It Could Happen Here - The Meaning of Indigeneity feat. Andrew

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

An exploration of two different ways to define being indigenous.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking musica, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories,

combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight-up comedia, and that's a song that only nuestra gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Could Happen Here, but you know, very few things actually happen. I'm Andrew Siege of the YouTube channel Andrewism. Now, indigeneity is a contentious topic, now more than ever.

Not when it comes to flora and fauna, of course. As far as I know, it's a pretty simple matter of being considered indigenous to an ecosystem when they haven't been introduced through human intervention or manipulated by human cultivation. As over millions of years, these living things have become well-suited to their habitats, carefully adapted to the region's soil, climate, and food web. When it comes to people, we're talking politics. They create some confusion about what it means to be indigenous, especially when questions of land rights, autonomy, and reparations enter the equation. Most people understand that Native American nations and Aboriginal Australians are indigenous, but they don't really know what that means.

Some might then ask, well if indigenous just means originating from a place, then aren't all homo sapiens indigenous to Africa? Why should one group's claim of indigeneity take precedence over any other? Others may ask the question, if a group occupies a region for several generations, does that then make them indigenous? Are white Americans indigenous if their family has been there since the founding of the US? Are French people indigenous to France? And if so, does that somehow justify their xenophobia toward refugees?

But when generations of marginalized groups have been struggling to retain their social, cultural, economic, and political sovereignty, and achieve justice, reparations, and liberation after centuries of oppression and attempted annihilation, we need to stand in informed solidarity. Thus, it is vital for us to understand what it means to be indigenous. From what I gather through my research, which was focused on the work of just a few North American indigenous scholars, Tayaki Alfred, Jeff Quanticell, and Robin Wall Kimmerer, indigeneity can be interpreted as a matter of colonial relationship and or as a matter of a land relationship, a relationship to place. These two definitions are, of course, highly overlapping. You really can't get away from how colonization informed the land and vice versa.

But let's start with the first interpretation of indigeneity. According to Tayaki Alfred and Jeff Cordesell, indigenousness is an identity constructed, shaped, and lived in the politicized context of contemporary colonialism. It is an existence oppositional to colonial societies and states and a consciousness of struggle against such forces of colonization. No two indigenous groups are exactly alike, of course. There is significant diversity in their cultures, contexts, and relationships with colonial

forces, but they do share that struggle to survive as distinct peoples in an environment hostile to their existence. Efforts to marginalize and eradicate indigenous peoples may not always be as overt as they once were, with some noticeably overt exceptions, but the historic and ongoing dispossession of indigenous peoples, the erasure of indigenous histories, geographies, and languages, and the current situation of deprivation persist nonetheless. Even so-called reconciliation efforts are tainted by the reality that indigenous peoples remain, as in earlier colonial eras,

fundamentally occupied and disempowered peoples, stripped of autonomy in their own homelands and pressured into surrender and cooperation with an inherently unjust colonial order just to ensure their basic physical survival. By this understanding of indigeneity, it can be said that without a colonizer, without systems in place and actions being taken to marginalize, disempower, and destroy their societies in favor of a colonial replacement, there is no need for the concept of indigenous. Without colonialism, there would be no status of indigenous to be

imposed upon groups of people whose very existence and claim to the land is an obstacle to that colonial endeavour. The UN working group of indigenous issues drew partially from this understanding when attempting to define indigenous peoples in 1986. Quote, Indigenous communities, peoples, and nations are those which have in a historical continuity with Quote, society, and are determined to preserve, develop, and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories and their ethnic identity as the basis of their continued existence as peoples in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions, and legal systems. By this definition, Amerindians in the Caribbean, Aboriginal Australians, Adivasis in India, Native North and South Americans, Siberians, Ainu, Kurds, Syrians,

Yazidi, Palestinians, Amazigh, Sami, Basque, Sapmi, Basques, Hawaiians, Maori, San, Mguti, Papuans, Chams, and many more are all indigenous peoples. There are layers of nuance yet to be highlighted. peoples. There are layers of nuance yet to be highlighted. The colonial situation is not a simple binary of indigenous and colonist. For example, in much of the Americas, Africans who were indigenous to their own homelands were displaced and enslaved under the colonial regime. They may not be indigenous to the Americas, but they weren't driving settler colonial society either. In fact, some were enslaved by indigenous people as well. At the same time, some members of the African diaspora would join existing indigenous societies and later create their own, such as the Garifuna of St. Vincent, Honduras, and Belize. Meanwhile, in modern-day Africa, though all African ethnic groups can technically be considered indigenous to the continent,

