This study explores the ways in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators have experienced working together as allies for social and racial justice. The study is grounded in anti-oppressive, decolonizing, and participatory action research paradigms. Theoretically, it is framed by anti-racism and anti-oppressive approaches that highlight oppression, exploitation, and power. Within the theoretical field of antiracism, there is a tendency to ignore Indigeneity, and the ongoing oppression and racialization of Indigenous peoples (Lawrence & Dua, 2005; St. Denis, 2007). This study puts Indigeneity and oppression at the forefront of ally development research. The research was modeled upon an action research method called co-operative inquiry (Heron, 1996). The inquiry group involved seven group members, including the researcher. These group members came from diverse racial and social backgrounds. They were all women who work in diverse educational capacities (adult educators, nurse educator, counselor, teacher, lawyer). The inquiry spanned 11 weeks, with 18 hours spent together over six group sessions. Two Indigenous leaders joined the group in two sessions, to lend their experiences and insights on the role of allies. Group members retained a high level of commitment throughout the study. The study was a success in terms of analyzing many of the issues Indigenous and non-Indigenous educators face when working together. It also highlighted the roles of allies and useful strategies for allies to use. The study was shown to have a high level of catalytic validity (Herr & Anderson, 2005) as many group members reported a high degree of both epistemological (what they know) and ontological (how they become) learning. The results of this study lead to new insights on how allies have traditionally been conceptualized and the role that ontology plays in learning. The study also discusses how the congruence between topic and method was navigated, and how that in turn led to the creation of an allied space. / Graduate

This thesis explores the emergence of indigeneity among a group of post-foragers living on the eastern coast of Sumatra. In the past, despite the lack of definite ethnic boundaries and the fluidity of their identity, they were known as Utan (‘Forest’) or Orang Utan (‘Forest People’). Since 2006, however, many Utan have adopted the new ethnonym of Suku Asli (‘Indigenous People’) and begun claiming their position within the Indonesian State as an integrated and distinctive ethnic group – a group, that is, associated with a unique ‘tradition’ (adat) and a particular ‘indigenous’ identity. As Suku Asli, they have been trying to integrate this identity and protect the ‘ancestral’ lands with which it is thought to be intimately associated. The emergence of this identity does not reflect only their own aspirations but, also, their entanglement with a number of government development programmes or interventions aiming to transform the lives of local ‘tribespeople’. Throughout these contexts, the most important change has been the development of their indigeneity – an indigeneity which, in the context of Indonesia, is ‘imagined’ and recognised in a very particular way by the State. It is on the basis of this indigeneity that the Suku Asli have begun to re-configure their traditional identity and their place within the Nation State. Focusing on some of its most important manifestations and embodiments, the thesis attempts to chart the emergence of this indigeneity and relate it to the entanglement of the people and the government. Treating indigeneity as a perspective that is created between the locals’ traditionally fluid identity and the government development programmes, I describe some of the ways in which ‘tribespeople’ come to embody, resist and transform the government image of ‘indigenous people’ and accomplish their ‘modernisation’ – a ‘modernisation’ demanding, first and foremost, a distinctive and well-bounded indigenous identity.

This dissertation is about the political and aesthetic dimensions of Indigenous media in Peruvian Amazonia. It explores how Kukama media-makers use aesthetic mastery to engage in three key political fields in Amazonia: indigeneity, historicity, and environmentalism. I specifically examine the audiovisual discourses and media-making practices coming from an Indigenous radio station called Radio Ucamara, located in the town of Nauta in Northeastern Peru (Loreto region). Drawing on place-based ethnography and digital research methods, I analyze the way this radio station instrumentalizes multiple digital and non-digital media forms to make visible (and also audible) their identities, violent histories, and cosmological worlds amidst their confrontation with the Peruvian neoliberal state and oil companies. The dissertation also contemplates how through these processes of mediatization, Amazonian ontologies, mytho-histories, and identities are being reimagined. For this purpose, I focus both on the analysis of media products (e.g., music videos, documentaries, journalistic reportage, murals, books) and the social dynamics surrounding those creations, to understand the way Kukama media producers take part in ongoing struggles for the revitalization of the Kukama language, seeking justice for the rubber times violence, and stopping the pollution of Amazonian rivers. Following theoretical frameworks derived from the anthropology of media and the anthropology of music and verbal art in Lowland South America, I argue that media aesthetics is becoming a major instrument in building political power in the region.

