The Fourth World Journal (FWJ) is a peer-reviewed international journal published by the Center for World Indigenous Studies, USA. CWIS is an Indigenous -directed, 501 (c) 3 Non Profit research, policy and education organization. FWJ is a platform for international scholars and activists, and political and cultural leaders. Published continuously since 1984, The FWJ has been a reliable, trusted, and respected source of contemporary Fourth World scholarship and commentary from around the world. The journal publishes studies, commentaries, and analyses of the ideas, knowledge, and conditions of more than 5,000 Fourth World (Indigenous) Nations, representing over 1.9 billion people globally. The journal publishes articles across a diverse range of fields, including: Anthropology, communication and cross-cultural studies, demography, indigenous environmental sciences, food sovereignty, development governance, economics, education, ethics, geography, history, international relations, indigenous legal systems and law, linguistics, media studies, methodologies, philosophy, political science, population studies, psychology, public health, sociology, literature, visual and performing arts (music, theater, and dance), religious studies, and women’s/feminist studies.
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This article was originally published in Vol. 1, No. 1, October 1985. In this article, Rÿser discusses the actions Indigenous nations should take based on international legislation developed between 1970 and 1985. While he considers much of this change superficial, he focuses on the 1977 Protocol I and II additions to the Geneva Conventions, which present new opportunities other than war for nations to achieve self-detemination. Comparing these protocols to the original Geneva Conventions—which enabled genocide within decolonized states under the guise of respecting state sovereignty—Rÿser highlights their potential. He explains the functions of Protocol I, showing that while it is focused on international conflict, it supports Indigenous causes by implicitly including Fourth World combatants through its defintion of the involved parties and the role of supervising states. Rÿser emphasizes how it normalizes recognition of Indigenous nations and helps prevent genocide. He also discusses Protocol II on internal conflicts, which, though a step forward, is less comprehensive and therefore unlikely to be widely applied given Fourth World nations’ limited access to international institutions. Overall, Rÿser calls on Indigenous nations to take initiative in enforcing both protocols, suggesting they ratify the accords to enable peaceful conflict resolution and seize the opportunity to positively influence the international order and gain equal footing with states.
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Regulating Access to Customary Fourth World Foods and Medicines
This article was originally published in Vol. 17, No. 1, Winter 2019. Fourth World (indigenous) nations regularly express concerns, frustrations, and demands declaring their rights to sustained access to wild-harvested plants and animals as sources of medicines and nutrition for the benefit of their people. They give rhetorical power to the claim that biological diversity is essential for sustainable life on the planet. Yet, despite public declarations and appeals to prevent contamination, damage, or destruction of biologically diverse medicinal sources of wild plants and animals, biologically diverse plants and wildlife continue to be destroyed. In this article, the authors argue that little actual evidence exists to demonstrate that either the cultural and governing leadership of Fourth World nations or states (or their international bodies) proactively engage in the promulgation of enforceable customary or statutory regulations or laws ensuring access and uses of medicinal plants and animals beneficial to indigenous communities. The authors furthermore argue that cultural and governing leaders in Fourth World nations can and must initiate regulatory rules, laws, and practices that they enforce to prevent continuing plant and animal damage and destruction reported by the nations themselves and the states exercising jurisdiction. Non-Fourth World jurisdictions (cities, states, provinces/counties) regularly engage in economic, social, and political development activities that alter and often destroy access to or the healthful use of wild plants and animals beneficial for the health and sustainability of Fourth World communities and individuals. These alterations include activities that elevate CO2 and other greenhouse gas levels, herbicide and insecticide contamination, and genetic modifications. Pathways to restore access to, and protection of, customary wild-harvested foods and medicines to Fourth World nations may include a framework, statutory incorporation of customary laws (cultural incorporation), complementary jurisdictional regulation, or intergovernmental protocols. Alternatively, a form of internationally supervised reconciliation that in part holds non-Fourth World jurisdictions accountable for the destruction and restoration of dietary and medicinally beneficial wildlife that recognizes the agency of Fourth World nations to proactively establish and enforce customary and statutory laws may serve as an alternative or parallel initiative.
