[Anthropgrad] Anthropology seminar Wednesday 28 May

[Melinda Hinkson]

Anthropology seminar Wednesday 28 May, 9.30 am, Coombs Seminar Room A

Francesca Merlan, School of Archaeology & Anthropology
 
Indigeneity, Global and Local
 
The concept of indigeneity has become Œglobalized¹ over the past several
decades: we now refer to Œindigenous peoples¹ as an internationally
recognized type. Exemplification of two quite different forms of indigenous
claim early in the paper reminds us that the category is not inherently
international, and leads to closer examination of the emergence of the
internationalist category and its dynamics. There has been continuing
contestation over who belongs to the category, who does not, and why. That
some groups have been readily accepted as belonging to the category, while
others have not, points to certain important, widely shared understandings
about it. The internationalist model of indigeneity had its origins in a
particular pattern of political and cultural orientations, or Œpolitical
culture¹.   It is significant that the only four nations that recently
declined to ratify the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of
Indigenous Peoples, under preparation since 1986, were principal ones from
which post-War impulses for the internationalization of indigeneity
originated. I argue that there is an intimate link between the conditions of
the category¹s emergence, the possibilities of internationalist indigenism,
and the later negative vote, examination of which gains us greater clarity
upon debates over membership of the category. A number of cases are examined
across a spectrum of acceptance and refusal of indigeneity, ranging from
peoples who have been unproblematically included within the internationalist
category and others who are not, in order to illuminate kinds of relations
and interactions in its globalization.
 
All welcome.
____________________________________
Melinda Hinkson
School of Archaeology & Anthropology
A.D. Hope Building
The Australian National University
Canberra ACT 0200

T: +61 2 6125 8246
F: +61 2 6125 2711
W: http://arts.anu.edu.au/AandA/

Information about the Master of Visual Culture Research
is available at: http://rsh.anu.edu.au/vcr.php