403–416. Black Panther Woman. 2014. directed by Rachel Perkins. Blackfella Films. Brewster, Anne. 1995. Literary Formations: Post-­Colonialism, Nationalism, Globalism. Carlton South: Melbourne University Press. ———. 2012. ‘Indigenous Writing in Australia and New Zealand’, in Ato Quayson (ed), The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature Vol 1, pp.  511–538. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2015. Giving This Country a Memory: Contemporary Aboriginal Voices of Australia. Amherst: Cambria Press. ———. 2016. ‘Interview with Kerry Reed-­Gilbert’, Australian Literary Studies, 31 (2), www. australianliterarystudies.com.au/issues/volume-­31-­no-­2 (accessed on 15 December 2016). ———. 2019. With Sue Kossew. Rethinking the Victim: Gender and Violence in Contemporary Australian Women’s Writing. London: Routledge. Bringing Them Home: Report of the National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families. 1997. [Commissioner: Ronald Wilson] by National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their Families (Australia), Sydney, Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Daylight, P. and M. Johnstone. 1986. Women’s Business: Report of the Women’s Task Force. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service. Devlin-­Glass, Frances. 1993. ‘Between Two Cultures: Interpreting Vincent Eri’s The Crocodile’, in Paul Sharrad (ed), Readings in Pacific Literature, pp. 63–73. Wollongong: University of Wollongong, New Literatures Research Centre. Dreher, Tanja. 2010. ‘Speaking Up or Being Heard? Community Media Interventions and the Politics of Listening’, Media, Culture and Society, 32 (1): 1–19. Freeman, Derek. 1983. Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Fox, Alistair. 2008. The Ship of Dreams: Masculinity in Contemporary New Zealand Fiction. Dunedin: Otago University Press.

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Griffen, Arlene. 1985. ‘The Different Drum: A Feminist Critique of Selected Works from the New Literature in English from the South Pacific’, Unpublished M.A. Thesis, University of London. Gunew, Sneja and Anna Yeatman. 1993. Feminism and the Politics of Difference. St Leonards: Allen and Unwin. Heim, Otto. 1998. Writing Along Broken Lines: Violence and Ethnicity in Contemporary Maori Fiction. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Hokowhitu, Brendan. 2004. ‘Tackling Maori Masculinity: A Colonial Genealogy of Savagery and Sport’, The Contemporary Pacific, 16 (2): 259–284. Horakova, Martina. 2011. ‘Indigenous Collaborative Life Writing’, in Stephen Hardy, Martina Horakova, Michael Matthew Kaylor and Katerina Prajznerova (eds), Alternatives in Biography, pp. 91–138. Brno: Masaryk University Press. Huggins, Jackie et al. 1991. ‘Letters to the Editor’, Women’s Studies International Forum, 14 (5): 506–507. Keown, Michelle. 2005. Postcolonial Pacific Writing. New York and London: Routledge. Langford, Ruby. 1994. ‘Talking with Ruby Langford Ginibi’, interview with Janine Little, Hecate, 20 (1): 100–121. Langton, Marcia. 1981. ‘Urbanising Aborigines: The Social Scientists’ Great Deception’, Social Alternatives, 2 (2): 61–22. Larbalestier, J. 1990. ‘The Politics of Representation: Australian Aboriginal Women and Feminism’, Anthropological Forum, 6: 145–165. Lucashenko, Melissa. 1996. ‘Violence Against Indigenous Women’, Violence Against Women, 2 (4): 378–390. Marsh, Selina Tusitala. 1999. ‘Theory “Versus” Pacific Island Writing: Toward a Tama’ita’i Criticism in the Works of Three Pacific Islands Woman Poets’, in Vilsoni Hereniko and Rob Wilson (eds), Inside Out: Literature, Cultural Politics, and Identity in the New Pacific, pp. 337–356. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. ———. 2014. ‘Black Stone Poetry, Vanuatu’s Grace Mera Molisa’, Cordite Poetry Review, 1 February  2014; http://cordite.org.au/scholarly/black-­stone-­poetry-­vanuatus-­grace-­ mera-­molisa/ (accessed on 18 November 2016). McLeod, Aorewa and Nina Nola. 1998. ‘The Absent Presence: The Silenced Voice of the “Other” Woman in New Zealand Fiction’, in Rosemary Du Plessis and Lynne Alice (eds), Feminist Thought in Aotearoa New Zealand: Connections and Differences, pp. 12–20. Auckland: Oxford University Press. McTagget, Sue. 1984. ‘Te Herenga Waka: The Place of Protocol’, New Zealand Listener, 3 November, pp. 84–85. Mead, Margaret. 1928. Coming of Age in Samoa: A Psychological Study of Primitive Youth for Western Civilisation. New York: W. Morrow & Co. Modlik, Kimberley. 2014. ‘ “Entitled to a History”: The World of Alice Tawhai’s Short Fiction and the Maori Literary Tradition’, Unpublished M.A. Thesis, Waikato University. Moreton-­Robinson, Aileen. 2000. Talkin’ Up to the White Woman: Aboriginal Women and Feminism. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. Native Welfare Conference, Commonwealth and State Authorities, Held at Parliament House, Canberra, 26th-­27th January 1961: Proceedings and Decisions. 1961. p. 399. Canberra: ACT. O’Shane, Pat. 1976. ‘Is There Any Relevance in the Women’s Movement for Aboriginal Women?’ Refractory Girl, September, p. 33. Pettman, J. 1992. ‘Gendered Knowledges: Aboriginal Women and the Politics of Feminism’, in B. Attwood and J. Arnold (eds), Power, Knowledge and Aborigines, pp. 120–131. Melbourne: La Trobe University Press in association with the National Centre for Australian Studies, Monash University.