United Nations Conference on Environmental Development
Copyright (c) 2025 Rudolph C. Rÿser, PhD, Leslie Korn, PhD, MPH, Dina Gilio-Whitaker (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Trust Arrangements between States and Indigenous Nations in the International Environment
This article was originally published in Vol. 12, No. 2, Winter 2014. In this transcript of Dr. Rÿser’s remarks made before the US Department of the Interior’s Secretarial Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform, held in Seattle, Washington, on Feb 13, 2003, Dr. Rÿser examines historical and contemporary trust relationships between states and indigenous nations. He outlines the origins and evolution of these arrangements, emphasizing the imbalance of power and the often exploitative nature of such relationships.
Commission on Indian Trust Administration and Reform
Dr. Miguel Alfonso Martinez Final Report
Copyright (c) 2025 Rudolph C. Rÿser, PhD (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
Conjoining: The Reawakening to Spiralism from the Age of Progressivism
Written in 1999 at the beginning of the Mayan calendar's transformation to a new era, this article explores the value of Indigenous American thought systems, which he terms Cuarto Spiralism. Rÿser argues that while all cultural philosophies contribute to a shared quest to understand reality, Spiralism offers a more meaningful framework than dominant modern ideologies—yet still accommodates elements of them. Drawing from his Cowlitz perspective, Rÿser critiques progressivism and its rise to prominence, highlighting its assumptions of human dominance, rationalism, and inevitable improvement. He shows how these beliefs have enabled Western conquest and ecological harm, and how Spiralism now challenges them. Using Mesoamerican and Cowlitz traditions like the Give-Away, Rÿser presents Spiralism as a philosophy that unites reason and intuition, embraces both material and immaterial realities, and sees time as cyclical—where past, present, and future are intertwined. In contrast to progressivism’s emphasis on accumulation, Spiralism calls for respect, sacrifice, and balance. At this time of world renewal, Rÿser suggests that Spiralism offers hope for restoring harmony with the Earth and with one another.
In this article, Rÿser discusses the actions Indigenous nations should take based on international legislation developed between 1970 and 1985. While he considers much of this change superficial, he focuses on the 1977 Protocol I and II additions to the Geneva Conventions, which present new opportunities other than war for nations to achieve self-detemination. Comparing these protocols to the original Geneva Conventions—which enabled genocide within decolonized states under the guise of respecting state sovereignty—Rÿser highlights their potential. He explains the functions of Protocol I, showing that while it is focused on international conflict, it supports Indigenous causes by implicitly including Fourth World combatants through its defintion of the involved parties and the role of supervising states. Rÿser emphasizes how it normalizes recognition of Indigenous nations and helps prevent genocide. He also discusses Protocol II on internal conflicts, which, though a step forward, is less comprehensive and therefore unlikely to be widely applied given Fourth World nations’ limited access to international institutions. Overall, Rÿser calls on Indigenous nations to take initiative in enforcing both protocols, suggesting they ratify the accords to enable peaceful conflict resolution and seize the opportunity to positively influence the international order and gain equal footing with states.
This article was originally published in Vol. 9, No. 1, Summer 2010. The study documents the outcomes of a research simulation conducted during a ̈Global Pluralism ̈ course at Antioch University/Muckleshoot College in 2009. During this 10-week exercise, ten graduate students assumed the roles of various stakeholders in climate negotiations, mirroring real-world dynamics observed in international conferences such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This simulation revealed indigenous peoples’ marginalized status within civil society frameworks.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rudolph C. Rÿser, Ph.D. (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0
A Framework for Implementing the Principle of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) – Comity or Conflict
This article was originally published in Vol. 21, No. 2, Winter 2022. The central issue facing the world’s first nations was historically and remains today the question of access to and use of the territory they occupy. Peoples’ migrations, occupations, and colonization have continued as part of human relations for more than 60,000 years. Over this time, relations between emerging nations featured one nation being absorbed by another, some becoming associated through social mixing and independent nations remaining independent from one another. Peoples achieve these cultural processes through forced absorption, cultural exchange, or recognition of the equality of power. These changes continue today, except that the establishment of permanent boundaries around nations or combined nations has forced the need for structures and processes for mediating relations between nations that were forced inside bounded areas of states. These circumstance demands determining whether nations will remain “absorbed, associated or become independent of modern states. Nations’ claims over their territories come into conflict with States’ claims over the same regions—a circumstance exacerbated by the economic and business interests of transnational corporations and commercial enterprises seeking to profit from the location of nations’ territories or access to undeveloped subsurface raw materials, lands, forests, surface minerals and soils supportive of agriculture. Nations and States constitute the primary political systems of human organization required under modern state-based international law to implement the principle of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC). However, without a formal and enforceable mechanism to carry out international and domestic pledges intended to implement nations’ rights to “consent,” the imbalance of power between nations and their counterparts in states and corporations leaves nations depending on their opponent’s implementation is possible. This article discusses subjects of concern between nations, states, transnational corporations, and commercial businesses. Given limited FPIC details expressed in state-based laws and agreements, neither states nor nations can be assured of an acceptable and defined process for reaching mutual agreements or methods for enforcing commitments made by consenting parties. Defining the establishment and functions of intergovernmental or non-governmental monitoring mechanisms that may serve as agencies for facilitating mediation or negotiations between nations and states, I discuss these in detail.
