Over the last fifty years, indigenous politics has become an increasingly important field of study. Recognition of self-determination rights are being demanded by indigenous peoples around the world.
Indigenous struggles for political representation are shaped by historical and social circumstances particular to their nations but there are, nevertheless, many shared experiences.
What are some of the commonalities, similarities and differences to indigenous representation, participation and mobilisation? This anthology offers a comparative perspective on institutional arrangements that provide for varying degrees of indigenous representation, including forms of self-organisation as well as government-created representation structures.
A range of comparative and country-specific studies provides a wealth of information on institutional arrangements and processes that mobilise indigenous peoples and the ways in which they negotiate alliances and handle conflict.
Indigenous politics has become more important during the last couple of decades. This book offers an interesting insight into institutional variation in indigenous political arrangements, with comprehensive information on New Zealand, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, USA, Canada and the Nordic countries. Even given the great variation across countries and continents, indigenous politics is increasingly influenced by international processes and by developments in international law. This book emphasises the importance of these changes, but also underlines the extensive differences among countries adapting to them. In doing so, it highlights the importance of each country’s historical traditions, in which the changing relationship between indigenous sovereignty and co-optation is playing itself out. An important read for anyone interested in this field of growing interest and relevance. -- Per Selle, University of Bergen
The study of indigenous peoples received a new impetus in the late 1960s, when activist politics drew global attention to the status of these marginalised groups. While an impressive range of studies from many disciplines — notably history, anthropology, sociology and law — has since then advanced our understanding of indigenous society, the contribution of political science has for long been limited. This volume is an important and timely intervention in analysis of the politics of indigenous peoples. It offers a valuable, systematic overview of the comparative politics of indigenous societies, enriched by well-informed case studies of the more prominent of these. The editors and contributors are to be congratulated for bringing the politics of indigenous societies so decisively into the academic mainstream.
-- John Coakley, Queen’s University Belfast and University College Dublin
Mikkel Berg-Nordlie is a researcher at NIBR – Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research. He is currently writing a history PhD at the University of Tromsø – the Arctic University of Norway. His research is mainly on political organisation, representation, governance and discourses related to indigenous peoples and other ethnic minorities particularly in, but not limited to, Russia and the Nordic countries.
Jo Saglie is Research Professor at the Institute for Social Research, Oslo, Norway and Adjunct Senior Researcher at the Sámi University College in Guovdageaidnu, Norway. His main research interests include party organisations and intra-party democracy, local elections and local democracy, as well as indigenous politics.
Ann Sullivan is a member of the northern Ngapuhi tribe of New Zealand. She is an Associate Professor of Maori Studies and co-Head of Te Wananga o Waipapa/School of Maori Studies and Pacific Studies, University of Auckland. Her main research interests are Maori electoral behaviour, representation and public police policy. Her teaching covers a range of areas of Maori development with an emphasis on public policy.
Johannes Bergh is a researcher at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo, where he works on the Norwegian Electoral Studies Program. His research interests include political participation, elections and voting: in general, as well as with respect to minorities and indigenous groups.
Einar Braathen is a political scientist and senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research. His main research interests include democratisation, decentralisation, sustainable development and the politics of poverty-reduction. Recently, he has mainly worked on Brazil. He has published in several edited volumes and international journals.
Ravi de Costa is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University in Canada. His research is on indigenous politics and movements and on the institutional and cultural aspects of the indigenous–settler relationship.
Cássio Ingles de Sousa is a Brazilian anthropologist who has worked with several indigenous peoples and traditional communities since 1994, especially in initiatives related to applied anthropology, ethnodevelopment, sustainable projects, indigenous land-management, impact-assessment and engagement with the private sector. He has many publications related to these themes and has professional experience of government, international co-operation, NGOs, indigenous organisations and the private sector; he currently works as an Independent Consultant.
Patrik Lantto is a Professor of History and the Director of the Centre for Sámi Research at Umeå University, Sweden. His main research focus is on Sámi political mobilisation in Sweden, and Swedish Sámi policy, as well as indigenous education. He has published three books and articles in several edited volumes and international journals.
John-Andrew McNeish is Associate Professor of International Environment and Development Studies at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences and Senior Researcher at Christian Michelsens Institute (CMI). His main research interests include indigenous politics, natural-resource rights and politics, and the anthropology of development. As well as numerous journal articles he has published several co-authored volumes, including Flammable Societies: Studies on the socio-economics of oil and gas (Pluto Press 2012), Gender Justice and Legal Pluralities: Latin American and African perspectives (Routledge 2012) and Indigenous Peoples and Poverty (Zed Books 2005).
Ulf Mörkenstam is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, Stockholm University. His main fields of research are political theory and policy analysis with a specific focus on indigenous rights. He has written extensively on Swedish Sámi policy and on the capacity of the Swedish Sámi Parliament to safeguard the Sámi people’s right to self-determination.
Ciaran O'Faircheallaigh is Professor of Politics and Public Policy in the School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Brisbane. His research focuses on the inter-relationship between indigenous people and large-scale resource development; he has a particular interest in social-impact assessment and in negotiation of agreements between indigenous and mining companies. For over 20 years he has acted as a negotiator and advisor for indigenous communities in Australia, Canada and Papua New Guinea.
Martin Papillon is Associate Professor in the Département de science politique, Université de Montréal. Martin’s research focuses on Aboriginal governance and Canadian federalism as well as the politics of self-determination in comparative perspective. He is the coeditor of The Global Promise of Federalism (University of Toronto Press), Federalism and Aboriginal Governance (Presses de l’Université Laval) and Les Autochtones et le Québec (Presses de l’Université de Montréal). His comparative work on Aboriginal politics is published amongst others in Publius: the Journal of Federalism, Lien social et politiques and Politics & Society.
Torunn Petterson is currently completing her PhD project at the Arctic University UiT, Norway. She holds a part-time position as a researcher at the Sámi University College in Guovdageaidnu, Norway. Her research interests include the Sámediggi elections, the living conditions of Sámi and other indigenous peoples, and the conditions for knowledge-building and opinion-formation on Sámi issues, with a special focus on (deficient) Sámi ethnicity data and statistics.
Jane Robbins is Associate Professor in Politics in the School of Social and Policy Studies, Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia. She has published an edited volume on Australian politics and has contributed numerous chapters and articles to books and international journals, including Ethnicities. Her research interests focus on indigenous policy, particularly political representation and political rights, international indigenous movements and international law and on Australian welfare and social policy.
