This study investigated the survival strategies adopted by the San in Cunene Province in Southern Angola. The study intended first to gain understanding of the economic activities that the San in Cuanhama municipality districts of Kafima Centre and Etale La Mulovi employ to sustain their livelihoods. Secondly, the study explored how accessible the basic social services of education and health were to the San in these communities. Utilising qualitative research methods, face-to-face interviews and focus group research were conducted. From the data collected on education the study findings show that none of the children from both communities were enrolled at any school. To this end, at Kafima Centre the main hindering factors that contributed inter alia included hunger at school, stigmatization by the neighbouring community and poverty among San communities. At Etale La Mulavi San community there was lack of educational facilities near the San habitations, constituting a key hindering factor to accessing education. On health, the closer the public health centre was to the San community the more the San utilised the health services for treatment and management of common diseases like Malaria and cough as well as other diseases. On survival strategies both San communities “okunhanga” ‘go.. and look for..’ (fending for food) was the primary survival strategy the San were involved in for the sustenance of their livelihoods. The findings informed the recommendations in chapter five of this study.

This thesis analyses the past and present realities of the rights of Indigenous peoples in Chile and Canada from a comparative perspective. In Chapter I, the author explains the international human rights and Indigenous peoples' law that provide the theoretical framework behind this study. The political and territorial rights that different international forums have acknowledged to these peoples in recent years are identified. The methodology used in the elaboration of this study, which includes the analysis of documentary data, the case study and the interview methods, is explained. The author describes the objective of this study, characterizing it as applied social research aimed at providing information that can be useful for the transformation process in which the peoples that are subject of this study are involved. In Chapters II and III, the author analyses the rights of Indigenous peoples in Chile and Canada respectively from pre-contact until today. The central aspects of their pre-contact cultures and organizations are described. The author also describes main characteristics of the relationships that were established with Indigenous peoples by the Spanish in Chile and by the French and the English in Canada, and later by the states in the two contexts. Special importance is given to those changes recently introduced in the Indigenous-state relationship in both contexts, focusing on their implications for these peoples' rights. In Chapter IV, the author attempts to expand upon the past and present situation of the Indigenous peoples who live in what is now Canada and Chile by including a case study related to each context: the Pehuenche people of the Alto Bio Bio in Chile and the Nisga'a people of the Nass Valley in Canada. In the last Chapter of this thesis (V) the author concludes that, notwithstanding the changes introduced in recent years in the relationship between Indigenous peoples and the Chilean and Canadian states, many and significant problems still impede their ability to enjoy the rights they claim. The author acknowledges, nevertheless, that Indigenous peoples in Canada, through different means, including negotiation and litigation, have achieved a much broader recognition of their political and territorial rights today than have the Indigenous peoples in Chile. The legal, political, cultural and economic factors that explain these differences are also highlighted in this final Chapter. / Law, Peter A. Allard School of / Graduate

No description available.

No description available.

This dissertation investigates the impacts of the mining economy on the lives of indigenous peoples in the city of Calama and Atacameno villages in the Loa River basin in northern Chile. It explores overlapping ethical systems that shape views of fairness and the environment: indigenous communities and mining corporation's views. The central inquiry revolves around reaching an understanding of how different underlying ethical systems and interrelated ideologies influence political decisions regarding what communities and lives will be allowed to persist and which will have to perish. This relationship between economics, politics, and morality will advance knowledge of the status of corporation-community relations and identify the main obstacles to sustainable positive relations in the future.

No description available.

This thesis presents a study of people’s relationships with their material world.  It is based on fifteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with Inupiaq and Yup’ik residents of northwest Alaska and on three months of ethnographic collections-based research in British museums.  The central focus of this thesis is how materials and objects are used and what they mean to the people who use them.  It explores how people come together in material practices to create social worlds and individual realities.  While Bering Strait Eskimo tools and garments have long been acknowledged for their ability to ensure survival in what many southerners believe to be unforgiving landscapes, the practices which produce, use, and consume these objects have received less attention.  Each chapter casts light on different sets of maternal practices, including: procuring materials, processing them, crafting products, conserving and keeping objects, and exhibiting objects in public places.  Indigenous residents participating in these practices readily transform materials and objects, applying them to various circumstances to meet shifting needs.  Tracking people’s involvement in such practices over time and across spaces reveals that material practices simultaneously forge relationships, shape individuals and communities, and resolve problems.  This thesis argues that because multiple developments transpire at once in material practices, Inupiat and Yupiit of northwest Alaska use them to coordinate diverse aspects of their lives and to harmonise their lives with others.  Grounded in this understanding of how things are used, this thesis develops an account of how things become socially meaningful; things acquire meanings for practitioners based on their roles in coordinating lives.

Bolivia's indigenous groups achieved an unprecedented level of political power in the latter half of the twentieth century. Traditional explanations for this phenomenon (elite alliances, deprivation, matter-of-time)have proven insufficient. This thesis argues that the ascendancy of Bolivia's groups can be best understood though he application of organization and social movement theories, and it uses the political economy framework as a backdrop. Data are drawn from scholarly analyses, official documents and historical texts. This thesis concludes that Bolivia's indigenous movement is not a single movement, but a coalition of many social movements. It demonstrates that ethnicity frameworks have in some cases hindered the progress of movements because of different understandings of ethnicity. Variegated interests, visions of the future, and geography, have exacerbated these differences. This thesis concludes with recommendations for strategic level policy-makers and tactical level operators.

