Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how the coalition that the Standing Rock Sioux are leading against the Dakota Access Pipeline has brought indigenous sovereignty, environmental justice, sustainable development, and neoliberal corporate interests into public and academic debate in the United States.

Paper long abstract:

Protests led against the Dakota Access Pipeline by water protectors from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota have brought human rights violations related to Indigenous sovereignty, environmental justice, and sustainable development into the foreground of political debate in the United States. The struggle at Standing Rock has been strengthened by a coalition formed with activists from other Indigenous Nations, including representatives from the Amazon Basin, and from non-Indigenous movements and political organizations such as #BlackLivesMatter and the Green Party. This paper reflects upon the centrality of Indigenous Sovereignty within the broader struggle for human rights and democracy in their most inclusive and substantive senses, especially in societies whose development has been built upon the violence of colonial expansion, white supremacy, and heteropatriarchy. The paper also situates Indigenous rights within regimes of multiply articulated alterities in which the subjugation of Indigenous and Afrodescendant peoples have been historically differentiated yet intertwined in the Americas. The paper offers a comparative framework for understanding the convergent and divergent points of reference in the logics of Indigenous and Afrodescendant identity, the relationship with the State and Market, and connections to the material and spiritual resources of land. Attention is directed to cases in the United States, Honduras, and Suriname (including those of communities that define themselves as "Afro-Indigenous") in which some notion of common ground, affinity, or alliance with past or present-day Indigenous peoples has been mobilized in Afrodescendants' collective claims on rights to land, development, and cultural resources.

Paper short abstract:

The objective of the paper is to indicate the efficacy of nonstate actors induced innovations in education for the scheduled tribes, experimented in the sample schools under empirical study, its adaptation by the local milieu and impact on the indigenous right to education.

Paper long abstract:

Educational marginalization is a well-recognised phenomenon among the indigenous

population. Article 14 of the Declaration of Rights of the Indigenous

People states that "Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their

educational systems and institutions providing education in their own languages, in a

manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning". Goal 4 of 2030

Agenda for Sustainable Development calls for ensuring equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for the indigenous peoples. In 2016, the International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples was devoted to the right to education. Under the grip of neoliberal principles following the mandates of globalization, the world emphasizes limited state intervention. Under such a situation, ensuring right to education to the indigenous groups demands the activism of the nonstate actors. The present paper documents the empirical experiences gained on the effective innovations launched by a CSO. In India, the Scheduled Tribes are the indigenous people comprise 8.2% of the total population. A constituent of the Indian federal set up, Odisha has a high concentration of Scheduled Tribe constituting 22.85 percent of the total population with 62 tribes. The observations are derived from tribal dominated Noto panchayat of Kaptipada block of the district of Mayurbhanj. It covers 11 schools of 30 villages where a CSO called Sikshasandhan has launched innovations. The paper intends to establish under neo-liberal policies, the dynamic efforts of nonstate actors needs recognition to ensure better rights to its indigenous population.

Paper short abstract:

The micro-movement at Lanjigarh became globalised because it had powerful adversaries like a MNC and the mighty Indian state that had ushered in the FDI to mining sector because of its neo-liberal economic policy. The paper articulates the paradoxes and unanticipated outcomes of neo-liberalism.

Paper long abstract:

The Anti-Vedanta movement at Lanjigarh, Kalahandi had rocked the interior jungle district of Odisha in India. It was a fiercely fought movement (2002-2014) by the Adivsis/ Kondhs against State and Vedanta Plc the mining based metal MNC licensed under neo-liberal policy. The project had displaced 302 Adivasi families and the MNC was to mine in the Niyamgiri mountains to which the Adivasis were attached for livelihood/ shifting cultivation and religious-cultural purposes (worshipping the sacred mountain that maintains the pristine ecosystem). The displaced hence rallied around issues of cultural threats, environmental threats and adequate R&R measures against loss of livelihood and natural habitat. These issues form together Adivasi identity. The paper analyses:

(i) the threats posed to Adivasi identity by the modernization process ushered in by the project. Having shown empirically the endangered, cultural patterns, social relations and economic organisations among the Adivasis, the paper highlights the serious environmental and ecological threats posed by the project. The micro-movement was globalized by attracting environmentalists globally.

(ii) the contradictions of the contemporary development discourse based on neo-liberalism. The state imposes the development with its right to develop its subjects (by over riding the subjects' right to experience development differently). The civil society guided the movement to ensure implementation of relevant legal provisions like, 5th schedule of the constitution, Article 244 (i), PESA 1996, FRA 2006 and Odisha scheduled areas act 1956 meant to protect Adivasis.

(iii) how the state is being forced to share space with the civil society as outcome of neo-liberalism .

Paper short abstract:

The indigenous people of the American Southwest have been exploited by the state and national corporations. Since the UN declaration of their rights, they have been demanding the protection of their natural resources and cultural heritage. I focus on two case studies of exploitation and resistance.