This thesis is an ethnographic study of collaborative action and notions of value in San Isidro, an indigenous community of c.90 families in Ecuador’s central highlands. Drawing on Arendt’s theory of action as a mode of human togetherness, it focuses on forms of activity that are both affective (appealing to particular values, principles and practices) and productive (engaging in struggles to reorder social and economic relations). These include communal gatherings, shared work-parties, assemblies, meetings, campaigns and celebrations. Developing work by Lambek and Graeber, the thesis explores how such actions are used to generate different kinds of ethical and material value, the criteria people use to evaluate competing visions of hope and possibility, and the related dynamics of division and cooperation. I argue that such a focus on action and value allows us to build on insights from existing regional literature which tends to interpret indigenous collective action as either predominantly expressive (through cultural revival) or instrumental (in terms of economic and political practice). A core theme that emerges is how localised expressions of what people hold to be vital or desirable interact with coordinated efforts to defend and secure livelihoods. In San Isidro, such efforts contend with a limited land base, ongoing conflicts rooted in histories of dispossession, and widespread patterns of migratory labour (mainly for shift-work in the Amazon-based oil industry). At the same time, many residents participate in collective work to maintain shared infrastructure, protest against land inequalities, and manage areas of the communally-held páramo hills (registering as a ‘comunidad’ as recently as 2009). Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted over fifteen months, I analyse how such collaborative actions are combined with everyday forms of paid and unpaid work, memories of conflict, and a sense of duty toward future generations. Through chapters that focus on shared labour, coordinated campaigns, the legacies of land reform and accounts of labour migration, the thesis also examines how cooperation is fostered within a community that is increasingly diverse in access to resources, income and outlook, and how those involved negotiate the ruptures and tensions that intentional actions entail.

The 21st century has been designated the Urban Century given that over fifty percent of the world's population is reported to be living in cities. Indigenous populations are not alien to this demographic trend. In Mexico, an underestimated 35 percent of the indigenous population lives in cities. Over the last decade, the global demographic transition towards urbanization coupled with city-based indigenous activism has drawn scholars to systematically study indigenous urban experiences as forms of cultural resilience and innovation. Yet, little attention has been paid to the intersection between indigenous populations and the political ecology of urbanization as a dynamic process. This dissertation contributes to a better understanding of the intersection between indigeneity and urbanization by taking a political ecology approach to study the relationship between the Yaqui people and the city of Hermosillo in Sonora, Mexico. The Yaqui people--Yoemem--locate their ancestral homeland along the Yaqui River, about 220 kilometers south of Hermosillo. In the last century, however, they established diasporic communities across the Greater Southwest, including in Hermosillo. This dissertation specifically addresses three overarching questions. First, it asks how urbanization plays a role within indigenous Yaqui struggles over resource governance in a context where people have little political and economic power. Second, it asks how indigenous communities have adapted the cultural practices of their ancestors to marginal urban environments and specifically how they deal with the environmental and legal challenges imposed by the process of urbanization. Finally, it asks how analytical attention to urban indigenous struggles and indigenous accounts of those struggles present a more nuanced history of the urbanization of nature. These research questions were addressed through a mixed-methods approach that integrated twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork, comparative analysis of museum collections, and review of legal materials and documentary sources associated with indigenous rights and urban development at the municipal, state, and national levels. At its core, this dissertation integrates two related but yet-to-be-engaged theoretical discussions: anthropological critiques of the myth of the noble savage who belongs to nature, and political ecology deconstruction of the myth of the modern city that exists outside nature. Research findings indicate that situated urban indigenous experiences constitute an extension of indigenous territories into new areas. In articulating their indigenous identities the Yaquis of Hermosillo incorporate the city into their indigenous homeland, and in turn transform the political ecology of the city.