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Poananga, Atareta. 1986. ‘The Matriarch: Takahia Wahine Toa: Trample on Strong Women’, Part I. Broadsheet, 145 (December): 24–28. ———. 1987. ‘The Matriarch: Takahia Wahine Toa: Trample on Strong Women,’Part 2. Broadsheet 146 (January–February): 24–29. ‘Rodger That’. 2013. New Zealand Listener 16–23 February: 45–46. By Natasha Hay. Sharrad, Paul. 2003. Albert Wendt and Pacific Island Literature: Circling the Void. Auckland: Auckland University Press. Sinaviana-­Gabbard, Caroline. 1999. ‘Where the Spirits Laugh Last: Comic Theater in Samoa’, in Vilsoni Hereniko and Rob Wilson (eds), Inside Out: Literature, Cultural Politics, and Identity in the New Pacific, pp. 183–205. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Teaiwa, Teresia. 1999. ‘Reading Paul Gauguin’s Noa Noa with Epeli Hau’ofa’s Kisses in the Nederends: Militourism, Feminism, and the “Polynesian” Body’, in Vilsoni Hereniko and Rob Wilson (eds), Inside Out: Literature, Cultural Politics, and Identity in the New Pacific, pp. 249–263. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Thompson, Christina. 1999. ‘In Whose Face? An Essay on the Work of Alan Duff’, in Hereniko, Vilsoni and Rob Wilson (eds), Inside Out: Literature, Cultural Politics, and Identity in the New Pacific, pp. 105–118. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Trask, Haunani Kay. 1994. Light in the Crevice Never Seen. Corvallis, OR: Calyx Books. Walker, Ranginui. 1993. ‘Eat Your Heart Out, Alan Duff’, Metro, 145: 136–137. Wood, Briar. 1997. ‘Tui Tu’u Heilala: Konai Thaman Talks to Briar Wood’, Wasafiri: Journal of Caribbean, African, Asian and Associated Literatures and Film 25 (Spring): 6–10. Yeatman, Anna. 1993. ‘Voice and Representation in the Politics of Difference’, in Sneja Gunew and Anne Yeatman (eds), Feminism and the Politics of Difference, pp.  228–245. Sydney: Allen and Unwin.

