Browsing by Subject "Indigenous people"
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Item Bangladesh’s forest NGOscape : visions of Mandi indigeneity, competing eco-imaginaries, and faltering entrepreneurs in the climate of suspicion(2013-05) Dodson, Alex Ray; Ali, Kamran Asdar, 1961-The assemblage of competing development programs I call an "NGOscape", effective in Bangladesh's forest spaces, is a window into understanding both local and extra-local imaginings of the future of these spaces. By tracing the close interaction of three of the most prominent forces in operation in Bangladesh's forest NGOscapes: indigeneity, environmentalism, and entrepreneurialism, I discuss how the government and NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) work to increase management and securitization of these forces. Through ethnography and close analysis of the minority Mandi community, and NGOs in the capital city of Dhaka and in rural Modhupur, Tangail, I interpret Modhupur as a vital and telling site for examining the close interdependence of these three themes. Adivasi ("aboriginal") folklorization and representation is deployed by Mandi leaders and NGOs, and provides a space for Mandi internal debates about authenticity, representation, modernity, and the way forward. Neoliberal imaginings centered on transforming Mandi livelihoods into something more appropriately modern are realized on the ground, evidenced by Alternative Income Generation (AIG) programs that push for market integration, and attempt to utilize claims about adivasi indigeneity to advance a security-management paradigm, national stability, and civic responsibility. Young activists and environmentalists based in Dhaka are crucial forces in promoting the broader development and NGO agenda, utilizing the themes of environmental responsibility and progressive conservation programs. Additionally, development agendas are complicated by other factors, such as eco-tourism trends that seek to indoctrinate the Mandi and other rural actors into acceptable and responsible ways of managing environment, while also relying on national pride. These competing forces rely on national pride and social shaming to transform rural Bangladeshis from being somehow "backward" into more desirable, modern subjects. Yet severe distrust within a larger "climate of suspicion," between adivasi leaders, activists, and the state ultimately disrupt the fluidity of development practices at the local level. The result places various actors in precarious positions, left to interpret and be interpreted into development, NGO, and state-based objectives.Item Confusion, conformity, and contradiction : the Salvadoran state's reluctant engagements with indigenous recognition(2007-08) Clark, Joshua P.; Hooker, JulietThis thesis explores the recent shift in one aspect of Salvadoran state discourses about the content of the Salvadoran "nation": that dealing with the existence and status of indigenous people. Having recently shown signs that it may abandon its longstanding position that El Salvador is a homogeneously mestizo country, the state’s tentative steps towards official recognition of an indigenous population are shown to lack clarity of both substance and purpose. The representations of and knowledge about Salvadoran Indians that are today being deployed by state actors are sporadic and promote incoherent visions of what "being indigenous" means (and can mean) in contemporary El Salvador. Two related claims about the nature of Salvadoran state recognition of indigeneity follow from this realization. First, "the state" should not be seen as a unitary actor with one set of consistent interests in the kind of indigenous subject it will authorize and the national image it will foment. Second, the representations of indigeneity that constitute semiofficial acts of recognition are the direct result of international influence directed at agencies of the Salvadoran state. Specific state actors are modeling the way they make Indians visible in conformity with ascendant norms of multicultural recognition that become operant in subtly, yet meaningfully, different ways. Both of these claims point to a "state" whose control over knowledge production and subject formation is limited, a fact that I end by suggesting that indigenous activists should take into account and, indeed, exploit in their struggle for greater political agency as indigenous people.Item How access, values, and history shape the sustainability of a social-ecological system : the case of the Kandozi indigenous group of Peru(2010-12) Montoya, Mariana; Young, Kenneth R.; Crews, Kelley A.; King, Brian H.; McClain, Michael E.; Sletto, BjornThis research examines how the Kandozi indigenous group governs access to fish and timber, how access contributes to their well-being, and if the Kandozi’s natural resource use and socio-ecological system are sustainable. The Kandozi occupy a biodiverse tropical forest in the northern Peruvian Amazon with lakes and seasonally flooded areas. This indigenous group has livelihoods that are dependent upon securing access to natural resources that contribute to their well-being; hence it represents a good case study to investigate access and its relation with social-ecological sustainability. Access is defined here as the ability to derive benefits from natural resources. The analysis of sustainability was done by integrating research on both access and well-being. Multiple methods and a comparative examination of access to fish and timber were used to explore historical processes that shape access. The analysis of qualitative data on well-being and quantitative data based on income from fishing activities in 2009, helped evaluate if the Kandozi benefited from the use of resources and clarified the evolution of their quality of life. Hypotheses regarding how spatiality shapes access and how sustainability depends upon access to natural resources were tested. Results indicate that factors such as heterogeneity, kinship, land tenure, the legal framework and knowledge all shape access to natural resources. Spatial and temporal heterogeneity in particular is a critical factor because it determines resource availability. Furthermore, this study shows how benefits from the use of resources contribute to the Kandozi’s perception of well-being, defined by them as living without worries, which includes meeting economic, social and cultural needs. Results from this study indicate that perceptions of well-being depend on human values and change over time, consequently the sustainability of the social-ecological system fluctuates. This research concludes that sustainability of this and similar systems are dependent upon the moment at which the analysis is done, because of the changing needs of people over time. This study demonstrates that the range of relations and interactions among different processes that shape access, and the historically contingent characteristic of access and its evolution over time, help better understand complex social ecological systems.Item The impact of international migration on ethnic relations and ethnic identity shift in Guatemala and Nicaragua(2012-05) Yoshioka, Hirotoshi, 1978-; Roberts, Bryan R., 1939-; Ward, Peter M., 1951-; Buckley, Cynthia J.; Pullum, Thomas W.; Rodriguez, Nestor P.; Jessee, Stephen A.Over the past few decades, the volume of international migrants has increased considerably. As a result, impacts of international migration on migrants' communities of origin have become much more prevalent and diverse. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this dissertation investigates a little studied aspect of such diverse impacts: the impact upon ethnic structures and relations in migrants' communities of origin. More specifically, I examine to what extent international migration affects the level of socioeconomic inequality across ethnic groups and how such impacts influence indigenous people's ethnic identity in two Central American countries: Guatemala and Nicaragua. I contend that ethnic identity shift is one of the most significant changes that international migration brings to these countries because such a shift can even endanger the existence of the indigenous population. I have found that international migration reinforces ethnic identity shift from indigenous to Mestizo in both countries. At the same time, the pace of such a shift differs by a community's characteristics including its demographic composition and definition of indigenousness. While it is hard to deny the fact that international migration provides indigenous people in both countries economic opportunities that are hard to obtain through other ways, it can also have unexpectedly negative effects on ethnic minorities and their cultures in the long run. Since indigenous people in both countries face a tough economic reality, it is difficult to prevent them from migrating to other countries. In such a situation, to conserve indigenous cultures and prevent more indigenous people from abandoning their ethnic identities, we need to assure that indigenous people can feel pride in their cultures while they participate in national economy and politics under the strong pressure caused by changes originating from international migration and multicultural reforms. Understanding how the definition of indigenousness is constructed and transformed as well as a mechanism of ethnic identity shift is an essential step to finding solutions to the dilemma related to international migration among indigenous people and achieving a robust multicultural society.Item Lights and shadows of the education reform process in Bolivia and Guatemala(2014-05) Xum Palacios, Brenda Estela; Hale, Charles R., 1957-Bolivia and Guatemala experienced a process of education reform in late 90's. Even though both countries had great international support to eliminate inequalities, especially among indigenous peoples, the domestic political contexts determined to what extent such changes were possible to make. In Bolivia the process started in 1994 with the signing of the Reform Law of Education, and in Guatemala in 1996 with the signing of the Peace Agreements. After more than two decades Bolivia and Guatemala present very different outcomes derived from their respective education reforms. This study is a comparison of them, an attempt to unveil the reasons why Bolivia has moved forward in terms of diversity, indigenous languages, and inclusion while Guatemala has apparently nullified the education reform process and remains in authoritarianism.Item Micropolíticas de campesinos colonos en territorios indígenas de Nicaragua(2014-12) Matamoros-Chavez, Edwin; Hale, Charles R., 1957-In this investigation I discuss power relations between agricultural frontier colonists and the Nicaraguan State, within a framework of neoliberal environmental policies. In so doing, I analyze the origins of this relationship, construction and nature of the State, mestizos-peasants-colonists identity, migration to the agricultural frontier, and the space under contention. Under the pressure of the World Bank, the State has passed several environmental and indigenous rights protection laws. This legal framework involves evicting the colonists from indigenous territories and natural reserves. It has been a decade since the framework was passed, but the government has not fulfilled this duty. This fact raises question about the capabilities of the colonists to remain within those places and the willingness of the government to enforce the law. Between 2009 and 2014, I did ethnographic work and collected geographic information in Mayangna Sauni Bas and Mayangna Sauni Bu indigenous territories, located in the northwest region of Nicaragua. My findings reveal that the colonists are engaged in micropolitics relations with local mestizo power groups. These relations grant protagonism to the colonists to negotiate with the government those measures that they regard as unfair. I reached two main conclusions: the State has marginalized and racialized the colonists, and contradictory interests among the power groups that form the State contribute to these micropolitics relations. This dissertation argues the need to focus agricultural frontier studies in more inclusive and integral ways. Colonists have played the double role of being victimizers of indigenous people and their environmental resources, and victims of ambitions and discrimination from the State. The experiences that colonists, and peasants in general, have acquired through generations under abuses and violence are shaping their own knowledge and political standpoint.Item Migration, ethnic economy and precarious citizenship among urban indigenous people(2014-08) Bariola, Nino; Rodríguez, NéstorThis thesis contributes to our understanding of the impacts of political, social and economic dynamics of contemporary “free-market cities” on indigenous people that leave their traditional territories to settle on Latin American metropolises. The thesis examines the case of indigenous Shipibo migrants from the Amazon that have occupied in Lima, Peru a landfill site owned by the municipal government, and developed there a shantytown. The analyzes of the case sheds light on the innovative strategies that the Shipibo resort to in order to survive in the absence of formal jobs and social programs, and even despite recurrent threats to their social and cultural rights. Through the production of traditional handicraft, they collectively become ethnic entrepreneurs and enter the vast urban informal economy. Beside its interesting consequences for local politics and gender relations, this ethnic economic practice also becomes a way of group making and community building. After prolonged waits –during which the state appeared intermittently and with ambiguous messages–, the Shipibo finally face they most dreaded fear: eviction. Upon confronting this situation, and lacking the clientelistic networks in which Andean migrant peasants could count on in past decades, the Shipibo utilize a innovative repertoire of contained contention to appeal to the leftist municipal authority and thus articulate functional alliances with the goal of gaining land tenure.