Understanding Indigenous Politics and Activism

Welcome back. We continue to look at Indigenous politics, and we continue then to note that we do want to make some clarification in the sense that there are non-Indigenous populations that are also in a sense not settler populations in the same way. as European settlers that had initially come to Indigenous lands around the world. We want to acknowledge that this is not the same politics or the same lived experience or the same historical trajectory as those who came in a slave or post-slavery situation, especially amongst Africans who were brought over. Their systems and their politics are different. Further to that, immigrants, for example, like my parents, who came over out of choice and applied for citizenship, They're in a different political situation, but also migrants and refugees who are coming in as well. Part of the reason for the difference here is that some of these groups, not entirely, for example, African-Americans or African-Canadians who are here today for reasons of slavery or were transported over without choice, etc. Further to that, but the other groups may. of course, still not be here by choice, for example, refugees, etc., that they are permitted nonetheless to join in the colonial or dominant patterns. They are allowed in many ways to go to school. They are allowed to merge into society, to get jobs, etc., like that. Indigenous peoples historically have been often barred from those with clear legal reasons. For example, we talked about Indigenous peoples were not allowed to vote. They were prevented from leaving. reservation lands. They were prevented from accessing resources and controlling over resources or even having title to lands that they owned, even under the Western system, that those were sometimes even summarily removed. So while these groups are often able to move into and merge with colonial or dominant patterns and systems, etc., Indigenous peoples have not been allowed to do so historically, and even today. face significant barriers that can be different from other populations that are here today as well. That said, we should also note that some are dominant in their states. If we look at Bolivia, Ecuador, Samoa, and a couple of others as well, there are significant Indigenous populations. In Bolivia, of course, the number is in the 50% plus number where we have Indigenous people. So they have had the capacity. to put together Indigenous politics, whereas the dominant group, what would the state look like? What would the political structures look like? What are the best ways to conduct politics? That said, some would argue that that has also been a compromise between the Western structures of the Westphalian state, the globalization system that has brought capitalism everywhere, and Indigenous politics, and that's something that one can examine in other classes as well. But in a sense, the dominant situation of Indigenous people is found in not too many states. In most states, there is a dominant population that sets up the patterns of relations in a sort of colonial or settler or other system. And therefore, they end up having to either conform to it. So therefore, in Indigenous politics, its response to that is going to be different in Bolivia from what we're going to see and largely have noticed in Canada. And therefore, I want to understand a little bit of the difference there. Further to that, we also want to... acknowledge that Indigenous politics has had to deal with problems in relation to clear legal statements and doctrines in treaties and agreements. Most of us, when it comes to our political engagements with the state, understand the law and what the law is, but there are significant aspects of our daily lives that are not controlled by laws at all, that they are part of our norms, our customs, and understandings. What we see in Indigenous politics is that there has been a necessity to respond to the failure of treaties, agreements, of legal relationships between Indigenous peoples and their states, which governments have chosen not to live up to, or have failed to live up to, or have chosen entirely to neglect them. So this leads us to the other point, which is that Indigenous politics has to reckon with settler and dominant political actors who can do a number of things. One is to simply neglect. agreement or to neglect the basic necessities which they would provide to the dominant population. And this could include supports for education or supports for language or supports for culture and economic growth and things like that, or economic choices, if you will, not growth per se. But also the most obvious one, for example, in Canada is clean drinking water. Governments for the last 30 years have failed to make clean drinking water in Indigenous territories a priority. And therefore we see ongoing problems of not only water advisories, but sometimes because of the impact of the environment and others, that populations have to be evacuated to other cities or moved elsewhere temporarily until matters get sorted out. So that's neglect. Another one is simply omission. right? Choosing not to do certain things. So for example, living up to obligations and treaties that have been agreed to, following through with legal rulings that have demanded a government, for example, in Canada, do certain things in terms of child welfare, but not follow through accordingly. Or else, for example, legal rulings in relation to compensation and rectification in relation to residential schools, which governments as well as churches and religious organizations have chosen simply. to say, well, we're delayed, we don't have the money, this, that, or the other. We know that these are choices that are being made for omission. And as well, we also want to acknowledge that historical and cultural aspects of our society that are omitted. We often speak of, for example, in Canada, to our history being, you know, going back to 1867. It doesn't. The history of the lands on which Canadians live goes back thousands of years. We also know, for example, that we talk of, say, Canada. as the national sport of Canada. It is not. The technical national sport of Canada is lacrosse, which actually does