Indigenism

Indigenism can refer to several different ideologies that seek to promote the interests of indigenous peoples. The term is used differently by various scholars and activists, and can be used purely descriptively or carry political connotations. Definitions and identity of indigenous peoples In the Americas as well as in Australia, the question is rather straightforward, while it is less easy to answer in the case of South Africa. But even in the Americas, people of mixed-race such as the Mestizo of Latin America, the Métis of Canada the Northern United States, or the Black Indians in the United States of the Southern United States challenge easy demarcations based on ancestry. Anthropologist Ronald Niezen uses the term to describe "the international movement that aspires to promote and protect the rights of the world's 'first peoples'." New Zealander scholar Jeffrey Sissons has criticized what he calls "eco-indigenism" on the part of international forums such as the Working Group on Indigenous Peoples, which he claims enforces a link between indigenous peoples and traditional economies, and also confuses the issues faced by New World indigenous, who are mostly urban dwellers and live in states dominated by people descendant from their colonizers, with those faced by ethnic minorities in Asia and Africa who are more likely to live "close to the land" and live in states where the colonizers have long since left (though they may still face persecution from the post-colonial successor state). Indigenous movements in the Americas As used by ethnic studies scholar Ward Churchill (b. 1947; author of From a Native Son) and Mexican scholar Guillermo Bonfil Batalla (1935-1991), the term refers to the common civilization of which, they argue, all New World indigenous peoples are a part, and to their common "spirit of resistance" to settler colonialism. Indigenismo In some places in Latin America the term Indigenismo might often be used "to describe the ways that colonial nation-states have formulated their vision of Indigenous social inclusion.