Questions on the Global Indigenous

Introduction

The term “indigenous,” an instantly global one, has undoubtedly been incredibly helpful in mobilizing political change. But some more subtle, and nevertheless important, colonizing aspects about the term can be discerned, including its natural tendency to normalize diverse groups. This critique of the term rests in the possibility that global discourses can threaten to be homogenizing if their users are not careful. They may be used tactically and in that sense are merely useful shorthand for a much more complex set of circumstances that simply cannot be accounted for individually; however, the term “indigenous” is also extended to other phenomena, such as “knowledge” and then by implication “science,” and so its reach moves beyond just its own sphere. What may be at stake here are tensions between individual indigenous people and their innate differences between each other on the one hand and the grander pronouncements that arise in literature about indigenous belief...