have significant roots in Indigenous culture and other aspects as well. But also, it's also important for us to understand that historically, many of us have not learned about things that were happening amongst Indigenous populations or been presented the cultural aspects of it other than to simply talk about long ago, right? Rather than saying the history of Canada includes... following Indigenous peoples, following Indigenous patterns of government and society and culture and language, which find itself into our modern society as well. So those are choices of omission in history and culture. Further to that, there can also be situations where it's straight out attacks on Indigenous peoples or their cultures and other aspects. We see this through land grabs, where necessary governments have simply said, well, Indigenous lands belong to us. They're now part of the crown. or etc. In some places, for example, in Brazil, the leader at the time, Bolsonaro, a few years ago, had said simply, well, if they get in the way, well, we'll just take them out. In other words, we will simply take the land from them. And if they don't allow us to do that, if they don't agree to doing that, then there's nothing that should stop us from taking that anyways. So significant Indigenous territories have been overtaken by simple land grab, right, by simply either excluding people from that, so therefore they can't use it. or else shipping them away. While we don't have this in Canada, in other countries, Canadian government, Canadian companies have paid to move an entire town. That would be, for example, you come to Western, you come to the campus, you come back later on, a month later, and somebody says, hey, we built Western in St. Thomas, so you can all just move there now. You might find that disconcerting to go, you just moved me? Yes, we did. And if you were to say, well, I don't want to move from Western, I like London, and I want to live around here, and I want campus to be here. And they said, no, too bad, you don't have a choice. And if you do make a ruckus about it, well, we might have to choose other recourses to deal with you. That is another example of a land grab, even though it's argued that it's a positive thing, because we moved these people, and we're going to give them money, but just simply move them 30 kilometers away, say in the case of Western to... moving to St. Thomas, but in other cases it's been hundreds of kilometers away into different climates, into different places, into different geographies. Further to that, we know of family destruction, we know in the ways in which child welfare is operating in Canada and elsewhere, the removal of Indigenous peoples from their own families, the disintegration and the breakup of those families, as well as the abuses of children and Indigenous adults and others to eliminate the has been driven by destroying in a sense the family structure that upholds those cultural practices. We've also seen in the ways in which physical, cultural, economic genocide is undertaken to eliminate the individuals and the particular practices as well. Further to that, we know in certain parts of the world there have been camps that have been created where Indigenous peoples have been sent to be re-educated and so forth and brought into the dominant or settler streams of life. slavery, and even their ending of certain habits and habitats, sorry, habitat, where Indigenous peoples have been found. So those are more... direct attacks by settler dominant political actors to deal with Indigenous peoples. Consequent to that, that gives rise to Indigenous politics, again, to survive, to push back against the dominant political community that is seeking to eliminate the Indigenous political system, Indigenous political structures, and all the things that flow from that, the economy, the society, the culture, etc., and in a sense are embedded and correlated with it. Further to that, it has also been the case that there have been significant forms of activism, which also need to be theorized within Indigenous politics. Activism, for example, the Land Back movement across North America, which looks at processes and necessities of rectification for land that was stolen and taken from Indigenous peoples. The Idle No More movement, which was started in Canada about now, think around... 2013-14, maybe a little bit older than that as well, a movement to argue for strong activism amongst Indigenous peoples and Indigenous allies to Indigenous peoples as well, to not sit back, to not just do armchair activism, to really push for activism in a strong sense and to not be idle and not be minimizing or not to feel that you should not have a say. Folks need to speak up. to demand and to push for and to also make visible what is happening to indigenous peoples and their culture and religion and other aspects. Further to that, we have other movements around the world like the Chipko movement. The environmental movement that was started in the 1970s emerged partly as a result of various indigenous groups, including the Chipko movement in India, which was built on indigenous movements against environmental destruction as well. The Naga and the Chiapas peoples, Naga in India, but also the Chiapas in Mexico, which have turned to militant and military movements, or not militant, but military movements, that have sought to defend the land, to defend it against violence that has been brought upon them. And therefore, the response has been to create militia forces, army forces, etc., to defend the peoples against... the onslaught that they see coming. And oftentimes these are against armies that are up against them or other violent actors, say, for example, mercenaries hired on behalf of corporations and others. So these are the different forms of activism we see. Everything from the Facebook movement that was started in Idle No More, to Land Back, which is also on Facebook, but also we see various places where they are active, to the Chip Coat, to the Naga and the Chiapas movements, which have taken on more, if you will. challenging approach to the attempts by states to deny or take away or eliminate rights of Indigenous people. The other important thing is one thing that