Paper short abstract:

Anthropology has focused on "the other", including indigenous peoples, since the beginning. It was and is our raison d'être. Except that we used other terms to refer to them for the longest time. We objectivized them. But a slow and steady move is taking place to change this.

Paper long abstract:

Social/cultural anthropology has a long and complex history of engaging with other cultures, specifically indigenous peoples. This contact and interaction take place for different purposes and with different outputs: (a) Undergraduate training in anthropology departments, (b) Fieldwork written up in theses, scholarly papers, and monographs, and (c) Applied work to impact and change societies.

The paper addresses how to understand the indigenous world and its relationship with anthropology. It aims to contribute to tracing how anthropology has viewed indigenous peoples and how they are viewed today, and vice versa. Over the years, a number of interdisciplinary approaches have contributed to this.

In the post-World War II period things began to change. There were initiatives and processes at macro levels and local levels, initially largely external to anthropology, which often were at the receiving end of these developments. These changes became reflected in basic ideas in anthropology, including the two dichotomies of ethnocentrism-cultural relativism and etic-emic.

A key question is how, and to what extent, the presence of the indigenous cause at a global level may or should impact fieldwork, undergraduate training, and applied work. Own examples of successful work at interacting with indigenous peoples, in the context of training and in applied development work, will be presented.

Paper short abstract:

After decades of critical reflection on the performative effects of words, and given today's global crises, we consider from the perspective of social anthropology the appropriateness of continuing to think about the category of "indigenous" beyond rights and multicultural policies.

Paper long abstract:

Categories matter. Anthropology has reflected critically on the performative effects of words, for example with deconstruction of the concept of race (Margaret Mead 1940; Lévi-Strauss, Leiris, Métraux 1959) and its culturalist parallel (Stolcke 1995) after the Second World War, and recognition and problematisation of hybrid categories—like mestizaje (Bernand & Gruzinski 1992; Gruzinski 1999; Amselle 1990; De la Cadena 2006; Wade 2004; Stolcke 2008; Ventura et al 2014)—for diluting essentialisms. Besides drawing attention to the political effects of categories on human collectives, anthropology has consolidated thoroughgoing reflection on the limits of thinking about the world on the basis of deep-rooted dichotomies in western thought, especially when starting from the nature/culture division. Paradoxically, the category of "indigenous"—imbued with blood cleansing ideologies of colonial times, enlightened racial theories, and twentieth-century culturalist perspectives—has been widely revived in recent decades after being reclaimed by social movements and international organisations, and to such an extent that anthropology has turned the debate over its use into a question of rights (Kuper 2003; Kenrick & Lewis 2004; Gausset, Kenrick & Gibb 2011) or choice (Viveiros 2006). In a world where environmental and health crises are increasingly global, this paper aims to question the appropriateness of continuing to observe reality from the standpoint of the category of "indigenous", and to consider how anthropology can keep thinking about cultural diversity in an overall framework of human rights.

Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses legal positivism and norm collisions, by examining the Sámi case. It examines how domestic law relates to customary indigenous law and whether courts set aside positivistic, written laws of the majority in favour of unwritten customary laws of the indigenous population.

Paper long abstract:

Contemporary international law recognizes the importance of indigenous customary laws. Article 8 of the (legally binding) ILO Convention No. 169 upholds the substantive right of indigenous peoples to retain their own customs and customary laws and holds that "[i]n applying national laws and regulations to the peoples concerned, due regard shall be had to their customs or customary laws". Moreover, Articles 27 and 34 of the (legally non-binding) United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recognize indigenous peoples' laws. Art. 34 gives, inter alia, indigenous peoples the right to maintain their juridical systems or customs, in accordance with international human rights standards. This paper focuses on the indigenous Sámi people and discusses legal pluralism, norm hierarchies, and tensions that are created when customary indigenous law conflicts with statutory domestic law, especially before national courts.

In foregrounding the obligations of States under international law, this paper consists of two interrelated strands. The first is a legal one that asks how juridical indigenous custom is dealt with before domestic courts of law and how the different legal systems relate to each other. The second is an anthropological one that examines how the Sámi experience the judicial in- or exclusion of their own customary rules by the majority courts. The paper discusses norm collisions that can arise when unwritten Sámi customary law that protects collective rights contradicts with written norms of the majority that protect individual rights.

Paper short abstract:

When indigenous peoples began in the 1970s to acquire the right to participate in decision-making concerning them, outcomes in law, rights and development began to change dramatically.

Paper long abstract:

Historically indigenous peoples have always been subject to conquest and subjugation, with no right to take part in deciding their own futures. This was given legal justification by the Papal Bull of 1065 that declared lands occupied by non-Christians to be 'Terra Nullius', i.e., occupied by people with no rights. This led to European colonization and subjugation of indigenous territories with the earlier inhabitants often not recognized as having any rights whatsoever. When the League of Nations was established in 1919, no recognition was given to the rights of colonial peoples. However, the International Labour Organization (ILO), established at the same time, began in the 1930s to adopt a series of international Conventions that began to recognize rights for so-called 'Native populations'. The ILO continued this work after World War II with the adoption of other international standards concerning indigenous populations, and development programmes aimed at them. However, all this was done with a 'top down' approach, imposing the views of non-indigenous decision-makers on their conditions of life and work. Only in the 1970s did indigenous peoples begin to organize at the international level and to express their hopes and desires. Once they did, outcomes began to change dramatically, and today indigenous rights and development, with their participation, are a major focus of both national and international protection and development. This paper explores how that happened, and what has changed.