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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.

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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.

PhD, Science Faculty, University of the Witwatersrand, 1998

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.

This thesis explores technologies of power that operate in British Columbia’s policy for consultation with Indigenous peoples about proposed land and resource decisions. I use the concept of settler colonialism to analyze the contents of British Columbia’s consultation and accommodation policy to assess whether and how the policy is oriented toward settler-colonial relationships. I analyze a British Columbia provincial policy document entitled Updated Procedures for Meeting Legal Obligations When Consulting First Nations Interim. By focusing on this policy document, I examine how power operates through settler state law and policy. I critically analyze three technologies of power that operate in British Columbia’s consultation and accommodation policy: the administrative law principle of procedural fairness, recognition politics, and the assumption of legitimate settler sovereignty. I consider how the policy’s focus on process reveals colonial power dynamics. Furthermore, I argue that recognition politics operate in the policy because Indigenous difference is recognized and some space is made for Indigenous actors to exercise authority, however the settler state retains final decision- making authority, which shows a colonial hierarchy of power. Finally, I consider how the assumption of legitimate settler state sovereignty that underlies B.C.’s law and policy is a source of authority through which the settler state has various types of power under the policy, including definitional power and final decision-making power. / Graduate

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The rise of organised pan-Indianism in the early twentieth century has been well documented by scholars. However, this body of scholarship has been predominantly 'top down' occupied with the pan-Indian movement at a national level, and the Native Americans who were at the forefront of it. Conversely, this thesis takes a 'bottom up' approach through examination of grassroots Native Americans, and through a local lens in Oklahoma, and adds their voices to the dialogues about Indian identity in this period. A systematic examination of oral history sources held in the Doris Duke Collection reveals who these grassroots individuals were and how they expressed their identities. Moreover, it explores how they formed shared pan-Indian identities in this period. These sources underline the complex process of identity for indigenous individuals and ultimately show that identity was multi-layered for them. This layered identity was a reflection of the need indigenous people had to maintain and protect their indigenous identities. They did not respond to this period by merging the different facets of their identity to one synthesised identity. They did not want to fully assimilate into America and yet also did not fully reject America or White lifestyles. Instead, they used “survival strategies” to keep these different elements alive. This thesis demonstrates that Indian identities did emerge from Oklahoma in the early twentieth century amongst this grassroots group. They were influenced by the circumstances of Oklahoma and national pan-Indian ideas. The individuals who expressed such identities heard these influences in different ways and ultimately, constructed their own layered identities.