the concept of specific indigenous peoples within Africa refers to those groups whose traditional practices and land claims have been placed outside of the dominant state systems and exist in conflict with the objectives and policies implemented by post-colonial governments, companies, and the surrounding dominant societies. by post-colonial governments, companies, and the surrounding dominant societies. Such a definition can similarly be applied to modern-day Asia, where governments like Indonesia, India, China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh have infamously refused to recognize the existence of indigenous peoples within their territories. These countries, like most countries in the world, did not ratify the International Labour Organization Convention 169 in 1989, known as the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention concerning the rights of Indigenous peoples. The UN's Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, passed in 2007, would, however, be voted on approvingly by most of the world, including the same countries that haven't recognized the indigenous peoples within their borders. All four of the countries that rejected that particular resolution, Canada, America, Australia, and New Zealand, would later change their vote in favor

of the Declaration, of course with their own tacked-on interpretations and emphasis on the Declaration's legally non-binding nature, as is to be expected from settler colonial societies. There are approximately 250 to 600 million indigenous peoples around the world today, each facing the reality of having their lands, cultures, and forms of organization attacked, co-opted, commodified, and reconstructed by various states. Regardless of their legal recognition, indigenous peoples themselves have long understood that their endurance as a people will continue to depend on their connection to land, culture, and community. Which brings us to

the second interpretation of indigeneity, closely related to the first, as an identity rooted in a relationship to place, whether that be physical as with land, social as with community, or cultural as with culture. An indigenous relationship to land must be reciprocal, with give and take, based on a view of the land and water as a gift that must be cared for over generations. According to Haudenosaunee mythology, as recounted by Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiden Sweetgrass, the mother goddess Sky Woman came to the land as an immigrant from the heavens, but became indigenous by listening to the land, learning from other species to understand how to live on it, giving as she received, and caring for the earth and its keepers for the sake of those who would inherit it when she passed on.

In their view, the land is identity, it is ancestral connection, it is pharmacy, it is library, and it is home, the source of all that sustains and the sacred ground upon which those would observe their responsibility to the world. By this understanding, it can be said that indigeneity is born out of land connection established through observation and relationship. Indigenous peoples have historically been mobile, either by choice or by force. But regardless of where they might find themselves, homeland or not, even if there were other indigenous peoples in their new environments, as long as they observe the processes and ceremonies of generational relationship building based on mutual respect, understanding, and love for the land in

common, they remained Indigenous. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. I'm Jack Peace Thomas, and I'm inviting you to join me and a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts dedicated to protecting and celebrating our stories. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while commuting or running errands, for those who find themselves seeking solace, wisdom, and refuge between the chapters. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Together, we'll dissect classics and contemporary works while uncovering the stories of the brilliant writers behind them. Blacklit is here to amplify the voices of Black writers

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identity, community, and breaking down barriers in all sorts of industries. Don't miss out on the fun, el té caliente, and life stories. Join me for Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get into todo lo actual y viral. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, better offline is your unvarnished

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that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh.

And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with.

His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation.

Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So then, the question might arise.

Why aren't settlers in Dishonest a place if their family has lived on land for generations? The answer lies in relationship. Settler society, as a whole, is based on an extractivist, capitalist relationship with the land, focused on exploiting the land and its resources. Without a relationship with the land that extends reverence to a deeper understanding of its complex interdependence, settler society can never become indigenous to place. Of course, it goes without saying that not every indigenous group or indigenous practice is perfectly sustainable.

Some have been rather destructive and even speciocidal. But if we are to work with this definition, to conceive of being indigenous as something based on cultivating a long-term relationship to place, that indigeneity must be contingent on maintaining the health and longevity of that relationship. Without community, there cannot be indigeneity. Much like the trees in a forest are interconnected by subterranean networks of mycorrhizae which enable them to share resources and survive as a whole. In order to be indigenous to place, community must exist to sustain that web of reciprocity with the land so that it all may flourish. Indigeneity to place extends to culture as well, which is deeply tied to the land it develops on. Cultural ceremonies, according to

Kimra, focus attention so that attention becomes intention. If you stand together and profess a thing before your community, it holds you accountable. Ceremonies transcend the boundaries of the individual and resonate beyond the human realm. Such practices should be reciprocal, as ceremonies create communities and communities create ceremonies, as well create communities and communities create ceremonies, as well as organic, not appropriating existing cultural celebrations or tending toward the commercial. Our social fabric has become withered and fragmented by the pace of modern life, leaving

little room for ceremonies outside of religion or rites of personal transition such as birthdays, weddings, and funerals. But ceremonies and the shared emotions they generate are part of what builds community. When we gather for graduations, for example, a sense of pride, relief, nostalgia, and excitement builds in the social atmosphere, hopefully fueling the confidence and strength of those who are going on to pursue their passions. But Kimmerer wants us to imagine standing by a river, flooded with those same feelings as the salmon marsh into the auditorium of their estuary. Being indigenous to place means cultivating cultural ceremonies that honour the land and all the cycles and seasons of life within it.