INDEX

Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ denote notes. Abolir l’esclavage: une utopie coloniale 16 abolitionist movements 17 aboriginal people 83, 86, 93, 94, 97, 100, 105, 179, 185 aboriginal renaissance 177, 178 aboriginal rights 96 – 98 Aboriginal Sovereignty 178 aboriginal treaty 98 aboriginal women 79, 81 aborigines 3; see also individual entries Academy of Mayan Languages (ALMG) 48 Accounting for Genocide: Canada’s Bureaucratic Assault on Aboriginal People 105 Acoose, Sharon 81 activism 58 adivasis/tribes, contemporary India 137 – 154; constitutionalism 138 – 142; dispossession 146 – 151; first principles 138 – 142; human rights 138 – 142; human rights imaginary 151 – 153; question of land 144 – 146; sovereignty 138 – 142; territory and geographies of 142 – 146; women 143 – 144 Adult Learning Centre 88 African Commission 13 allochthone 13, 14 Ambedkar 140 Anaya, James 93 Anaya’s report 94 Anderson, Warrigal 178 Anonymous Premonition 184

Anthropocene 3 Apprentice to the Mystery 83 Arévalo, Juan José 46 Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) 137 An Arrow in my Heart 81 Article 2(e) of the Convention on Genocide 104 Article 14 of UDHR 94 Articles of Declaration: Article 25 2; Article 26 2; Article 27 2 Asad, Talal 140, 141, 153 Athanasiou, Athena 151 Australian Black Panther Party 181 Australian indigenous literature 177 – 202; gender in 177 – 186 autochthony 14, 15 Awatere, Donna 190 Aylen, Elise 108 Aymara 54 Aztec empire 41 Baker, Heretaunga Pat 186 Balkanization 15 batta-satta 168 Baxi, Upendra 140 Bayart, Jean-François 12 Because a White Man’ll Never Do It 178 Beijing Declaration 88 Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous 35n1 Bell, Diane 184

Index  211

Bellear, Lisa 183 Berland, Joseph C. 144 ‘Between Earth and Sky’ 187 biological genocide 97 Bitin’ Back 185 Black Faggot 200 Black from the Edge 178 Black Life 177 The Blackside 178 Black Stone 196 Black Woman Black Life 183 blood diamonds 26 Bohemia, Jack 178 Bokamoso 26 Bolivia 43, 53 – 58 Bomboki, Oilei 197 The Bone People 189, 192 Borzaga, Michela 4 Botswana 23 – 25 Bourgeois, Robyn 105 Bringing Them Home 179 Bryce, Peter 106 Bulibasha 191 Bushmen battalion 21, 22 Butler, Judith 151 Campbell, Alistair 197 Canada 5; genocide in 96 – 111; indigenous human rights in 91 – 128 Canada’s Indian Act 79 – 82 Carter, Sarah 78 Casimir, Michael J. 147 Catholic Church 42, 46, 72 Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) 24 – 26 Chiapas 44 child-welfare system 110, 111 Chiquitanos 53 Christianity 159 citizenship 4, 10 Citizens Plus 95 Civilised Girl 196 civilization 7 civil society organisations (CSOs) 32 Clearing the Plains 101 Cleven, Vivienne 182, 185 Coalition of Organizations of the Maya People of Guatemala (COPMAGUA) 49 Coleman, Dylan 179 collective distress 100 collective memory 1, 142 collective rights 62 – 64, 66 colonialism 1, 12, 14, 77, 86 Colonised People 197

