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Introduction: Positionings—The Cultural Politics of Representation, Recognition, Resources, and Rights
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X Introduction Positionings—The Cultural Politics of Representation, Recognition, Resources, and Rights Long-marginalized peoples in Africa and elsewhere today confront a radically restructured political field with new opportunities and constraints for political action. Decades after independence and the end of apartheid, most postcolonial states have now withdrawn from their exuberant developmentalist aspirations, coaxed and coerced by the demands of international capital, the United States and its allies, and multinational financial institutions such as the World Bank to reduce funding for social services, privatize formerly state-controlled functions and industries, establish strict privateproperty regimes, and ensure “free” markets and “free” trade for multinational corporations. Ideologies of ujamaa (familyhood), economic nationalism , protectionism, communal patrimony, and collective well-being have been replaced by the neoliberal ideal of the entrepreneurial individual who has internalized the values of profit maximization, self-motivation, and desire for self-advancement and whose personal ambition and accumulation is enabled by a minimalist state, myriad economic “opportunities,” and porous national borders.1 According to John Gledhill (2004:342), “the deep logic of neoliberalization [is] the transformation of life itself into a marketable commodity and the imperative for us all to market ourselves.” As a result of the pervasiveness of this “neoliberal governmentality” (Ferguson and Gupta 2002), political and economic oppression often seem more diffuse and dispersed , a confusing and constantly changing constellation of actors, institutions , and practices. In response, there has been a renewed flourishing of “civil society,” as disenfranchised peoples have joined together to protest the increased economic stratification, resource alienation, and social upheaval that have resulted from the imposition of neoliberal political-economic regimes . Many of these civil society organizations have challenged state claims of “vertical encompassment” (Ferguson and Gupta 2002) by joining transna- 2 Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous tional networks and movements and seeking justice from international institutions such as the United Nations. The current historical conjuncture poses an array of theoretical challenges: Do states matter anymore, or, following scholars such as Arjun Appadurai (1996), is it more appropriate to characterize the world as composed of freeflowing transnational processes and “scapes” (mediascapes, technoscapes, and so forth) in which the influence of the state is declining if not defunct? Should we celebrate the emancipatory possibilities of transnational activism and advocacy , or does it have limits? How do activists and civil society organizations navigate the twisted terrain of community-state-transnational relations to demand recognition, rights, and resources? Most fundamentally, what are the possibilities for effective political action in a world shaped by the legacies of colonialism and the contemporary policies and practices of neoliberalism? One important transnational movement that has emerged over the past few decades as a powerful site of political protest and mobilization for historically marginalized groups is the indigenous peoples’ movement. Indigenous activists and organizations have a long history in the Americas (Gray 1997; Ramos 1998; Warren 1998; Warren and Jackson 2002, Jackson and Warren 2005, de la Peña 2005), Australia (Povinelli 1993, 2002; Merlan 2005), New Zealand, and other former settler colonies where their status as “first peoples”—in the face of conquest , imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism—is generally uncontested. For years, indigenous inhabitants in these regions participated in various collective actions to redress past wrongs and to protect and promote present and future rights. In recent decades, however, these scattered disenfranchised groups have recognized the similarities in their historical experiences and structural positions within their respective nation-states and coalesced into a broad-based, transnational social movement.2 As a result, they have reframed formerly “domestic ” disputes into international claims for recognition and rights and transformed the status of indigenous peoples from peripheral minority groups with little political recognition or power vis-à-vis their nation-states to transnational activists with formidable international lobbies and leverage. Like the formation of transnational campaigns for environmental protections, human rights, women’s rights, and so forth,3 the formation of a viable, visible, and effective indigenous rights movement has been facilitated by an array of “transnational connections” (Hannerz 1996): the increased (although still uneven) access to and affordability of the Internet and other communication and transportation technologies; the transnational production, consumption, and circulation of [34.237.245.80] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 10:41 GMT) Introduction 3 popular media images; and, especially, the exchange of ideas, experiences, and strategies afforded by international meetings and networks.4 In Africa, by contrast, where the term “indigenous” was adopted more recently as a tool for social and political mobilization, the contemporary lack of a dominant colonial population...