O presente trabalho busca analisar o processo de politização das identidades indígenas, entendido como uma luta por reconhecimento, ressaltando a dinâmica das fronteiras étnicas na interação entre indígenas e o Estado, na Bolívia pós-1985. Entende-se que ao fundamentarem sua luta em um largo histórico de dominação e traduzirem-na em uma demanda por direitos e por reconhecimento social e político, os povos indígenas ressignificam sua posição marginal na sociedade e conformam a base para sua organização. Defende-se que, uma vez que as identidades resultam de constantes processos internos e externos de definição, a possibilidade de conformação de uma identidade efetivamente autônoma só se concretiza se os sujeitos podem definir quais os parâmetros legítimos a partir dos quais se dá o reconhecimento, que adquire um caráter eminentemente político. A este respeito, entende-se que a luta avançada pelos povos indígenas representa um desafio para as formas tradicionais de definição de cidadania, questionando o paradigma liberal até então hegemônico, especialmente no que tange a natureza coletiva do sujeito indígena e sua relação com o território e com a política em geral. Assim, a indigeneidade se coloca como uma peça chave para a compreensão das mudanças ocorridas nas últimas décadas na Bolívia, assim como para a compreensão de um processo mais amplo de descolonização das categorias e instituições do Estado-nação. Desta forma, o trabalho segue de forma a discutir como a luta por reconhecimento por direitos se construiu a partir das críticas ao colonialismo interno do Estado boliviano, posteriormente avançando sobre como ampliação das fronteiras da identidade indígena serviu como elemento aglutinador de um processo crescentemente contencioso das relações entre a sociedade as instituições do Estado em sua acepção liberal. Posteriormente, discutir-se-á sobre como as lutas e demandas indígenas foram reconhecidas na Constituição de 2009 em um esforço conjunto de representantes de diversos movimentos sociais no país para superar a abordagem multiculturalista através da plurinacionalidade e da interculturalidade. Por fim, destacar-se-á as presentes contradições deste processo, no qual o empoderamento político indígena se depara com a centralidade cada vez maior da democracia representativa e dos apelos de uma identidade nacional indigeneizada, em detrimento dos avanços legais da Constituição plurinacional e das lutas por interculturalidade e pela consolidação da autonomia dos sujeitos coletivos na Bolívia / The following work will discuss the process of politicization of indigenous identities, understood as a struggle for recognition, highlighting the dynamics of the ethnic boundaries in the interaction between the indigenous and the state in Bolivia after 1985. We sustain that as indigenous peoples root their struggle in a long background of domination which is translated into a demand for rights and for social and political recognition, they ressignify their marginality within the society and establish the foundations for their organization. We suggest that, inasmuch as identities result from constant processes of internal and external forms of definition, the possibility of constructing actually autonomous identities is only possible if the subjects are able to define by which standards should they be granted recognition, which, in turn, becomes eminently political. Following that, we observe that the indigenous struggles posits a challenge to traditional forms of defining citizenship, as they question the hegemony of the liberal paradigm so far, specially in matters of the collective nature of indigenous subject and its particular relation to the territory and politics. Therefore, indigeneity is presented as a key factor for understanding the political changes in Bolivia over the last decades, but also for analyzing the process of decolonization of nationstate categories and institutions. We herein discuss how the struggle for recognition in the legal and social dimensions was key for constructing a broader critique of the internal colonialism in the Bolivian State, followed by a discussion on how the expansion of the boundaries of the indigenous identities transformed it into a converging element of a increasingly contentious process in the relation between the society and the states institutions in their most liberal facet. Later on, we will explore how these struggles and demands were recognized in the 2009 Constitution, as a result of the mutual effort of representatives of various social movements to overcome the multicultural approach to indigenous rights with plurinationality and interculturality. Finally, we assess the present contradictions of such process, in which the political empowerment of the indigenous faces the rising centrality of representative democracy and the appeals of a indigenized national identity, as opposed to the consolidation of constitutional plurinationality and of the intercultural plea for the consolidation of the autonomy of indigenous collective subjects in Bolivia