has become a standard of international relations in approaching Indigenous politics is free empire and informed consent. This is the idea that there should be genuine consent from Indigenous peoples before decisions are made. Again, going back to the idea of nothing for us without us, or sorry, nothing without us for us as well. But also, and this is a very important part, which is the second part that is almost the one that is most often sort of never pursued, which is the honoring of a no. If Indigenous people are consulted and if they have said no, then one government should not be overriding the no by suggesting that, well, we'll just come back and consult you and consult you. As we all know now, we're told that the position of no means no indicates that that's a definite unequivocal statement. Don't keep doing whatever it is that you were doing. In the same way, Indigenous peoples have not seen no's honoured. When they have said no to something, there's either been an overriding, there's either been violence of it, or else there's been a total disregard and use of other mechanisms to sort of prevent the no from taking hold. As well, we also want to note that the Indigenous politics has not only the past ways Indigenous... politics does speak to the ancestral and we talked about that in terms of the UN definition of speaking to the ancestral path but it's also important for us to note that there are changes in practices and ideas and relationships and culture and economy and politics and other aspects that are taking account of the present of how Indigenous peoples are situated today but also the future right looking forward to what they're looking at. Consider for example in Canada and I think in the U.S. as well now More Indigenous peoples live outside of Indigenous territories and inside the dominant political communities, cities and provinces, etc., moving about. And in particular, urban Indigenous peoples'populations have increased as well. So Indigenous politics is theorizing that aspect as well and therefore needs to consider how that works. Because the... political, economic, and other cultural aspects of living in an urban environment in a dominant population for Indigenous peoples, say, in North America, does require having a different understanding of politics, understanding how to organize, how to push for activism, etc., that is going to be different than in other places. So those become important ways in this regard for us to understand that the past has an impact, but it's not the only thing that Indigenous politics has looked back. It's not a nostalgic politics as some folks try to minimize and understand it as. Further to this, we have the UN Declaration, which I already mentioned, on the rights of Indigenous people in 2007. This has become the international standard and has built a lot of what we now see in Indigenous politics being informed by. And of course, in particular, because states are unwilling to, quote unquote, do the right thing or to do partnerships that are in earnest and onerous, for example, as you mentioned, the no, etc. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has become the standard by which to assess how states are acting, doing, and so forth. Even if it is at a symbolic level, it does set what the standard should be and what should be aimed for. And Indigenous peoples and Indigenous persons who are into politics, etc., can speak to that as upholding or not upholding the state's own commitment to Indigenous rights, etc. Consider, for example, it was initially opposed by the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand for various reasons. But over time, for various reasons, and you can look into the politics of this, this became the standard and all four of those states came on board as well. And it's important for us to understand that Indigenous politics, according to Alfred and Corn Tassel, is going to have to necessitate two elements. One is it's an oppositional identity to the extent that the Westphalian state has a very particular conception of... what the political person is, what is a political agent, who you and I are as political beings, etc. But Indigenous politics has a different understanding of what a political agent is, what is their relationship to the state, to the community, etc. So it's going to stand in opposition to the dominant Western, and oftentimes even in other societies, the way that dominant settler or post-colonial societies have chosen to create politics. So it's going to have a sort of opposition. to the way things are, because most of the way things are in most political systems amongst the 90 countries that we had mentioned before are going to be antithetical and oftentimes were meant to in fact eliminate or eradicate Indigenous political systems and Indigenous identities. Further to that, they assert that there needs to be a sense of internal pluralism because Indigenous politics is diverse and globally founded, we can see that there's significant amounts of diversity amongst Indigenous political identities and arrangements, etc., then it has to have an internal pluralism, and it has to think about ways in which Indigenous politics can be multiple instead of just a singular type of system, which would then, if it was singular, would replicate effectively the problem that they see with the Westphalian system that says political community can only be this, economics can only be this, politics can only be this, society can only be this. Therefore, Indigenous politics has to be internally pluralistic. So this leads us then just to the final point. that Indigenous politics emerges, but with the same sort of spirit of debate, discord, and discourse, the need to develop and reimagine a politics and a political language that accounts for and fits what would be considered Indigenous politics. But then again, it would also still be open to debate, discourse, etc. And so we should not think of it as a singular thing or a reified thing, that is, it's unchanging, etc. But think of it, Indigenous politics, as dynamic and growing and seek to understand. its approaches, its ideas, etc. as we would every other approach. So thanks for engaging and we will catch you at the next video.