To Establish a Congress of Nations and States (CNS)
This article was originally published in Vol. 19, No. 2, Winter 2020. In my book entitled, Biodiversity Wars: Coexistence of Biocultural Collapse in the 21st Century (DayKeeper Press, 2019)[1] I discuss at length the need for a renewed effort to identify and advance an analysis and proposals for new mechanisms to bridge the economic, social, political and cultural gap between Fourth World nations and the world’s 203 states. I point to the ultimate necessity of establishing constructive mechanisms for cooperation between nations and states with an urgency that responds to the global emergency that is the impending environmental collapse threatening sustainable biodiversity and the diversity of Fourth World peoples. The threat I maintain is in no small measure the result of human waste and the promotion of unrestrained development and consumption that destroys life-supporting plants and animals and radically alters the global climate. Central to all of this is a needed shift in international policy toward the respect and acceptance of Fourth World self-determination—the right of Fourth World peoples to exist—by states, corporations, trans-state religions, and non-governmental organizations. I propose the convening of a permanent Congress of Nations and States—an innovative international relations solution to long-standing disputes between Fourth World nations and the internationally recognized states. And further, I propose that this Congress authorize the establishment of an International Criminal Court on Genocide for Fourth World nations. These are central topics in my book, but here I wish to share an extract from a chapter focused on the development of the Congress of Nations and States. The following extract from Chapter 4 of my book summarizes the process in 1992 of organizing and implementing a plan to establish the Congress of Nations and States with the newly formed government of the Russian Federation serving as the host. The Preparatory Committee had the states of Germany, Japan, and the United States as participants and the six Fourth World participating nations: Lummi Nations, San Blas Kuna, Saami, Tibet, Yakut-Sakah, and Maasai.
United States Working Group on Indigenous Populations
Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
International Labor Organization Conventions 107 and 169
Foundation for International Cooperation and Development
Applying Fourth World Diplomatic Knowledge and Implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
This article was originally published in Vol. 13, No. 2, Winter 2015. Fourth World knowledge systems vary widely but in the contemporary international environment nations may be seen as engaging neighboring nations, states and international institutions with differing capacities. Understanding the different diplomatic capacities and levels of knowledge is critical to the process of implementing the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Mechanisms for implementing the UNDRIP must be nation specific and state specific agreeable to both sides. Forty or more years after “indigenous rights” was sounded as a human rights goal, and indigenous nations are now obliged to take diplomatic initiatives employing their history of diplomatic experience.