Comaroff, Jean 15, 19 Comaroff, John L. 15, 19 Committee of Campesino Unity (CUC) 46 communitarian democracy 70 The Community of Rights/The Rights of Community 95 Community Well-Being Index 93 complementarity concept 72 constitutional geographies 137 – 154 constitutionalism 138 – 142 Constitution of India: Article 15 on right against discrimination 138; Article 19 of Constitution of India 138 – 139, 141; Article 29(2), rights and freedoms 139 contemporary India: adivasis/tribes in 137 – 154 COPMAGUA (Coalition of Organizations of the Maya People of Guatemala) 48 Coulthard, Glen 116 Council of Maya Organizations of Guatemala (COMG) 48 Cousins 190, 193 Coyle, Michael 116 criminal tribes 6 criollo elites 56 criollos 45 The Crocodile 195 Cucuri, Cristina 66 cultural genocide 97 Cummins, Marlene 181 Cutolo, Armando 13 Daisy and Lily 193 Dark Jelly 194 Dark Secrets 184 Das, Samarendra 149 Daschuk, James 101 – 103 daughter-in-law 164, 165 Davies, Alan 96 Davis, Jack 177, 178 ‘Dawnie’ 194 Dawn Is at Hand 177 ‘Dear Cousin’ 187 Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People 2 Delaney, David 145, 148 democratization 13 depoliticisation 10 destructive stereotypes 190 Díaz, Floriberto 66, 67, 70 direct democracy 69 discursive colonialism 62, 68 dispossession 68, 146 – 151

212 Index

Dodd, Bill 178 Dreaming in Urban Areas 183 The Dream Swimmer 191 duality concept 72 Duff, Alan 191 Eastern Africa 27 – 29 economic justice 10 Ecuador 61 Eekwol 83, 84 empowerment 158 – 175; negotiating 167 – 173 encomiendas 41 environmental degradation 4 environmental vulnerability 44 environmental well-being 43 epistemic colonialism 68 Eri, Vincent 195 Ethiopia 28 ethnic communities 14 ethnic favouritism 15 ethnocentric feminism 63 Evans-Campbell, Teresa 100 Fale Aitu/Spirit House 200 Farthing, Linda C. 56 Fast Talking PI 200 feminism 82 feminist knowledges: ecology of 73 Feminist Research Practice: A Primer 87 Ferguson, R. G. 103 Festival of Miracles 194 Figiel, Sia 198, 199 FIMI vision 89 finance capitalism 11 – 12 Findlay, Isobel 88 The First-Born 177 First Nations Property Ownership Act (FNPOA) 95 First People of the Kalahari (FPK) 25 – 26 Fischer 48 Fischlin, Daniel 95 Fontaine, Nahanni 79 Fourth Geneva Convention 92 ‘Friend’ 187 The Frigate Bird 197 Frisbie, Florence 195 G20 Summit 93 Gaddis 158 – 175 Gaddi women 6, 158 – 175; negotiating empowerment 167 – 173 Galaty, John 28, 29 Galbraith, J. D. 108 Gallino, Luciano 11

Garhwal 159 Garifuna 44 Garimara, Doris Pilkington 183 “The Gauntlet” 83 Gbagbo, Laurent 14 gender construction 160 gender-justice: issue 7; in Latin America 60 – 74 gender rights: collective rights and 62 – 64 gender structuring 6 genocide: in Canadia 96 – 111; on great plains 101 – 104; residential schools and “60s Scoop” 104 – 111; understanding historical trauma 96 – 101 Gerardi, Juan José 49 Geschiere, Peter 13, 14 ghar-jawantri form 168 Gilbert, Kevin 177 Ginibi, Ruby Langford 179, 180 Girl in the Moon Circle 198 Grace, Patricia 187, 188, 190, 193 gram panchayats 150 Grandin, Greg 45 Green, Joyce 82 Green Belt movement 32 – 35 Griqua 19 Guatemala 43, 44 – 53 Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) 46 Guha, Sumit 142 Gupta, Akhil 148, 151 Guzmán, Jacobo Árbenz 46 Habermas, Jurgen 140 Hadza 30 Haida Nation v. British Columbia 113 Haiti 92 Hale, Charles 51 Hardbattle, John 26 Harper, Stephen 92, 95 Harvey, David 147 Heat and Light 185 Hepworth, H. Philip 109 Hereniko, Vilsoni 199 Hessel, Stéphane 92 higher learning: gender and 85 – 87 Himachal Pradesh, India: area and people 161 – 162; Gaddi family and society, women 162 – 173; Gaddi women of 158 – 175 Hinduism 159 historical trauma 100 Hodgson, Dorothy 10, 16, 17, 29 – 31, 35n1 Hodgson, Elizabeth 184