We want to acknowledge that this is not the same politics or the same lived experience or the same historical trajectory as those who came in a slave or post-slavery situation, especially amongst Africans who were brought over. Their systems and their politics are different. Further to that, immigrants, for example, like my parents, who came over out of choice and applied for citizenship, They're in a different political situation, but also migrants and refugees who are coming in as well.

Part of the reason for the difference here is that some of these groups, not entirely, for example, African-Americans or African-Canadians who are here today for reasons of slavery or were transported over without choice, etc. Further to that, but the other groups may. of course, still not be here by choice, for example, refugees, etc., that they are permitted nonetheless to join in the colonial or dominant patterns. They are allowed in many ways to go to school.

They are allowed to merge into society, to get jobs, etc., like that. Indigenous peoples historically have been often barred from those with clear legal reasons. For example, we talked about Indigenous peoples were not allowed to vote. They were prevented from leaving.

reservation lands. They were prevented from accessing resources and controlling over resources or even having title to lands that they owned, even under the Western system, that those were sometimes even summarily removed. So while these groups are often able to move into and merge with colonial or dominant patterns and systems, etc., Indigenous peoples have not been allowed to do so historically, and even today. face significant barriers that can be different from other populations that are here today as well.

That said, we should also note that some are dominant in their states. If we look at Bolivia, Ecuador, Samoa, and a couple of others as well, there are significant Indigenous populations. In Bolivia, of course, the number is in the 50% plus number where we have Indigenous people.

So they have had the capacity. to put together Indigenous politics, whereas the dominant group, what would the state look like? What would the political structures look like?

What are the best ways to conduct politics? That said, some would argue that that has also been a compromise between the Western structures of the Westphalian state, the globalization system that has brought capitalism everywhere, and Indigenous politics, and that's something that one can examine in other classes as well. But in a sense, the dominant situation of Indigenous people is found in not too many states. In most states, there is a dominant population that sets up the patterns of relations in a sort of colonial or settler or other system. And therefore, they end up having to either conform to it.

So therefore, in Indigenous politics, its response to that is going to be different in Bolivia from what we're going to see and largely have noticed in Canada. And therefore, I want to understand a little bit of the difference there. Further to that, we also want to...

acknowledge that Indigenous politics has had to deal with problems in relation to clear legal statements and doctrines in treaties and agreements. Most of us, when it comes to our political engagements with the state, understand the law and what the law is, but there are significant aspects of our daily lives that are not controlled by laws at all, that they are part of our norms, our customs, and understandings. What we see in Indigenous politics is that there has been a necessity to respond to the failure of treaties, agreements, of legal relationships between Indigenous peoples and their states, which governments have chosen not to live up to, or have failed to live up to, or have chosen entirely to neglect them. So this leads us to the other point, which is that Indigenous politics has to reckon with settler and dominant political actors who can do a number of things. One is to simply neglect.

agreement or to neglect the basic necessities which they would provide to the dominant population. And this could include supports for education or supports for language or supports for culture and economic growth and things like that, or economic choices, if you will, not growth per se. But also the most obvious one, for example, in Canada is clean drinking water.

Governments for the last 30 years have failed to make clean drinking water in Indigenous territories a priority. And therefore we see ongoing problems of not only water advisories, but sometimes because of the impact of the environment and others, that populations have to be evacuated to other cities or moved elsewhere temporarily until matters get sorted out. So that's neglect. Another one is simply omission. right?

Choosing not to do certain things. So for example, living up to obligations and treaties that have been agreed to, following through with legal rulings that have demanded a government, for example, in Canada, do certain things in terms of child welfare, but not follow through accordingly. Or else, for example, legal rulings in relation to compensation and rectification in relation to residential schools, which governments as well as churches and religious organizations have chosen simply.

to say, well, we're delayed, we don't have the money, this, that, or the other. We know that these are choices that are being made for omission. And as well, we also want to acknowledge that historical and cultural aspects of our society that are omitted. We often speak of, for example, in Canada, to our history being, you know, going back to 1867. It doesn't.

The history of the lands on which Canadians live goes back thousands of years. We also know, for example, that we talk of, say, Canada. as the national sport of Canada.

It is not. The technical national sport of Canada is lacrosse, which actually does have significant roots in Indigenous culture and other aspects as well. But also, it's also important for us to understand that historically, many of us have not learned about things that were happening amongst Indigenous populations or been presented the cultural aspects of it other than to simply talk about long ago, right?

