Indigeneity on the Move: Varying Manifestations of a Contested Concept

“Indigeneity” has become a prominent yet contested concept in national and international politics, as well as within the social sciences. This edited volume draws from authors representing different disciplines and perspectives, exploring the dependence of indigeneity on varying sociopolitical contexts, actors, and discourses with the ultimate goal of investigating the concept’s scientific and political potential.

Table of Contents:
List of Illustrations Preface Adam Kuper Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations Introduction: Exploring Indigeneity: Introductory Remarks Nasir Uddin, Eva Gerharz, and Pradeep Chakkarath PART I: STRUGGLES OVER LAND AND RESOURCES Chapter 1. On the Nature of Indigenous Land: Ownership, Access and Farming in Upland Northeast India Erik de Maaker Chapter 2. Considering the Implications of the Concept of Indigeneity for Land and Natural Resource Management in Cambodia, Thailand, and Laos Ian G. Baird PART II: BECOMING INDIGENOUS Chapter 3. Processes of Modernization, Processes of Indigenization: an Amazonian Case (Yanomami, Southern Venezuela) Gabriele Herzog-Schröder Chapter 4. Indigenous Activism Beyond Ethnic Groups: Shifting Boundaries and Constellations of Belonging Eva Gerharz Chapter 5. In Search of Self: Identity, Indigeneity, and Cultural Politics in Bangladesh Nasir Uddin PART III: INDIGENEITY AS A POLITICAL RESOURCE Chapter 6. Different Trajectories of Indigenous Rights Movements in Africa: Insights from Cameroon and Tanzania Michaela Pelican Chapter 7. Politics of Indigeneity in the Andean Highlands: Indigenous Social Movements and the State in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru (1940–2015) Olaf Kaltmeier Chapter 8. Conflicting Dimensions of Indigeneity as a Contested Political Resource in Contemporary Mexico Gilberto Rescher PART IV: INDIGENEITY AND THE STATE Chapter 9. Intimate Antagonisms: Adivasis and the State in Contemporary India Uday Chandra Chapter 10. Indigeneity, Culture and the State: Social Change and Legal Reforms in Latin America Wolfgang Gabbert Chapter 11. Fluid Indigeneities in the Indian Ocean: A Small History of the State and its Other Philipp Zehmisch Postscriptum: The Futures of Indigenous Medicine: Networks, Contexts, Freedom William S. Sax Index

About the Author :
Eva Gerharz is Professor of Sociology with a Special Focus on Globalisation at Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Germany. She is the author of The Politics of Reconstruction and Development in Sri Lanka. Transnational Commitments to Social Change (Routledge, 2014) and co-editor of Governance, Conflict and Development in South Asia (with Siri Hettige, Sage, 2015).

Review :
“I look forward to bringing this book into my upperdivision classroom. It is yet another excellent tool for shaking up easy assumptions and problematizing taken-for-granted concepts, something we anthropologists ideally endeavor to accomplish in all that we do.” • American Ethnologist “This very interesting and insightful collection takes the focus of discussion around the concept of indigeneity away from its normal parameters, instead examining how the concept has taken root outside the European and North American contexts, transforming the concept of indigeneity.” • Evelyn Plaice, University of New Brunswick