Index  213

Holt, Yvette 184 Homo sapiens 1 Homosexual Law Reform Bill 193 Hoodia gardonii 22 The House of the Talking Cat 186 Hudson’s Bay Company 102 Hulme, Keri 189 humanitarian law: ambiguous legacy of 16 – 17 human rights 5, 138 – 142; re-writing in Africa 32 – 35 I, Rigoberta Menchúu 47 Ihimaera, Witi 187, 192 ILO convention 44 impunity cartographies 137 – 154 Inca empire 41 Indian Act (1876) 98 indigeneity 13 – 17, 141; finance capitalism and 11 – 12 indigenous, inconvenient category 12 – 15 indigenous activism 9, 53 indigenous authenticity 15 indigenous communities 1 indigenous cultures 68 indigenous epistemologies 64 – 73; ceremonies and rites as expression of “communal gift” 71 – 73; consensus at assembly, community service and communitarian work 69 – 71; Earth as mother and territory 68 – 69; gender 64 – 73 indigenous feminism 62 indigenous groups 43 indigenous human rights: in African Laboratory 9 – 37; awkward preliminaries 91 – 96; Botswana 23 – 25; in Canada 91 – 128; Eastern Africa 27 – 29; First People of the Kalahari (FPK) 25 – 26; ‘indigenous’ to ‘livelihoods,’ Tanzania 29 – 32; individual or communal and collective 94 – 96; The ‡Khomani San 19 – 20; Kuru Family of Organisations (KFO) 25 – 26; lowered expectations 91 – 94; The Nama (Khoi) 22 – 23; nuance, context and hypocrisy 91 – 94; The San Hoodia trust 22; South Africa 18 – 19; Southern Africa 17 – 18; The !Xun and Khwe 20 – 22 indigenous peoples 1 – 4, 7, 102 indigenous rights: activism 10; Bolivia 53 – 58; Guatemala 44 – 53; in Latin America 41 – 58; movement 10, 32 indigenous women 7; in Latin America 60 – 74; legal impact on 79 – 82; new agenda of 60 – 62

intercultural bilingual education (IBE) 44, 51, 57 International Monetary Fund 55 international work 87 – 90; impact 84 – 85 International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA) 16, 28 “Iskwewak” 83 Jagardoo 177 jan-jati 5 Jeannie Once 191 Johannes, Aron 26 John Pat 177 Johnston, Patrick 109 Johnstone, M. 179 Just Like That 184 The Kadaitcha Sung 180, 181 Kailu 167 Kalahari Gemsbok National Park (KGNP) 20 Kannabiran, Kalpana 5 Kaqchikels 45 Kaunda, Kenneth 14 Kaushal, Molly 6 Keefer, Michael 5 Kelowna Accord 93, 112 Key Concepts in Indigenous Studies 8 Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park 18 Khasi society 160 Khoi-San National Council 19 The ‡Khomani San 19 – 20 King, Wayne 178 kisahigan 89–90 Kishwar, Madhu 143 Kohl, Benjamin H. 56 !Koranna 19 Koravas 145 Korongoro Integrated People Oriented to Conservation (KIPOC) 30 31 Kulchyski, Peter 96 Kumar, Sanjeeva 148 Kuru Family of Organisations (KFO) 25 – 26 Ladinos 45, 46 lagan 174 land grabbing 28 Langton, Marcia 179 Last Virgin in Paradise 199 Latin America: gender justice in 60 – 74; indigenous rights in 41 – 58; indigenous women in 60 – 74 Lazarte, Silvia 56 Leane, Jeanine 184