Rather than saying the history of Canada includes... following Indigenous peoples, following Indigenous patterns of government and society and culture and language, which find itself into our modern society as well. So those are choices of omission in history and culture.

Further to that, there can also be situations where it's straight out attacks on Indigenous peoples or their cultures and other aspects. We see this through land grabs, where necessary governments have simply said, well, Indigenous lands belong to us. They're now part of the crown.

or etc. In some places, for example, in Brazil, the leader at the time, Bolsonaro, a few years ago, had said simply, well, if they get in the way, well, we'll just take them out. In other words, we will simply take the land from them. And if they don't allow us to do that, if they don't agree to doing that, then there's nothing that should stop us from taking that anyways.

So significant Indigenous territories have been overtaken by simple land grab, right, by simply either excluding people from that, so therefore they can't use it. or else shipping them away. While we don't have this in Canada, in other countries, Canadian government, Canadian companies have paid to move an entire town.

That would be, for example, you come to Western, you come to the campus, you come back later on, a month later, and somebody says, hey, we built Western in St. Thomas, so you can all just move there now. You might find that disconcerting to go, you just moved me? Yes, we did. And if you were to say, well, I don't want to move from Western, I like London, and I want to live around here, and I want campus to be here.

And they said, no, too bad, you don't have a choice. And if you do make a ruckus about it, well, we might have to choose other recourses to deal with you. That is another example of a land grab, even though it's argued that it's a positive thing, because we moved these people, and we're going to give them money, but just simply move them 30 kilometers away, say in the case of Western to... moving to St. Thomas, but in other cases it's been hundreds of kilometers away into different climates, into different places, into different geographies. Further to that, we know of family destruction, we know in the ways in which child welfare is operating in Canada and elsewhere, the removal of Indigenous peoples from their own families, the disintegration and the breakup of those families, as well as the abuses of children and Indigenous adults and others to eliminate the has been driven by destroying in a sense the family structure that upholds those cultural practices.

We've also seen in the ways in which physical, cultural, economic genocide is undertaken to eliminate the individuals and the particular practices as well. Further to that, we know in certain parts of the world there have been camps that have been created where Indigenous peoples have been sent to be re-educated and so forth and brought into the dominant or settler streams of life. slavery, and even their ending of certain habits and habitats, sorry, habitat, where Indigenous peoples have been found.

So those are more... direct attacks by settler dominant political actors to deal with Indigenous peoples. Consequent to that, that gives rise to Indigenous politics, again, to survive, to push back against the dominant political community that is seeking to eliminate the Indigenous political system, Indigenous political structures, and all the things that flow from that, the economy, the society, the culture, etc., and in a sense are embedded and correlated with it.

Further to that, it has also been the case that there have been significant forms of activism, which also need to be theorized within Indigenous politics. Activism, for example, the Land Back movement across North America, which looks at processes and necessities of rectification for land that was stolen and taken from Indigenous peoples. The Idle No More movement, which was started in Canada about now, think around...

2013-14, maybe a little bit older than that as well, a movement to argue for strong activism amongst Indigenous peoples and Indigenous allies to Indigenous peoples as well, to not sit back, to not just do armchair activism, to really push for activism in a strong sense and to not be idle and not be minimizing or not to feel that you should not have a say. Folks need to speak up. to demand and to push for and to also make visible what is happening to indigenous peoples and their culture and religion and other aspects. Further to that, we have other movements around the world like the Chipko movement.

The environmental movement that was started in the 1970s emerged partly as a result of various indigenous groups, including the Chipko movement in India, which was built on indigenous movements against environmental destruction as well. The Naga and the Chiapas peoples, Naga in India, but also the Chiapas in Mexico, which have turned to militant and military movements, or not militant, but military movements, that have sought to defend the land, to defend it against violence that has been brought upon them. And therefore, the response has been to create militia forces, army forces, etc., to defend the peoples against...

the onslaught that they see coming. And oftentimes these are against armies that are up against them or other violent actors, say, for example, mercenaries hired on behalf of corporations and others. So these are the different forms of activism we see.

Everything from the Facebook movement that was started in Idle No More, to Land Back, which is also on Facebook, but also we see various places where they are active, to the Chip Coat, to the Naga and the Chiapas movements, which have taken on more, if you will. challenging approach to the attempts by states to deny or take away or eliminate rights of Indigenous people. The other important thing is one thing that has become a standard of international relations in approaching Indigenous politics is free empire and informed consent.

