A World You Do Not Know: Settler Societies, Indigenous Peoples and the Attack on Cultural Diversity C. Samson London: Human Rights Consortium, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 2013. 231 pp., bibliography,

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 399-400
Author(s):  
Hans A Baer
2010 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Byung Sook de Vries ◽  
Anna Meijknecht

AbstractSoutheast Asia is one of the most culturally diverse regions in the world. Nevertheless, unlike minorities and indigenous peoples in Western states, minorities and indigenous peoples in Asia have never received much attention from politicians or legal scholars. The level of minority protection varies from state to state, but can, in general, be called insufficient. At the regional level, for instance, within the context of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), there are no mechanisms devoted specifically to the protection of minorities and indigenous peoples. In December 2008, the ASEAN Charter entered into force. In July 2009 the Terms of Reference (ToR) for the ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights were adopted. Both the Charter and the ToR refer to human rights and to cultural diversity, but omit to refer explicitly to minorities or indigenous peoples. In this article, the extent to which this reticence with regard to the protection of minorities and indigenous peoples is dictated by the concept of Asian values and ASEAN values is explored. Further, it is analysed how, instead, ASEAN seeks to accommodate the enormous cultural diversity of this region of the world within its system. Finally, the tenability of ASEAN's policy towards minorities and indigenous peoples in the light of, on the one hand, the requirements of international legal instruments concerning the protection of minorities and indigenous peoples and, on the other hand, the policies of the national states that are members of ASEAN is determined.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rita Kaur Dhamoon

AbstractIn settler societies like Canada, United States, and Australia, the bourgeoning discourse that frames colonial violence against Indigenous people as genocide has been controversial, specifically because there is much debate about the meaning and applicability of genocide. Through an analysis of the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, this paper analyzes what is revealed about settler colonialism in the nexus of difficult knowledge, curatorial decisions, and political debates about the label of genocide. I specifically examine competing definitions of genocide, the primacy of the Holocaust, the regulatory role of the settler state, and the limits of a human rights framework. My argument is that genocide debates related to Indigenous experiences operationalize a range of governing techniques that extend settler colonialism, even as Indigenous peoples confront existing hegemonies. These techniques include: interpretative denial; promoting an Oppression Olympics and a politics of distancing; regulating difference through state-based recognition and interference; and depoliticizing claims that overshadow continuing practices of assimilation, extermination, criminalization, containment, and forced movement of Indigenous peoples. By pinpointing these techniques, this paper seeks to build on Indigenous critiques of colonialism, challenge settler national narratives of peaceful and lawful origins, and foster ways to build more just relations between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.


Author(s):  
Jérémie Gilbert

Cultural genocide broadly refers to ‘the extermination of a culture that does not involve physical extermination of its people’. This chapter examines how, from a criminal law concept, cultural genocide has moved to a concept aimed at protecting cultural diversity. This chapter in Section II will first examine how and why the crime was rejected under international criminal law. Based on this analysis, it will then examine how human rights law, which was meant to address the issue of cultural protection of minorities, has in fact left this area of the law undeveloped. Section III will then assess to what extent the notion of cultural genocide can act as an important tool for conflict prevention when minorities’ cultural assets are under attack. Finally, Section IV will explore how the indigenous peoples’ rights movement has renewed the idea that prohibiting cultural genocide constitutes an essential elements of human rights law.


Author(s):  
Ulla Hasager

Ulla Hasager: The common reality of anthropologists and Indigenous peoples: three narratives The „traditional object" of anthropology - the indigenous peoples of the world - are becoming an increasingly visible global factor with the fourth world movements for self-determination and with the United Nations’ efforts to create standards for indigenous human rights. However, at the same time as the indigenous peoples are celebrated as guardians of environmental sustainability and biological and cultural diversity - and thereby for securing the memory as well as the future of mankind - their lands and resources are coveted by multinational corporations, govemments and other agencies, their genes are patented and preserved and their cultures are recorded - most often by anthropologists. In spite of these opposing trends and threats, indigenous peoples now have a more powerful position vis-å-vis anthropologists, who on their part are beginning to acknowledge the responsibilities that come with being part of the same living world as the indigenous peoples and therefore have begun the task of revising their theoretical foundations. Not only because they want to, but because the relatively more powerful and outspoken indigenous peoples demand it. This article looks at the changing situation for indigenous peoples in the Pacific, primarily Hawai’i, and outline the consequences for the conditions of research, methods of research and publication for anthropologists.


2005 ◽  
Vol 34 ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Battiste ◽  
Cathryn McConaghy

Every conception of humanity arises from a specific place and from the people of that place. How such places shape and sustain the people of a place is the focus of education that enables each student to understand themselves and makes them feel at home in the world. The notion of Indigenous humanities being developed at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon represents an example of such ecological teachings and practices of what constitutes humanity. Ecology is the animating force that teaches us how to be human in ways that theological, moral and political ideologies are unable to. Ecology privileges no particular people or way of life. It does, however, promote Indigenous humanity as affirmed in Article 1 of the 1966 UNESCO Declaration of the Principles of International Cultural Co-operation: “Each culture has a dignity and value which must be respected and preserved” (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1966). In the Eurocentric versions of humanity, this concept is sometimes referred to as cultural diversity; yet Indigenous peoples prefer the concept of Indigenous humanities.


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