214 Index

Leaves of the Banyan Tree 195 Levenson, Deborah T. 45 Levien, Michael 147, 148 LGBT people 87 liberal democracy 10, 23 liberal feminism 64 Little, Jeanine 179 López, Luis Enrique 57 Lord Selkirk Park (LSP) 88 Lucashenko, Melissa 181 Luminous 194 Maasai 27 – 31, 37n17; association 4, 9 Maathai, Wangari 32 – 35 Macdonald, John A. 101, 103, 104 Madan, T. N. 160 Majumdar, D. N. 160 Making Space for Indigenous Feminism 82 Makini, Jully 196 The Mango’s Kiss 198 Maori Language Act 189 Maori literatures 177 – 202; gender in 186 – 194 Maori Sovereignty 189 marriages 167, 168 The Matriarch 190 Maya 44, 46, 48; civilization 45 Mayan claims 49 Mazin Grace 179 Mazumdar, Indrani 143 Mbeki, Thabo 20 Mbembe, Achille 11 – 13 McAllister, Carlota 49 McClurg, Michael 114 McLaren, Philip 180 McLeod, Aorewa 190 McPhee, Jack 178 Memory of Silence 49 Menchú Tum, Rigoberta 47 mestizos 45, 54 Métis population 99 Mexico 61 Mi’kmaq of Elsipogtog 114 Milloy, John 98, 100, 104, 105, 108 Mine Eyes Dazzle 195 Miss Ulysses of Puka 195 Mitchell, June 186 Mohawk Interruptus: Political Life Across the Borders of Settler States 79 Molisa, Grace 196 monoculture of Western knowledge 67 mono-ethnic state 24 monthly per capita expenditure (MCPE) 138

Montt, Efraín Ríos 47, 49 Morales, Evo 56 – 58 Moreton, Romaine 183 Morgan, Sally 179 mother-in-law 164, 165 Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) 54, 57, 58 Munro, Morndi 178 Mutuwhenua 188 My Name Is Gary Cooper 199 My People 177 My Place 179 mythology, gender and 173 – 174 The Nama (Khoi) 9, 19, 22 – 23 Nandorfy, Martha 95 National Household Survey 110 Native Women’s Association of Canada 94 Ndahinda, Felix 14, 16 Neerven, Ellen van 182 Nelson, Diane 49 Nelson, Topsy Napurrula 184 neoliberal economic reforms 10 neoliberalism: critique of 87 – 90 neo-liberal reforms 149 Neu, Dean 105 Nga Pou Wahine 191 NGOs 10, 13, 15, 17, 25, 43, 53 Nights in the Gardens of Spain 193 Nixon, Rob 17, 27 No Ordinary Sun 186 North America: gender in 77 – 90 Nyamnjoh, Francis 13 Nyati-Ramahobo, Lydia 24 Oglesby, Elizabeth 45 Ogoni ecosystem 4 Ogoniland 4 Ogoni people 3, 4 O’Keefe, Derrick 97 Okin, Moller 63 Ola 197 Olmsted 24, 25 Once Were Warriors 191 ‘One Summer Morning’ 187 Orapa 23 The Origins of Totalitarianism 94 O’Shane, Pat 179 Oskayak 85 Other Backward Classes 138 Pacific eroticism 6 Pacific Island literatures 177 – 202; gender in 194 – 201

Index  215

Padel, Felix 149, 151 Panama 61 Panchayats Extension to the Scheduled Areas Act 153 Papertalk-Green, Charmaine 184 Parkipuny, Moringe ole 29 – 30 Pascoe, Bruce 180 Pass It On 191 Pastoralist Indigenous Non-Governmental Organisation (PINGO) 31, 32 People Are Legends 177 Pere, Vernice Wineera 186 Peru 42, 61 Phillimore, Peter 171 physical genocide 97 pimatisiwin 89–90 ‘Pink Frost’ 194 Plains of Promise 181 ‘Pluto’ 194 Poananga, Atareta 190 policulturalism 19 political mobilisation 14 Polyandry 159 Post Me to the Prime Minister 183 Pouliuli 195 Prison for Women (P4W) 85 prison system, Canada 81 prithavi mandala 174 ‘The Protectors’ 177 proud complacency 96 Purple Threads 179 Quechua 54 racism-fuelled historical amnesia 97 ‘Rainbow Nation’ 24 Rao, Aparna 147 Rao, Nitya 148, 149 Rathwa indigenous community 8 Reading, Charlotte 100 Red Paper 95, 96 Reed, Hayter 104 Reed-Gilbert, Kerry 183 regional groups 18 Remote Area Dweller Development Programme 25 repression 41 – 58 residential schools 104 – 111 resistance 41 – 58 responsibility to protect 92 Restitution of Land Rights Act 20 resurgence 41 – 58 rhetoric of urgency 16 – 17 Rhys, Jean 185

