Identity, Authority, and the Moral Worlds of Indigenous Petitions

Abstract

The global movement of Indigenous peoples has attracted the attention of a number of scholars, notably lawyers, anthropologists, and cultural theorists (Muehlebach 2003; Anaya 1996; Battiste 2000; Churchill 2003; Dei, Hall, and Rosenberg 2000; Independent Commission 1987; Jull 1999; Kingsbury 1998; Minde 1996; Passy 1999; Pritchard 1998; Radcliffe and Laurie 2001; Feldman 2002; Smith 1999; Ward and Smith 2000; Wilmer 1993). With few exceptions such as Niezen (2000; 2003) and Radha Jappan (1992), this growing interest has not extended to the origins and development of this movement. There are obvious reasons for this: as in other areas of the discipline, historians have seen indigenous movements as matters of national history. However, the growth of “world history” (Hopkins 2002a; Bayly 2004: 432–50) offers a mode of analysis in which varied and related indigenous histories can be considered fruitfully. Moreover, the success of indigenous actors in creating new institutional spaces and a discourse of “indigenous rights” compels historical research into the emergence of the global movement, not least in understanding how very different and dispersed communities have begun to self-identify with the category of indigenous peoples. This is especially so as the movement works toward the declaration of positive international law that can recognize and protect the diversity of first peoples under precisely that banner.