Now that we have a clearer understanding of these two distinct yet related understandings of indigeneity, as both an identity formed as part of a colonial relationship and an identity rooted in a relationship to place, I believe that we should explore how this understanding can be applied to decolonization and social revolution. Decolonization is the process of unsettling colonial power structures, whether that be through overturning acts of enclosure by building new commons, overturning acts of possession by reclaiming our spaces and identities, or overturning acts of administration through social revolution. Social revolution is a complete transformation

of our society, economy, culture, philosophy, technology, relationships, and politics. An ongoing and heterogeneous change in people's powers, drives, and consciousness through practical education, as well as a progressive breakdown and transformation of existing systems and institutions, punctuated by major ruptures and advances, all with the aim of self-liberation. It takes confrontation with the powers that be, non-cooperation with the established order of things, and prefiguration of new social relations, institutions, and infrastructure and practices in the here and now. If we maintain the interpretation of indigeneity as based on one's position in an colonial relationship, then the decolonization process will entail the abolition of that relationship as the premise of identity, and therefore the

abolition of indigeneity as a status. Colonial legacies have effectively left indigenous communities legally and politically compartmentalized and culturally, socially, and spiritually weakened within the narrow parameters of the state, where they end up diverting the crucial energy necessary to confront state power and develop the process of decolonization toward mimicking the practices of the dominant non-indigenous legal political institutions through, for example, land claims and self-government processes. What the decolonization movement needs, according to Maya Yucateco poet Feliciano Sanchez-Chan, are zones of refuge, places where indigenous knowledge can be guarded, exercised, and sustained. In Mesoamerica, these zones of refuge represent safe spaces where the diverse cultural expressions

of the region can persist in spite of state efforts to create a homogenized Mexican national identity. The concept of zones of refuge is consistent with the traditional objectives of cultural preservation and autonomy and with the social revolutionary aims of prefiguration, which seeks to sow the seeds of future relationships, institutions, and practices in the here and now. Through the expansion of zones of refuge and other institutions of resistance and autonomy, we can realize decolonization in reality.

But again, this idea of indigeneity via colonization is just one understanding of the two. We need to explore another approach to decolonization, one that recognizes the power and potential of indigenous relationships with the land. Globally, the UN recognizes that indigenous peoples protect 80% of the world's remaining biodiversity, and scientists have shown that indigenous management practices in Brazil, Canada, and Australia provide the same level of ecosystem support and protection as any imposed protected area, which makes it abundantly clear that the colonial approach of conservation via dispossession removes the very people who take care of our most important ecosystems. Over the course of Bread and Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer highlights

the reciprocal relationship with the earth that many indigenous groups, including her Potawatomi culture, have cultivated over generations. The principles of the gift economy is an essential aspect to this relationship, which forms the basis of indigeneity to place. The gift economy is a system of exchange where resources and services are shared without expectation of remuneration or quid pro quo. The gift economy extends not just to people, but also our non-human kin, caring and being cared for in turn. If we want to restore that relationship, we can start by planting a garden. A garden can be a haven for native flora,

a resting place for various fauna, a feast for endangered pollinators, a sustainer of local water table, and a hub of thriving soil. Not only does it benefit both our health and the health of the planet, but it is also a nursery for nurturing a connection that extends beyond that small patch of dirt. I don't believe that merely building a connection with the land can make someone indigenous, but not being indigenous doesn't exclude us from aiding the renewal of the world. Kimmerer uses the example of the broadleaf planting, also known as the white man's footprint. Despite not being indigenous to the Americas, it has become an honored member of the plant

community because it thrives as a good neighbor instead of as a destructive invader. While other invasive species poison the soil or overrun the land, the white man's footprint took on a strategy of helpful coexistence, even sharing some of its healing properties with those who ask of it. It is not indigenous, but it has become naturalized. Quote, being naturalized to a place means to live as if this is the land that feeds you, as if these are the streams from which you drink, that build your body and fill your spirit. To become naturalized is to know that your ancestors lie in this ground.

Here you will give your gifts and meet your responsibilities. To become naturalized is to live as if your children's future matters. To take care of the land as if our lives and the lives of all our relatives depend on it. Because they do. Decolonization requires to uproot invasive, irreverent, and destructive individualist capitalist settler societies in order to rebuild in a way that treats the land like the home that we share and are responsible for. It requires to receive and honor the knowledge in the land, to care for its keepers, and

pass on that knowledge to the next generation. And it is crucial that we elevate Indigenous voices, knowledges, and pedagogical approaches in pursuit of this aim. All power to all the people. This has been Ikra Pane. Peace. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Thanks for listening. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead,

now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. The 2025 iHeart Podcast Awards are coming. This is the chance to nominate your podcast for the industry's biggest award. Submit your podcast for nomination now at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. But hurry, submissions close on December 8th. Hey, you've been doing all that talking. It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast,

and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Welcome to Gracias Come Again, a podcast by Honey German, where we get real and dive straight into todo lo actual y viral. We're talking musica, los premios, el chisme, and all things trending in my cultura. I'm bringing you all the latest happening in our entertainment world

and some fun and impactful interviews with your favorite Latin artists, comedians, actors, and influencers. Each week, we get deep and raw life stories, combos on the issues that matter to us, and it's all packed with gems, fun, straight-up comedia, and that's a song that only Nuestra Gente can sprinkle. Listen to Gracias Come Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.