This thesis examines how the Amazigh diaspora, networked in France's Amazigh cultural associations, village committees and political movements, constructs an imaginative geography of North Africa, which they call Tamazgha, and the implications this has for this emergent and diverse group. It sets out to theorise and understand the political geographies of this diasporic social movement in the contemporary moment. It does so by approaching the Amazigh diaspora as its primary object of research within a relational, multiscalar analysis of its geopolitics. This thesis contributes to the subdiscipline of political geography as well as Amazigh studies. Drawing on ethnographic and documentary methods, including an experimental methodology for the digital sphere, it outlines the major themes of the diasporic Amazigh movement's relationship to space and place; making the diaspora, articulating indigeneity, negotiating citizenship and accommodating nativism. It analyses facets of Amazigh diaspora politics at times as a nation, at others as a social movement, finding a productive interaction between these two concepts. It is both an imagined community of people who claim to share a common language and culture and a political movement entraining activists, members and political parties in the pursuit of political change. As an Indigenous people, it is both a transnational social movement calling on the states where they live to uphold the rights of their Amazigh populations, and also a nation with a flag, asserting its claim to sovereignty, however limited. The diaspora associations frame themselves as a social movement championing diverse citizenship and integration in French society, whilst homeland-oriented citizenship is mostly expressed in nationalistic terms. This thesis charts how the politics of this diasporic Amazigh movement contest and produce spatial imaginations in the contemporary context of Mediterranean integration, new nationalisms and populisms, and the fear of Islamist terrorism in French society. With its focus on the political and imaginative geographies of the diasporic Amazigh movement, the thesis is organised topically, elaborating on different facets of political subjectivities in four substantive chapters that focus on the core themes of diaspora, indigeneity, citizenship and nativism. Chapter 2 provides an historical and sociological context for the study, and Chapter 3 details its methodology. Chapter 4 examines diaspora as a geopolitical concept, understood on the one hand as like a social movement and on the other as like a nation. It presents an understanding of diaspora 'as process' or 'assemblage' that constantly reworks the boundaries of nation, state, community and identity, within an imaginative geography of 'home'. Chapter 5 picks up from here to focus on how indigeneity is articulated as a political positioning in the diasporic Amazigh movement. Drawing on Stuart Hall's terminology to theorise the politics of indigeneity in relation to place, it outlines several Indigenous articulations made in the discourse and practices of the leaders and members of diasporic Amazigh associations. Chapter 6 focuses on the discourses and practices of citizenship, which in the diaspora intersect, overlap and produce transnational spaces. Drawing out an empirical distinction between 'diaspora-oriented' and 'homeland-oriented' citizenships, the chapter details how citizenship practices in relation to French state and society can be understood as 'ordinary' whilst those in relation to North African state(s) and society are characterised more as performative 'Acts'. Finally, chapter 7 homes in on Amazigh politics in the current context of increasingly influential nativist-populism in France and across Europe.

