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Indigeneity and Global Citizenship

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Indigenous Education

Abstract

This chapter examines the extent to which indigenous identity can be considered a form of global citizenship. We begin with an overview of the contemporary international indigenous movement, arguing that modern indigenous identity is characterized not only by experiences of “homeland,” but of “diaspora” as well. Drawing on fieldwork in Africa and the Middle East, we then expand these two experiences to distinguish between two themes in contemporary indigenous discourse: that of “globalizing indigenous peoples,” as illustrated by the Hadza in Tanzania; and that of “indigenizing global peoples,” as represented by the Jews in Israel. Having established that indigeneity and globality are not necessarily antithetical, we then explore how these concepts intersect with notions of citizenship. Using the four discourses of citizenship proposed by Linda Bosniak (Indiana J Global Law Stud 7:447–508, 2000)—citizenship-as-political activity, as-collective identity and sentiment, as-legal status, and as-rights—we argue that indigenous identity is a legitimate form of global citizenship with regard to the first two of these discourses, yet is less so with regard to the last two. Ultimately, the validity of the notion of indigeneity-as-global citizenship is heteroglossic: it varies significantly according to which “dialect” of the language of citizenship is spoken.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For the sake of a more coherent and linear argument, we do not discuss these discourses in the order that Bosniak does (she writes first of citizenship as legal status, then as rights, then as political activity, and then, finally, as a form of collective identity). Just as Bosniak’s ordering of the four concepts of citizenship is “analytically useful” for her discussion (2000, p. 455), so the order in which her four discourses are presented here is analytically useful for our presentation.

  2. 2.

    Bosniak’s discussion of citizenship as rights does not take into account the often related (University of Alberta 2011, p. 1) idea of citizenship as responsibilities. We contend that rights and responsibilities are two sides of the same coin, and thus, include the notion of indigenous responsibilities in our discussion of this fourth discourse of citizenship.

  3. 3.

    The second half of Bosniak’s article contends that “whether or not endorsement of postnationality is made explicit or is even consciously embraced [in discussions regarding global citizenship], the designation of non-national social and political arrangements in the language of world citizenship is necessarily a normative claim to some degree” (Bosniak 2000, p. 490). Although Bosniak herself is “sympathetic to the postnational project” (Bosniak 2000, p. 493), such meta-level claims are beyond the scope of this essay (although one could perhaps make the argument that this work, in claiming that the indigenous movement sometimes serves as a form of global citizenship, thus supports the possibility of that notion of citizenship).

  4. 4.

    Some scholars, such as Jeffrey Sissons (2005), argue that indigeneity, in the context of non-settler societies, such as those found in Africa and Asia, “is of little or no value as a marker of cultural or political distinctiveness” (Sissons 2005, p. 16). This essay, however, is more concerned with the ways in which the language of indigeneity has spread around the globe than with the debate over the challenge posed by African/Asian indigeneity, and it is undeniable that various peoples, in both Africa and Asia identify as indigenous and participate in the global movement (Dean and Levi 2003).

  5. 5.

    While Schein maintains that the language of indigeneity has not yet spread to the Hmong peoples, references to the Hmong specifically as “indigenous peoples” can be found on both the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO)’s website (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization 2010) as well as on the websites of several organizations in which Hmong participate (Pan-Tribal Confederacy of Indigenous Tribal Nations 2011; Congress of World Hmong People 2011). Thus, we cite the Hmong peoples to illustrate a case of the aforementioned process of becoming indigenous.

  6. 6.

    For a discussion of contrasting views on the Negev Bedouin of Israel as an indigenous people, see Frantzman et~al. (2011); and Yiftachel (2003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Carleton College, Northfield, MN, USA

    Jerome M. Levi

  2. University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Elizabeth Durham

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  1. Jerome M. Levi
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA

    W. James Jacob

  2. Ins. Disadvantaged Students' Learning, National Chung Cheng University, Chia-Yi, Taiwan

    Sheng Yao Cheng

  3. Administrative and Policy Studies, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Maureen K. Porter

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Levi, J.M., Durham, E. (2015). Indigeneity and Global Citizenship. In: Jacob, W., Cheng, S., Porter, M. (eds) Indigenous Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9355-1_20

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