ritual hierarchies 163 Robins, Steven 9, 10, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21 Robles, Sofía 67 Roy, Arundhati 17, 91 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) 112, 113 Royal Proclamation of 1763 98 Saddhans 171, 172 San 17 – 20, 25 The San Hoodia trust 22 Saturday Night magazine 106 Saveen 174 Scheduled Castes (SC) 138 Scheduled Tribes (ST) 137, 138, 141, 146, 152 Scott, Duncan Campbell 98, 104, 106, 107 Segato, Rita Laura 69 Sen, Sarbani 152 Sesana, Roy 26 Setting the Table 191 sexual favours 79 sexuality 180 Sidewinder 197 Silberbauer, George 24 Simpson, Audra 79 Sinclair, Murray 111 The Situation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada 93 “60s Scoop” 101, 104 – 111 Skin Painting 184 social economies 86 social humiliation 148 social relations 147 social stigmatization 42 Solaua, A Secret Embryo 196 solidarity 85 – 87 Solway, Jacqueline 24, 25 Sons for the Return Home 195 South Africa 10, 18 – 19 South African Defence Force (SADF) 21 South African Human Rights Commission 15 South African San Institute (SASI) 19 Southern Africa 17 – 18 South West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO) 21 sovereignty 138 – 142 spirituality 72 state patronage 6 Steam Pigs 181, 182 stigmatisation 147 The Strength of Women: Âhkêmayamak 77 structural inequality 10 structural violence 148

216 Index

substance abuse 81 Sundar, Nandini 142, 145 Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) 22, 23 Supreme Court of India 3 Suzman, James 23 Sylvain, Renée 13, 15, 34 Szaszy, Dame Mira 189 tal-bal form 168 Tangi 188 Tanzania 29 – 32 Tanzania Pastoralists and Hunter Gatherers Organisation (TPHGO) 32 Tawhai, Alice 194 Taylor, Apirana 187 tequio 69 territoriality 144 Thaman, Konai Helu 196 Therrien, Richard 105 Third World 63 Thomson, Alex 12, 14, 23 Those Who Do Not Grieve 199 Tia 197 Todas 159 ‘Totem Thoughts’ 187 transformative constitutionalism 153 Treaty of Ghent 97 ‘Trees of Democracy’ 34 Tribal Grazing Land Policy 36n14 Tribal Land Act 36n14 tribes 137 – 154 Trudeau, Justin 112 Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) 19, 22, 92, 97, 110, 111 Tswana tribes 24 Tuwhare, Hone 186 two-spirit concept 86 The Uncle’s Story 191, 192 – 193 Under the Wintamarra Tree 183 UNESCO 3 United Nations 2, 11 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 9

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) 92 The Unjust Society 95 Vergès, Françoise 16, 17 violence 6, 68, 79, 80 wakotawin 89–90 Walker, Kath 177 Warsaw ghetto 103 Water War of 2000 55 Watson, Sam 180, 181 We Are Going 177 Wednesday to Come 191 Wendt, Albert 195 The Whale Rider 191 When the Mountains Tremble 47 ‘Where I Married the Sea’ 194 Where We Once Belonged 198 White Paper on Indian Policy 95 widow remarriage 169 Wien, Fred 100 Wild Dogs Under My Skirt 200 Wilson, Alexandria 86 Wilson, Elder Vicki 80 Wilson, Sue 181 Wolfe, Patrick 101 women: voices of 83 – 84 Women’s Studies International Forum 184 Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA) 19 World Bank 43, 52 Wright, Alexis 181 Wuttunee, Wanda 88 Xaxa, Virginius 141, 154n5, 159 Xinca 44 The !Xun and Khwe 20 – 22 Year of Indigenous Languages 3 You, the Choice of My Parents 196 Zapatism 63 Zapatista movement 69