An important dimension of contemporary capitalism is the global spread of intellectual property rights law, drawing new attention by governments and media to the unauthorized copying of fashion brands. In this dissertation, I draw on sixteen months of ethnographic research with small-scale, indigenous Maya garment manufacturers to examine the cultural and moral context of brand piracy in Guatemala. I analyze what practices of copying and imitation, some of which qualify as piracy under national and international law, among Maya manufacturers reveal about two aspects of the social field: first, changing economic and cultural conditions following waves of neoliberal economic and legal reform, and, second, the nonlinear reproduction of forms of moral and legal reckoning at the margins of the global economy and amidst mounting insecurities that include rising violent crime rates and legal impunity for violent crime. I examine how practices of copying and imitation among manufacturers and competitive behavior more generally are evaluated locally in light of kin relations that promote the sharing of knowledge and resources within a somewhat loose property regime and given ideologies of race and nation that encourage class-based solidarity among Maya people. I find that the normative models and business practices evident among these manufacturers parochialize official portraits of progress, business ethics, and development promoted in neoliberal policy agendas and international law. In addition, I analyze significant gaps between what fashion and branding mean in Guatemalan Maya communities and how they are understood in international projects of legal harmonization that are also about re-branding and re-imagining the Guatemalan nation. Neoliberal statecraft following a long internal armed conflict in Guatemala involves policy approaches that amplify the presence of global brands while compounding conditions of social and economic inequality that limit Maya men and women’s access to authorized goods. Meanwhile, Maya people are invited to participate in a modernist vision of citizenship and social progress that encourages a privatized model of indigenous identity mediated by branded commodities and formal market transactions. The brand emerges as a powerful medium through which claims to legitimacy and authority and senses of belonging are negotiated at national and local levels. / Anthropology

The Chilean Water Code of 1981 has been presented as a successful case of free-market water reforms. In the northern Atacama Desert, the Atacameño people have developed their indigeneity in the context of the forceful implementation of this radical free market system. This situation invites an examination of the connections between the Chilean state's free-market restructuring of water governance and the process through which indigenous groups claim their identity through water politics. This dissertation addresses the following questions: (Q1) Why and how have the Atacameño people claimed indigeneity within the context of the pro-market water reforms? (Q2) How have Atacameño identity and the water reforms been conceived, articulated, and reproduced in relation to each other? This question is broken down into sub-questions: (Q2a) How do pro-market water reforms and related conflicts inspire indigeneity and water practices among the Atacameños? and (Q2b) How do the articulation of indigeneity and water practices among the Atacameños, in turn, reshape the pro-market water reforms? During fieldwork it became clear that the water market was not as active as I expected and that Atacameños are not selling water rights, but buying them, leading to a third question: (Q3) Why are the Atacameños not selling their water rights to mining companies and urban water supply, despite the extremely high purchasing power of the former, and why have indigenous communities recently become the main buyers of water rights? In answering these questions, this dissertation explores how water management is not just about the management of the management of H20, but is also related to the production of new subjectivities. In the case of the Chilean Water Code of 1981, rather than being a threat to a certain genuine or fixed Atacameño tradition, community, or identity, it is seen as a key catalyst that has allowed a group of people to publically articulate a legitimate indigenous positionality upon particular historical sediments and political economic conditions. Here the Atacameños appear to be articulating their history with contemporary issues, knowledge, and multiple practices in relation to specific current claims about the control of water resources. This fact has questions the water reforms in terms that they were reshaped by the process of identity formation. Indeed, the Atacameños successfully mobilized their identity to partially reject the privatization process, thereby subverting the neoclassical expectations that, within a free market, water should flow toward its highest economic value uses. Finally, this dissertation shows how the Chilean model, rather than being a free market approach to water management that supposes the withdrawal of the state, relies heavily on the state's centralized actions. As such, this dissertation (1) questions the existence of a truly free water market for the allocation of water rights in the Atacameño area (2) highlights the role of the state as the main central and hierarchical source of water allocation for both mining and urban supply companies, and (3) argues that the implementation of the Water Code is another chapter in the history of the state's the internal colonialism of the Atacama Desert.

This dissertation addresses native activism in response to United States and Mexico border enforcement policies on the U.S.-Mexico border among indigenous peoples whose communities are divided by the international line. Fieldwork for the dissertation was conducted in collaboration with an indigenous grassroots community organization with members in both the U.S. and Mexico who advocate for rights of border mobility among native border peoples. This work discusses the impacts of border enforcement policies on native community cultural maintenance, local interpretations and uses of international human rights tools, and the challenges faced by U.S.-Mexico border native activists in communicating their ideologies to a broader public. This work further addresses the complex identity construction of Native Americans with cultural ties to Mexico, and conflations of race and nationality that result in distinct forms of intra-community racism.