Indigenous peoples all over the world find themselves locked in power struggles with dominant states and transnational actors who resist their claims to land, culture, political recognition and other key factors associated with the idea of national self-determination. In the vast majority of cases, states and transnational corporations see such claims as barriers to the state-building projects that depend heavily on accessing and extracting resources from traditional Indigenous lands. In 2007, the importance of Indigenous self-determination alongside that of nation-states was significantly enhanced when, on September 13, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples – suggesting that an important attitudinal shift might now be taking place internationally. Yet, as this volume’s contributors suggest, much more work is needed in terms of, on the one hand, what Indigenous self-determination means in theory and, on the other hand, how it is to be achieved in practice.
Back to top