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
Between Indigenous Nations and the State
In this 1999 article, Dr. Rÿser examines the relationship between Indian nations and the U.S. government regarding self-determination, alongside U.S. international policy toward Indigenous peoples. He highlights contradictions in U.S. policy and discusses future possibilities for Indigenous nations. Dr. Rÿser first reviews the Western origins of sovereignty and its selective application, alongside the long history of U.S. interference in Indian affairs justified through the doctrines of plenary power and political question, showing how hope has emerged as this system began to be dismantled under President Johnson and through the 1993 trial self-governance compacts with four Northwest tribes. He then links internal reforms to international efforts, noting a disconnect between the State Department and the Department of the Interior. Dr. Rÿser critiques U.S. leadership at international forums like ILO Convention 169 and the draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, arguing that Indigenous rights were undermined by weakening language around “peoples” and “self-determination.” He outlines the State Department’s view that international law should impose only minimal obligations, that local realities must be considered, and that collective rights are not part of international law. Dr. Rÿser emphasizes that this back-step — treating self-determination narrowly and politically minimizing Indigenous rights — shows the State Department’s obliviousness to international realities, real-world consequences, and its prior commitments. He warns that, as a result, Indigenous groups are increasingly forced to take matters into their own hands internationally. He calls for Indian nations within the U.S. to engage internationally, cautioning that while domestic self-governance is progressing, these international policy shifts could threaten future gains.
State Department policy on Indigenous rights
draft UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
1993 Indian self-governance demonstration project
Reagan’s Indian policy, contradictions in U.S. Indigenous policy
Originally published in: Rÿser, R. (1997). Observations On ‘Self’ and ‘Knowing’, In H. Wautischer (Ed.), Tribal Epistemologies: Essays in the Philosophy of Anthropology (pp. 17-31), Routledge N.Y. Drawing from his upbringing on Cowlitz land, Rudolph Rÿser explores in this article the dynamic between individual and collective consciousness that exists across all living beings. He suggests that true knowing arises when the individual comes to understand the collective—and that, at its essence, knowledge is an awareness of the tensions that drive change. Rÿser asserts that the natural state of all beings is immersion in the collective, and that it is only through personal will or external manipulation that one becomes vulnerable and disconnected from this shared sense of existence. Thus, all life forms possess an inherent understanding of collective consciousness, as it is their default condition. To support this, Rÿser examines examples from nature as well as five influential worldviews that various human cultures have used to frame the relationship between time, space, and place: cyclicism, cuarto spiralism, fatalism, providentialism, and progressivism. He argues that, rather than being fundamentally distinct, these perspectives are interwoven attempts at understanding and participating in collective consciousness—differentiated more by cultural context than by core intent. Ultimately, Rÿser frames the purpose of human life as a journey of learning—about ourselves and the world around us—so that we may find our place within the collective consciousness of all living things and the universe’s ever-shifting nature.
understanding change, connection between lifeforms
This article was originally published in Vol. 2, No. 3, Winter 1990. Written in 1990, this article examines the key issues and debates between Indigenous nations, states, and international organizations surrounding the content and adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), proposed for the 1992 General Assembly. It explains how, after decades of the UN reinforcing the state system through resolutions, the rights of internally colonized peoples began to take center stage, leading to the proposal of UNDRIP. After presenting the full text of the draft declaration, the article analyzes comments from various entities on the definitions of terminology, the extent of rights and self-determination protected, correlations to other UN declarations, the tension between individual and collective rights, and methods of implementation and mediation. The article concludes by discussing these disagreements and the potential paths forward through the UN bureaucracy, where both sides viewed the draft as too much of a compromise. The author argues that as long as states equate Indigenous self-determination with secession, reaching agreement may not be possible. However, by ignoring these calls for self-determination states risks provoking conflict and further threatening their sovereignty.
comments on the First Revised Text of the Draft Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
peoples, individual and collective rights
This article was originally published in Vol. 2, No. 2, September 1989. Reflection on funeral (1921-1989), historical background on Manuel, organized communities at the local level even though gov didn't like. Ideal of self-determination, Canadian White Paper 1969, changing strategies, National Indian Brotherhood, Canadian delegation to Tanzania and New Zealand, saw realities of nation-state conflicts, orgnaizing trans-national meetings with indian groups (world council for Indigneous peoples, idea of the Fourth World. Travels, Universal Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, President of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs. detication. Issues with Canadian constitutional patriation, gave confidence and hope to nations around the world.