Paper long abstract:

I have been working with the indigenous people of the United States well over five decades. They have been exploited by both the State and the national and multi -national corporations everywhere. But since the UN declaration of their rights, they have been active in demanding the protection and preservation of their natural resources and cultural heritage. My paper will be devoted a discussion of two case studies of the Navajo and the Zuni struggles involving mining of coal, uranium and other minerals by the national and multi-national corporations, with the full support of the state. It will rely on my own fieldwork, expert testimony and use of archival material.

Paper short abstract:

Estudio de caso de la minería en el Municipio de Marmato, Colombia

Paper long abstract:

Los impactos de las multinacionales mineras, el papel de Estado colombiano y los procesos de resistencia en Marmato

Maria Rocio Bedoya Bedoya

En la actual fase del sistema capitalista, el modelo extractivo minero se ha convertido en una actividad humana depredadora con alto impacto ambiental, territorial, social, político, económico, cultural y sobre los bienes comunes naturales. En este contexto, Colombia ha orientado su economía a los proyectos extractivistas minero-energéticos adoptando la política pública de la locomotora minera, como base del desarrollo económico.

El objetivo de esta ponencia es conocer los impactos de las multinacionales mineras, el papel del Estado y las respuestas de la comunidad en el Municipio de Marmato. Para ello, se abordan los enfoques de acumulación por desposesión y estudios de conciencia jurídica y se realiza trabajo empírico en el que fueron relevantes los testimonios de la comunidad en relación con la llegada de las multinacionales, el papel de las instituciones, la política minera y los procesos de resistencia.

Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the role of a mining company in the Diaguita’s reemergence process (Chile). The analysis shows how the neoliberal multiculturalism politics leads to a compatible indigeneity with the mining companies’ interest and the Chilean State’s criterion.

Paper long abstract:

Based on a fieldwork of many years, this paper analyses the combined roles of a Canadian mining company (Barrick Gold, Pascua Lama project) and the Chilean State, in the process of rebuilding the autochthony of the Diaguita, an indigenous people recently recognised by law whilst considered as disappeared since the XVI century. The Diaguita's re-emergence process, Pascua Lama's development and its opposition movement have simultaneously taken place in the early 2000's in the northern Chilean Huasco Alto region. Nearly fifteen years from the beginning of the project, Diaguitas are now both the main opponents of Barrick Gold and the main target market of its social responsibility policies, making the Canadian company an ambiguous but major actor in their re-emergence process. The data shows how the actions of the State, combined with the action of the mining company, have contributed to the reemergence and the strengthening of the Diaguita's collective identity, but also to the division of the main local indigenous organizations. Analyzing this process shows the inherent logic of the neoliberal multiculturalism model and the mechanisms leading to a compatible indigeneity with the mining companies' interest and the Chilean State's criterion.

Paper short abstract:

This paper intends to examine the impact of the Energy Reform (2013) among the inhabitants of the Totonac region in central Veracruz (Mexico).

Paper long abstract:

In the oil rich region of Veracruz (Mexico) inhabited by the Totonac indigenous people, the fracking of oil and shale gas began in 2003 and it is expected to increase with the private investment promoted by the Energy Reform (2013), that is a product of the neoliberal State policies. Until this moment the municipality of Papantla has 172 fracking oil wells, that cause serious ambiental, social and health problems, attempting against the right to autonomy and land of Indigenous Peoples.

This paper intends to examine the impact of oil explotaition and the fracking technique in the social life of the communities, and the fact that it divides the people because some of them are willing to accept money in order to allow the oil exploitation in their lands and some others are against the fracking technique. I am also interested in documenting the social mobilization against the oil explotaition and the different strategies for resistance that are being applied including the use of law to defend their rights and demands.

Paper short abstract:

Indigenous rural women in India, particularly in Odisha (eastern State) have demonstrated in the last decade their strong resistance against the hegemonic state and its neo-liberalist policies.

Paper long abstract:

The question is not whether indigneous rural women have lost or won, but the fact that they have been able to keep their struggles and resistance alive in a highly hostile environment, where they are faced with the double disadvantage of patriarchy and a degrading and dwindling indigenous resource base is important to understand. Both print and online media have extensively reported on the resistance movements by indigenous peoples. Relying on our interviews with selected women leaders coupled with such available material, the paper focuses on two resistance movements in Odisha, centered on the imposition of state's effort to take away the land of the indigenous people and deprive them of their traditional livelihood by introducing national and multinational corporations. These mega companies have made inroads to the indigenous (for extraction of minerals and natural resources) lands. Despite several laws/Acts that allow autonomy to protect indigenous lands and natural habitat, they have been systematically violated by the state in the name of eminent domain and benefit for the larger good of the society. It has caused terrible devastations to the natural habitats these indigenous people have occupied for a long time. The nature and forms of resistance, manifested through grassroots activism has created oppositional spaces and practices that clearly seek to delegitimize the present state interventions. Women strenuously argue for their right to self-determination to reclaim their lands and livelihood, which is location-based knowledge(s) and experience. The production of such an alternative space provides a strong foundation to the identity of indigenous women and their sustained activism.