Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
There are an estimated 370 million indigenous people in more than 70
countries worldwide … Despite their cultural differences, the various
groups of indigenous peoples around the world share common problems
related to the protection of their rights as distinct peoples … Indigenous
people are arguably among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups
of people in the world today.
(Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Human Rights n.d.)
Insofar as indigenous communities have experienced war, these experiences
with their attendant needs have not been the target for human security policy,
with the effect that they had been some of the least noticed, acknowledged,
supported or attended-to vulnerable groups (and it can be argued that this
situation has largely remained):
Before September 11, 2001 indigenous nations in many places in the
world had been engaged in low-intensity conflicts either in defence of
their peoples and territories or in movements of self-determination (as
many as 80 different conflicts). These conflicts had been described in
the press and by foreign policy spokespersons as 'internal conflicts' or as
regional conflicts.
('Program Synopsis' 2002)
In the above respect, indigenous experiences with violence and violent con-
flict play a role insofar as these experiences are a part of traditional security
logic and interests (state security and the threats to state security). However,
they have also been positioned as the 'other', either as a source of the threat
defined by dominant voices or, on the other hand, are included amongst the
many unheard voices in regional conflicts that did not yet warrant the atten-
tion of global North or Western attention on the basis of human security or
otherwise.
Understanding the nature of security in the indigenous context goes even
further when it is taken into consideration that natural resources, a significant
element of many indigenous cultures and livelihoods, are often exploited to
the detriment of indigenous cultures, threatening cultural, community and
economic securities, in addition to personal and political securities if these
resources are extracted under threat or action of violence (ibid.), or economic
isolation. An extensive International Polar Year (2006-2007) project map-
ping and examining the relationships between northern Russian indigenous
groups in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug in northwest Russia and the oil and
gas industries revealed very specific tensions between economic security (the
benefits of the oil and gas industry) and community/identity security of the
Nenets people (Dallmann et al . 2010). Although some (but not all) of the com-
munities surveyed during the project welcomed the economic development
 
Search WWH ::




Custom Search