Do Indigenous peoples in present-day Canada display lower levels of diffuse support than non-Indigenous settlers? Given settler colonial relations (both historic and contemporary) and Indigenous peoples’ own political thought, we can expect that Indigenous peoples would have even lower perceptions of state legitimacy than non-Indigenous peoples. However, there are conflicting expectations regarding whether the descriptive representation of Indigenous peoples in settler institutions is likely to make a difference: on one hand, Indigenous people may see themselves reflected in these institutions and consequently feel better represented; on the other hand, these forms of representation do not challenge the underlying colonial nature of these institutions. Using data from the 2019 and 2021 Canadian Election Studies, our statistical analysis demonstrates that: (1) diffuse support is significantly lower among Indigenous peoples than non-Indigenous peoples, including people of color; (2) Indigenous respondents across multiple peoples have similarly low levels of diffuse support, and (3) being represented by an Indigenous Member of Parliament does not change the levels of diffuse support among Indigenous peoples. Overall, our research highlights the outstanding challenges to achieving reconciliation through the Canadian state and points to ways large-N analyses may be made more robust.

This article focuses on the nature-culture dimension in the Amazonian territory as an ontological question. It is argued that international law, as a product of modern Western societies, reflects and reproduces particular ideas about what the environment is. These ideas in turn reflect specific nature-culture relations that are not necessarily present in other societies. This is especially evident in contexts such as the Amazon, where the basic assumptions that modern Western society takes for granted cannot be extrapolated. The argument is illustrated through the Amazonian Kukama-Kukamiria people’s conception of the river, which was put on the ropes by the implementation of a development project. It is proposed that rethinking international law along with the Amazon means situating oneself in not only a geographically but also ontologically different place.

This paper analyses the institutional incentives and constraints of the Black Mouth Society – the traditional police of the pre-colonial Mandan and Hidatsa tribes – to understand how it successfully maintained social order without abusing power. The Black Mouth Society was a fraternal organization of middle-aged men that monitored and enforced rules created by the village council and chiefs. Two categories of institutions ensured reliable policing. First, on the front end, a long probationary period and system of unanimous consent facilitated the selection of reputable men who would wield policing power responsibly, reducing the chance of predation. However, individual Black Mouths occasionally abused their power. Therefore, on the back end, public communication created common knowledge, leading to social sanctions in the form of shame and restitution that punished abuses and limited further abuse. Thus, well-functioning self-governance, including reliable policing, is possible without a centralized state, as these tribes have demonstrated.

This study critically examines the implications of integrating Indigenous relational worldviews into the water governance framework of the Saskatchewan River Delta. Using a relational theoretical framework and community-based participatory research methodology, both Indigenous community members and non-Indigenous researchers collectively examine the negative impacts of Western water governance policies and practices on the Métis community residing in Cumberland House, located in northeast Saskatchewan, Canada. Through Indigenous traditional water story-sharing methods with Indigenous Elders and Knowledge Keepers, our focus centres on Indigenous interpretations and ways of knowing the Delta. The community highlighted the pervasive influence of power dynamics and political agendas in the governance of the Delta. As such, we emphasise the necessity of challenging settler colonial systems and structures and reinvigorating Indigenous worldviews for water governance. By doing so, we advocate for the advancement of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination in their relationship with land and water, thereby promoting the meaningful implications of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Calls to Action.

This article focuses on the ancestral human remains of Indigenous peoples that were taken by European invaders during the colonial era. It begins by considering the notion of human remains. It then describes the two types of heritage that result from the removal of human remains: the tangible heritage made of the remains exhibited or stored in the museums or universities of former colonial States, and the intangible heritage made of the collective memories of the surviving communities and their descendants about the removal (and the absence) of the stolen remains. The article next examines the role of national and international laws with respect to the restitution of human remains by exploring the concept of transitional justice. This article argues that transitional justice can facilitate the meaningful repatriation of ancestral human remains and hence the healing of past injustice.