This is the idea that there should be genuine consent from Indigenous peoples before decisions are made. Again, going back to the idea of nothing for us without us, or sorry, nothing without us for us as well. But also, and this is a very important part, which is the second part that is almost the one that is most often sort of never pursued, which is the honoring of a no.

If Indigenous people are consulted and if they have said no, then one government should not be overriding the no by suggesting that, well, we'll just come back and consult you and consult you. As we all know now, we're told that the position of no means no indicates that that's a definite unequivocal statement. Don't keep doing whatever it is that you were doing.

In the same way, Indigenous peoples have not seen no's honoured. When they have said no to something, there's either been an overriding, there's either been violence of it, or else there's been a total disregard and use of other mechanisms to sort of prevent the no from taking hold. As well, we also want to note that the Indigenous politics has not only the past ways Indigenous...

politics does speak to the ancestral and we talked about that in terms of the UN definition of speaking to the ancestral path but it's also important for us to note that there are changes in practices and ideas and relationships and culture and economy and politics and other aspects that are taking account of the present of how Indigenous peoples are situated today but also the future right looking forward to what they're looking at. Consider for example in Canada and I think in the U.S. as well now More Indigenous peoples live outside of Indigenous territories and inside the dominant political communities, cities and provinces, etc., moving about. And in particular, urban Indigenous peoples'populations have increased as well.

So Indigenous politics is theorizing that aspect as well and therefore needs to consider how that works. Because the... political, economic, and other cultural aspects of living in an urban environment in a dominant population for Indigenous peoples, say, in North America, does require having a different understanding of politics, understanding how to organize, how to push for activism, etc., that is going to be different than in other places.

So those become important ways in this regard for us to understand that the past has an impact, but it's not the only thing that Indigenous politics has looked back. It's not a nostalgic politics as some folks try to minimize and understand it as. Further to this, we have the UN Declaration, which I already mentioned, on the rights of Indigenous people in 2007. This has become the international standard and has built a lot of what we now see in Indigenous politics being informed by.

And of course, in particular, because states are unwilling to, quote unquote, do the right thing or to do partnerships that are in earnest and onerous, for example, as you mentioned, the no, etc. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has become the standard by which to assess how states are acting, doing, and so forth. Even if it is at a symbolic level, it does set what the standard should be and what should be aimed for. And Indigenous peoples and Indigenous persons who are into politics, etc., can speak to that as upholding or not upholding the state's own commitment to Indigenous rights, etc.

Consider, for example, it was initially opposed by the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand for various reasons. But over time, for various reasons, and you can look into the politics of this, this became the standard and all four of those states came on board as well. And it's important for us to understand that Indigenous politics, according to Alfred and Corn Tassel, is going to have to necessitate two elements.

One is it's an oppositional identity to the extent that the Westphalian state has a very particular conception of... what the political person is, what is a political agent, who you and I are as political beings, etc. But Indigenous politics has a different understanding of what a political agent is, what is their relationship to the state, to the community, etc. So it's going to stand in opposition to the dominant Western, and oftentimes even in other societies, the way that dominant settler or post-colonial societies have chosen to create politics. So it's going to have a sort of opposition.

to the way things are, because most of the way things are in most political systems amongst the 90 countries that we had mentioned before are going to be antithetical and oftentimes were meant to in fact eliminate or eradicate Indigenous political systems and Indigenous identities. Further to that, they assert that there needs to be a sense of internal pluralism because Indigenous politics is diverse and globally founded, we can see that there's significant amounts of diversity amongst Indigenous political identities and arrangements, etc., then it has to have an internal pluralism, and it has to think about ways in which Indigenous politics can be multiple instead of just a singular type of system, which would then, if it was singular, would replicate effectively the problem that they see with the Westphalian system that says political community can only be this, economics can only be this, politics can only be this, society can only be this. Therefore, Indigenous politics has to be internally pluralistic. So this leads us then just to the final point. that Indigenous politics emerges, but with the same sort of spirit of debate, discord, and discourse, the need to develop and reimagine a politics and a political language that accounts for and fits what would be considered Indigenous politics.

But then again, it would also still be open to debate, discourse, etc. And so we should not think of it as a singular thing or a reified thing, that is, it's unchanging, etc. But think of it, Indigenous politics, as dynamic and growing and seek to understand. its approaches, its ideas, etc. as we would every other approach.

So thanks for engaging and we will catch you at the next video.

Transcript for:Understanding Indigenous Politics and Activism

Transcript for:
Understanding Indigenous Politics and Activism