Muiscas figure prominently in Colombian national historical accounts as a worthy and valuable indigenous culture, comparable to the Incas and Aztecs, but without their architectural grandeur. The magnificent goldsmith’s art locates them on a transnational level as part of the legend of El Dorado. Today, though the population is small, Muiscas are committed to cultural revitalization. The 19th century project of constructing the Colombian nation split the official Muisca history in two. A radical division was established between the illustrious indigenous past exemplified through Muisca culture as an advanced, but extinct civilization, and the assimilation politics established for the indigenous survivors, who were considered degraded subjects to be incorporated into the national project as regular citizens (mestizos). More than a century later, and supported in the 1991’s multicultural Colombian Constitution, the nation-state recognized the existence of five Muisca cabildos (indigenous governments) in the Bogotá Plateau, two in the capital city and three in nearby towns. As part of their legal battle for achieving recognition and maintaining it, these Muisca communities started a process of cultural revitalization focused on language, musical traditions, and healing practices. Today’s Muiscas incorporate references from the colonial archive, archeological collections, and scholars’ interpretations of these sources into their contemporary cultural practices. They also rely on knowledge shared with other indigenous groups related to them. This dissertation examines the revitalization of Muisca musical and language practices as part of a larger cultural process. This revitalization demonstrates how indigenous communities navigate the challenges of multicultural politics designed, at least in principle, to support ethnic and cultural difference. To this end: I analyze the Andean-oriented musical practices of current Muisca communities in the Bogotá savanna that are performed in public events; and I examine the Muisca affective attachments to música andina and its role in shaping a Muisca indigeneity according to present time. The ethnographic study of Andean music as it is performed in current Muisca cabildos also demonstrate the connection between sound and politics. I explore how Muisca song and language help in dealing with the contradictions of reemerging indigenous groups under the nation’s multicultural governmentality. I study how música andina style, including the stereotype of Andean indigeneity advanced by the sounds, instruments, and lyrics, contributes to the development of a Muisca identity and supports cultural revitalization and official recognition. In this way, I argue that the sonic revitalization provides an aural identity formation beyond the nation-state’s essentialistic parameters of indigeneity, thus contributing to guarantee minimal conditions for survival as an indigenous community. Out of the different sociolinguistic situations where Muysc cubun (the Muisca language) is used, I trace the details and difficulties of the process of language revitalization through the analysis of a corpus of Muisca songs. It is time to recognize that many of the previous studies of colonial Muysc cubun sources followed the grammarian approach of missionaries, and consequently neglected the description of sound. Most importantly, it is time to pay attention to the sociolinguistic discourse of current Muiscas. Today’s Muisca people who have viscerally lived the long history of silencing, and territorial and cultural dispossession have a say in what has been lost and what can be built. They put forward an update of the colonial reduced general language as part of the way to build themselves as indigenous in the 21st century and rewrite the history of the nation.

The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) regime has been developing a voluntary climate change mitigation mechanism that is called ‘Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries; and the Role of Conservation/Conservation of Forest Carbon Stocks, Sustainable Management of Forests, and Enhancement of Forest Carbon Stocks in Developing Countries’ (REDD-plus). One of the most important aspects of the implementation of REDD-plus activities is that the activities should not violate the rights of indigenous peoples that live within and near the forest areas. This research has identified at least three main approaches that can be used by indigenous peoples to protect their rights in the context of REDD-plus. The first approach is the UNFCCC approach that uses the UNFCCC regime to protect indigenous peoples in the context of REDD-plus. The second approach is the human rights approach; it uses human rights treaties and their bodies, the regional commissions and courts on human rights, as well as the UN bodies and special rapporteur that are pertinent to indigenous peoples’ issues to protect indigenous peoples in the context of REDD-plus. The third approach is the financial approach that uses the United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (UN-REDD Programme) and the World Bank’s Forest Carbon Partnership Facility (FCPF) to protect indigenous peoples in the context of REDD-plus. In order to increase the protection of indigenous peoples in REDD-plus, a coherent approach needs to be created and enhanced through cooperation and coordination by the parties that are directly or indirectly involved with the three respective approaches listed above. It should be noted that the available protection for indigenous peoples in the context of REDD-plus are currently insufficient to quickly address cases where the rights of indigenous peoples have been violated in REDD-plus activities. In order to address this insufficiency, as well as to achieve a coherent approach to protecting indigenous peoples in the context of REDD-plus, the research recommends the establishment of a REDD-Plus Committee supported by a REDD-Plus Panel to develop and increase the protection of indigenous peoples in REDD-plus, should REDD-plus is placed outside the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). On the other hand, if REDD-plus is placed under the CDM then the research recommends the establishment of a Committee on REDD-Plus under the CDM and a Panel on the CDM. The existence of the pertinent committee and panel can be expected to bring benefits in the context of REDD-plus as well as in wider contexts, such as climate change, human rights, and international law through its contribution to reduce the risks of the negative effects of the fragmentation of international law.