Indigenous peoples in Latin America have produced some of the region’s strongest and most enduring social movements, drawing on a diverse repertoire of contention to pursue their goals. In the twenty-first century, social media have transformed the landscape of collective action, compelling Indigenous movements to navigate the evolving dynamics of digital platforms. There is an ongoing debate in the literature regarding the role of social media in mobilization. But we know relatively little about how social media fit into the tactical repertoires of Indigenous actors and what tasks these platforms are used for. This article addresses this gap through an examination of how Indigenous actors use social media during protest events. We conducted a comparative analysis of social media content produced by Indigenous social movement organizations during major protest events in three countries from 2018 to 2019. We find that the most common functions include activating supporters and exposing state violence. These functions support several of the organizations’ core mobilization tasks by providing actors with tools to complement collection action.

Australia’s approach to its biosecurity and borders has always been two-pronged – quarantine first, vaccination second. This article asks what this combination looked like in practice by exploring two neglected smallpox vaccination campaigns directed towards Indigenous peoples in the early twentieth century. We argue these were important campaigns because they were the first two pre-emptive, rather than reactionary, vaccination programs directed towards First Nations people. Second, both episodes occurred in Australia’s northern coastline, where the porous maritime geography and proximity to Southeast Asia posed a point of vulnerability for Australian health officials. While smallpox was never endemic, (though epidemic), in Australia, it was endemic at various times and places across Southeast Asia. This shifting spectre of smallpox along the northern coastline was made even more acute for state and federal health officials because of the existing polyethnic relationships, communities, and economies. By vaccinating Indigenous peoples in this smallpox geography, they were envisioned and embedded into a ‘hygienic’ border for the protection of white Australia, entwining the two-prongs as one approach. In this article, we place public health into a recent scholarship that has ‘turned the map upside down’ to re-spatialise Australia’s history and geography to the north and its global connections, while demonstrating how particular coastlines and their connections were drawn into a national imaginary through a health lens.

This article argues that the Rights of Nature (RoN) framework is compatible with various ideological outlooks and political options. As a result, those initiatives may translate into extremely diverse institutional implementations with contrasted outcomes in terms of power distribution. The institutional design of RoN has deep political implications for various social groups who hold conflicting claims over certain territories. Hence, rather than transforming human-nature relations, RoN primarily transform the power relations between human communities. I delve into three conceptual frameworks that could shape the recognition of RoN and explore their respective distributive implications: green colonialism, environmental justice, and the focus on Indigeneity. Through this critical engagement, I wish to warn against the illusion of a post-political ecology where an ecocentric legal declaration would deliver human-nature harmony without deep political battles, social tensions, and economic confrontations. RoN as an abstract notion does not offer a ready-made toolkit to dismantle the legal architecture of fossil capitalism; nor does it provide clear guidance on the distribution of costs and benefits of the green transition.

There is increasing recognition that Indigenous knowledges have considerable potential to enhance collective understandings of and improve responses to complex ecological threats, such as those to cultural heritage from climate change. At the same time, it appears that Indigenous peoples face structural barriers to participation in international organisations that advance knowledge about those problems. Using the conceptual framework of boundary organisations (BOs) theory and case studies of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and UNESCO, I argue that the lack of meaningful Indigenous engagement in international knowledge institutions is not just an ethical problem; it also undermines the effectiveness of their assessments. The future success of their boundary work partly depends on further engagement with Indigenous stakeholders. At least at the heritage–climate change nexus, the salience, legitimacy, and credibility of IPCC and UNESCO assessments require substantive Indigenous representation alongside other state/non-state parties. Successful experiences in biodiversity governance indicate that incorporating the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) would enhance Indigenous engagement in UNESCO and the IPCC.

This article examines the literature on popular liberalism in nineteenth-century Mexico and the shortcomings of two interpretations: popular liberalism as an alternative to elite liberalism, and popular liberalism as a strategy to ultimately pursue non-liberal ends. It argues that both interpretations tend to overstate the distance between the liberal elite and its popular supporters because of an unexamined, dichotomous conception of liberalism and the people (generally Indigenous and non-Indigenous peasants) as opposites. It draws its examples from studies of local politics and sides with the interpretation of ‘liberalism tout court’ as the best available option to avoid reifications of liberalism and the popular.