Paper short abstract:

This is a discussion paper around the central themes raised in the papers from the panel and the implications for relationships between Indigenous peoples and the anthropologists who support them within the political, social and environmental spaces of the global south.

Paper long abstract:

As a discussant the author aims this paper at stimulating further conversation among the panellists, and from the audience. This paper is therefore a discussion piece, which will draw out the main themes, intersections and differences between the papers presented at this panel. The paper will also refer back to the volume, which inspired the development of the panel on "activist alliances between anthropologists and Indigenous peoples" in Canada, Mexico and Australia. In doing this, the paper will take the Panel conversation forward into the global south, to review the impact of the colonial project on Indigenous peoples in Australia and the Pacific. It will tease out the role anthropologists currently play, and could continue to play into the future, in collaborating with Indigenous peoples as allies, friends, activists and for some as being Indigenous anthropologists themselves, to challenge the colonial project to decolonise.