Indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples are groups that descend from the original inhabitants of a particular land, distinct from later arrivals. They often share common characteristics, including a strong historical connection to their territories, unique languages, and distinct cultural practices. Globally, there are approximately 400 million indigenous individuals across around 5,000 groups, representing about 6% of the world’s population. While their populations can be small in comparison to dominant cultures, some nations, like Guatemala and Bolivia, have significant indigenous demographics. The United Nations recognizes the rights of indigenous peoples through the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which, although non-binding, addresses their rights to culture, identity, and land. Many indigenous groups advocate for representation, self-determination, and the protection of their ancestral rights amid challenges such as poverty and discrimination. Moreover, their ties to environmental stewardship and activism are increasingly acknowledged, emphasizing the crucial relationship between cultural diversity and biodiversity conservation. Overall, the fight for recognition and rights among indigenous peoples continues to evolve globally.
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Subject Terms
Indigenous peoples
Although there is no universally accepted definition, experts generally agree that indigenous peoples are those who descend from the people who were already present in a land when others from different cultures and ethnicities arrived. Indigenous peoples share certain characteristics, such as having small populations in comparison to the dominant ethnicity or culture of their country, although in some countries, such as Guatemala and Bolivia, different indigenous groups may together account for 50 percent or more of the population. Indigenous people are also characterized by having historical ties to a territory, sharing an ancestral culture and traditions, and self-identifying as indigenous. Other nonspecific terms for indigenous peoples include native peoples, first peoples, tribal peoples, aboriginal peoples, and original peoples. While not all indigenous peoples speak their own language, there are still an estimated four thousand indigenous languages spoken in the world, with some individual countries accounting for numerous such languages. For example, Guatemala has registered twenty-four distinct indigenous languages.
Background
With an estimated four hundred million individuals in approximately five thousand groups worldwide, indigenous people constitute about 6 percent of the world’s population. Indigenous groups reside in every continent. While Asia accounts for the majority of these groups, many can be found in Europe, Australia and Oceania, Africa, the Americas, and the Caribbean as well.
Most scientists agree that modern human beings most likely originated in Africa approximately two hundred thousand years ago and migrated from there to other regions of the world, although details of this scenario remain subject to debate. The first migrations are calculated to have begun about sixty thousand years ago. To a certain extent, then, most peoples of the world originally migrated from elsewhere to the regions they now inhabit and in which they developed a culture, language, and way of life.
Human beings are characterized by the anatomic adaptations that they developed in order to acclimate and adapt to the geographic regions they inhabit. This accounts for many of the biological differences between human groups, such as genotype and phenotype. A phenotype is a set of visible characteristics, such as skin color, hair texture, the shape of facial features, and body type. People who have inhabited a geographic region for thousands of years may show distinct phenotypic characteristics that differentiate them from later arrivals in the region. However, identification based solely on phenotype often proves inaccurate. For example, there are black peoples in diasporic countries far from their original Africa, such as the Garifuna people of Latin America, who are considered indigenous to the regions they presently inhabit. Therefore, mere physical appearance is not considered a useful or even valid determinant for the identification of an indigenous individual.
Because of centuries of invasion and colonization, many indigenous people are among the poorest in the world. They are often subject to discrimination, neglect, and exploitation. Despite their differences, many indigenous groups worldwide have in common a fight for representation, self-determination, and recognition of their identities, lands, and ancestral and cultural rights. A major victory was accomplished with the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 2007.
Indigenous Peoples Today
Indigenous peoples account for most of the world’s diversity. The basic criterion for identification as indigenous is self-identification as such. Other common characteristics include strong ties to lands or territory, historical continuity, a distinct language, ancestral cultures and traditions, and belonging to a nondominant societal group. The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, although not a legally binding document, establishes the rights of indigenous peoples to culture, identity, language, employment, health, education, and more. This document was a great stride toward the recognition, at both individual and collective levels, of the rights and identities of indigenous peoples.
The United Nations is the central authority for issues pertaining to matters and rights of indigenous peoples, and it offers forums and councils specifically established to serve as expert advisory and coordinating bodies for indigenous peoples worldwide. One of these institutions is the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), which includes among its functions the promotion of inclusiveness and nondiscrimination, development of policy within a perspective of equality, protection of indigenous rights, and an emphasis on development for protected or special groups. The world’s indigenous peoples, according to the United Nations, are divided into seven sociocultural groups: Africa; Asia; eastern Europe, the Russian Federation, Central Asia, and Transcaucasia; North America; Central America, South America, and the Caribbean; the Pacific; and the Arctic. Among the more than forty indigenous peoples of the Arctic, for example, are the Saami in Finland, Sweden, and Norway and the Inuit in Canada and Greenland.
One of the most important organizations for research on indigenous issues is the Indigenous Peoples’ Biocultural Climate Change Assessment Initiative (IPCCA), which, in conjunction with the UNPFII, studies issues pertaining to global change and the environment. Many indigenous groups are at the forefront of environmental activism, as the world’s diversity of languages, cultures, and biological resources are all considered endangered. Indigenous cultures are closely interrelated with environmental issues because many groups inhabit areas that have suffered great environmental impact and depredation. There is widespread consensus among experts that cultural diversity is crucial for the conservation of biodiversity. The countries with the highest indigenous diversity are located in regions that are home to a majority of the earth’s biological resources. This is particularly salient in rainforest areas, such as in Africa, the Amazon, Southeast Asia, and Central America. Moreover, due to centuries of colonization, many indigenous peoples have been historically deprived and removed from their ancestral lands. As a result, the indigenous fight for land, political, and cultural rights often dovetails with environmentalism.
Most indigenous groups have been dispossessed for centuries and have much in common with other marginalized social groups. Among the problems they have faced are poverty, economic disenfranchisement, lack of political representation, and limited access to education and social services. Nevertheless, since the second half of the twentieth century, indigenous peoples have made great strides toward recognition of their identities as distinct peoples with their own cultures and rights to ancestral lands and their resources, political participation, and autonomy.
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