Modern Indigenous

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As Jeffery Sissons writes in First Peoples: Indigenous Cultures and Their Futures, the Canadian Government was responsible for the creation of a number of schools that, under the tutelage of the Church, were pressed to reform indigenous children from their “backward” ways to that of socially-acceptable human beings. These schools, which were present up until the late 20th century, were seen as less costly than military expenditures would be to eliminate the “Indian threat”. As indigenous groups were not seen by the government as able to conduct their own affairs, the state was deemed morally and, perhaps more importantly in their eyes, financially responsible for them. Indeed, indigenous groups at the time had little-to-no self-determinism, with all financial, political and educational affairs being overseen by governmental and religious institutions. Obviously, as the economic burden began to grow, the government began to see that a policy of “enfranchisement” would be the best option to curb costs. This policy determined that once an Indian was considered able to take care of himself – by being able to speak English or French, free of debt and of good moral character, among other criteria – he could renounce his Indian status and become a citizen of the country. The residential schools were one of the prime actors towards this eventual goal. Through the re-socialization of youth to the western “societal ideal”, the thread of tradition, culture and practice passed on through generations was forcibly cut. This forced education, it could be said, restricted indigenous groups from imagining their own form of modernity within the modern world. While the case of residential schools in British Canada is undoubtedly a poignant example of the manner in which the path to indigeneous modernity has been hampered, it is not the only one. In Bolivia, most recently known as a bastion for the indigenous resurgence movement, the history of ethnocide by western colonial forces is just as remarkable.

The Spanish colonizers, who had normally followed a policy of genocide when militarily capable, otherwise left behind a brutal and regimented view towards the indigenous people of the Bolivian Andes. Yet, although they undoubtedly restricted much of the self-agency of the indigenous people of Bolivia, they nonetheless ensured that ethnic groups were able to retain their traditional lands in a communal farming organization. However, the Creole, who supplanted the Spanish as the dominant economic, military and political force of Bolivia, also supplanted this idea of indigenous self-agency. To better create an idealized form of the western modern framework that they held, the Creole instituted property taxes and the concept of private property to the Andes – both concepts that were completely foreign to the indigenous people of the region. These new institutions, enforced to the letter, irrecoverably altered not only the manner in which production was completed, but also the way in which the indigenous people imagined their own relationship to their traditional lands. By doing so, the Creole had, undoubtedly, worked towards an ethnocide of self-agency in lieu of an “idealized” western goal.

Today, indigenous peoples find themselves in a very precarious position. Although it is undeniable that indigenous groups worldwide have come closer to forms of self-determinism and the right to self-agency both at the regional level as well as the international level, the history and ideologies of the so-called “modern era” are still present in shades today. However, since the creation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, Niezen argues that the international community (and thus, the Western World) has altered their worldviews in two specific ways – with each being beneficial to burgeoning attempts at indigenous self-agency: “First, the international organizations of states have developed a body of human rights instruments and a program of standard setting that is less hostile to the rights of those, besides states, sometimes referred to as “peoples”. Second, indigenous peoples have organized and situated themselves in international networks in such a way that their lobbying efforts are more visible and coordinated, less reliant on the good will of one or several states, and thus less vulnerable to obstruction and veto” (Niezen; 2003).

These ideas have since been put into practice in a number of ways. To begin, in the Bolivian account, it can be said that the indigenous people living in the Andes have come to create their own vision of identity in order to further their claims to self-agency. As separate indigenous groups across the Andes have come together to create a stronger political presence, the indigenous people of Bolivia have ensured that their voices are heard on a regional level. Beyond this, they have begun to use international discourse and networks, much as Niezen stated above, in order to better articulate their identity. In this case, the indigenous peoples of the Andes have “piggybacked” on lessons learned from the Amazonian Indians as a way to attract not only national attention – but international awareness as well. However, despite these gains, the traditional western modernist views have worked to put a halt to indigenous claims to self-agency; this autonomy, they argue, will only cause more social disarray.

Another example of the manner in which indigenous groups have used this change in worldview to their benefit is through the reinvigoration of indigenous discourse and epistemology. In order to reverse the negative effects of decades of suppression and elimination of indigenous knowledge, culture and practices, the concept of an “education movement” has been key to the re-birth of self-agency in the indigenous framework. Despite numerous difficulties based on long-held beliefs and practices of racism and marginalization, Romero-Little notes the gains that have been made over the past sixty years in regards to progress: “There has been…a shift towards the conceptualization and development of a new and culturally relevant framework for language renewal that will address the social, cultural and communal needs, goals and wishes of Indigenous peoples as well as serve as a foundation for the creation of new theories, pedagogy, and practices for consideration in mainstream intuitions” (Little; 2006).