I am looking for studies around the World showing evidence of improvements in political and management capabilities of indigenous peoples once the central government provides them with self government institutions. I am also interested in how the political relationship between indigenous people and non-indigenous political actors are changed by self governance, specially when there is a previous history of conflict. Does self governance change the perception of trust between actors?
Supposedly, the indigenous communities already have the capability to exercise self-determination and autonomy -at least, that is what they claim in most countries in Latin America. Something like: "we have our own political, economic... structures, therefore, we have the right to govern ourselves". If that is true, an actual autonomy would improve those structures but not change them very much. I would say, in the case of acculturated indigenous peoples that lost those traditional political and social structures, an autonomy would have much stronger effects - there is the need to construct the structures for self-determination and there will be problems with disfunctional structures, corruption and so on.
In Ecuador, this has been studies in a project led by Ileana Almeida (Latautonomy) and several anthropologists like Victor Bretón.
This is not a zero-sum game, but rather entailed by larger political problems in regard to the power of nation states. Since at least 1982 in Canada (see s.35 Constitution Act, or 1973 with the Calder Decision), First Nations have been asserting a right to self-governance, and once self-government measures have been advanced, have witnessed concomitant improvements in social and economic standards, although it is often slowly attained. See the James Bay Cree, the Nisga'a, both of whom agreed to certain degrees of land cession to the Crown, with the promise of more control of governance. The majority of First Nations in Canada have very limited degrees of self-government, and some would argue, at best it is self-administration within the ambit of the Indian Act. And high levels of poverty and socio-economic strife continue. See the most recent country report of UN Special Rapporteur James Anaya, who identified increasing self-governance as crucial to counteracting such strife and inequality. This is all quite different from self-determination, which implies a much stronger autonomous authority from the colonizing state system, and which is anticipated by Indigenous groups advancing UNDRIP. Self-governance flowing not from a colonizing state-sanctioned right, but rather from a strong position of self-determination, would probably look quite different. Have a look at the Indigenous activist work of Arthur Manuel and Russell Diabo for potent discussions of this point.
Actually, I just checked: the book that came out of Latautonomy was published by Ileana Almeida and others in the editorial Abya Yala and is called "Autonomía indígena".
The concept of स्वधर्म (swadharm) from Bharat (India) throws light on this concept. The entity (people / community /) which is performing its duties and takes care of its responsibilities on its own is said to be following स्वधर्म. Self governance in this scenario increases the productivity and satisfaction especially of indigenous communities because they are close to nature and understand their reality better than anyone else.
Shlok from Shrimadbhagwadgeeta 3.35
श्रेयान्स्वधर्मो विगुण: परधर्मात्स्वनुष्ठितात् । स्वधर्मे निधनं श्रेय: परधर्मो भयावह:।।
- Badges
- Science topic