Women’s participation in decision making - Environmental and Human Security in the Arctic - page 204

have human rights - structured as 'aboriginal rights' by colonizing states -
that existed before the imposition of the colonial state, and continue to exist.
In many cases, particularly in the Americas where colonial governments and
peoples became permanent, the refusal of the state to recognize Indigenous
peoples' rights have resulted in an unresolved relationship with the state,
wherein Indigenous peoples remain colonized (e.g. dispossessed and in condi-
tions of economic, political and social marginalization ). 2 In general, human
rights are understood as protecting an individual's fundamental human inter-
ests, such as protection of the home and bodily safety, and are believed to be
universally applicable to all persons in all societies. Canadian political phi-
losopher Will Kymlicka has been influential in broadening the conception
of human rights to describe how Indigenous rights differ from the domi-
nant understanding of individually held human rights developed by Western
liberal political thinkers and in positing a place for collective rights in the
human rights discourse. His argument is based on the notion that Indigenous
peoples require rights that exceed individual human rights, such as a collec-
tive right to the traditional lands that form the basis of continuing group
livelihood and coherence, or a right to meaningful political engagement, in
order to ensure access to a secure base of Indigenous culture. Kymlicka argues
that, in the absence of such a firm societal basis, individual rights and the
attending concepts of individual autonomy and freedom cannot be attained
(Kymlicka 1998).
Yet, Kymlicka ascribes the title of 'national minorities' to Indigenous peo-
ples within the Canadian state. As the classification of minority requires there
to be an established authority (i.e. Canadian Federal Government), this des-
ignation represents another attempt to assimilate Indigenous peoples within
the colonial structure by placing Indigenous peoples in a fixed relationship
with a particular political standard, as Kymlicka does not engage with an
Indigenous understanding of nationhood. 3 These points highlight the need
to further explore the tension in discussions surrounding Indigenous rights
as human rights. If Indigenous peoples have a collective right to maintain
practices and institutions that differ from the dominant settler state, would
their social and political institutions be exempt from basic human rights leg-
islation and charters of rights? This issue becomes particularly prominent in
terms of thinking about the rights of 'sub-groups' of vulnerable persons, often
depicted as Indigenous women, within an Indigenous community, and is
often posed as an irreconcilable conflict between group, or Indigenous, rights
and individual liberal rights.
Indigenous feminist scholars recognize the vulnerability of Indigenous
women in particular communities and in particular situations, but ascribe
disparities in the power accorded to men and women in indigenous cultures
to the influence of Western beliefs (Turpel-Lafond 1997; McIvor 1999;
Kafarowski 2002). Thus, the protection and empowerment of women in
Indigenous communities would not hinge upon the enforcement of Western