This paper examines the exploitation of the Indigenous Oromo people’s natural resources without Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), beginning with the historical subjection and oppression of the Oromo by imperial and colonial forces. It challenges the prevailing narrative of Ethiopia’s 3,000-year independence by showing that its current geopolitical boundaries—formed no more than 175 years ago —resulted from African imperial expansion. Focusing on the Lega Dembi gold mines in southern Oromia, the analysis demonstrates how successive Ethiopian regimes have violated Gujii Oromo human and Indigenous rights through forced gold and silver extraction, precipitating severe environmental harm. Finally, it argues for the Oromo Nation’s accession to the International Covenant on the Rights of Indigenous Nations (ICRIN) and recognition by the Nations Indigenous Court Tribunal (NICT), thereby securing a legal forum to address ongoing FPIC infringements and seek redress for resource-extraction abuses. Watch the author discuss the inspiration and key insights behind this article:
ICRIN (International Covenant on the Rights of Indigenous Nations)
“NICT” (Nations Indigenous Court Tribunal)
Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC)
Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF)
An International Criminal Court for Indigenous Women
Indigenous women sit at the crux of state violence, disproportionately subjected to legal disempowerment, human rights violations, economic disenfranchisement, and environmental destruction. Existing international legal systems do not account for this gender disparity, nor do they recognize cases of ecocide, culturcide, or state-reinforced domestic violence. Studies in sexual violence prove that human trafficking and forced sterilization contribute to the racialized criminalization of Indigenous women and inflict cycles of intergenerational harm. In addition, so-called “sacrifice zones”—regions disrupted by climate catastrophe—exacerbate existing traumas. Lack of secure healthcare, land access, and education further increase the vulnerability of Indigenous women to systemic patterns of abuse. Cases brought forth by the Cinta Larga, Sami, and Kikuyu Nations across the globe highlight the necessity of a forum like the NICT to mediate between victim and perpetrator in these circumstances. The NICT presents an avenue through which these women can confront the perpetrators of these genocidal practices and seek meaningful recourse.
Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG)
The Slow Genocide of Indigenous Nations and Peoples
British historian Patrick Wolfe opined that settler colonialism is not just an event in history but is structural and, by definition, eliminates to replace over time.Colonial rule and domination often seek the extermination of occupied nations and peoples through forced assimilation and attrition. Despite the fact that colonialism is at its core ethnic cleansing, forced assimilation, and slow genocide, the protracted colonial elimination of original nations and peoples has been largely excluded from the “crime of crimes” by international institutions, the developing law of genocide, and genocide scholars. This article seeks to address that deficiency. Watch the author discuss the inspiration and key insights behind this article:
Nations International Criminal Tribunal (NICT)
An Introduction to the Nations International Criminal Tribunal
This article outlines the mechanisms of the Nations International Criminal Tribunal and the Yezidi nations’ case from which it emerged as a legal framework. It underlines the channels created by the NICT and their potential to alter global approaches to justice by providing localized and culturally appropriate legal processes. Beginning with a critique of current international governance systems, the article uses the ISIS genocide of the Yezidi peoples to articulate the necessity of a system that foregrounds Indigenous sovereignty in achieving justice. Incorporating legal evidence and highlights from his personal interviews and correspondence with Dr. Rÿser, the author explores the NICT’s charter and the intentions behind its design. Ultimately, the NICT is a comprehensive organizational model for promoting Indigenous rights locally and globally. Watch the author discuss the inspiration and key insights behind this article:
The Special Issue for the Nations International Criminal Tribunal (NICT)
Dr. Fukurai constructs an overview of this issue, its engagement with the Nations International Criminal Tribunal (NICT), and the perspectives that drive its articles. The necessity for an Indigenous-centered judicial body within the world system is not novel, and the NICT derives from centuries of Indigenous resistance against the Westphalian statist system. Yet the NICT took shape as a robust structure for accountability and justice based on the work of CWIS founder Dr. Ryser, who ensured that the NICT covered crimes previously excluded from human rights governance, including ethnocide, femicide, ecocide, and culturcide. The article begins with a discussion of the historical roots of the NICT in various resistance movements, as well as its legal precedents in the League of Nations and the Permanent Court of International Justice. The corpus of the NICT is expansive in defining genocide and proactively enforcing accountability mechanisms. Next, it outlines the six articles published and the various lenses through which the court is presented. Finally, it evaluates future directions for the NICT, examining its unique potential to advance both humanistic and ecological aims. These findings underscore the agency of Indigenous nations in sculpting alternative modes of anticolonial sovereignties. Watch the author discuss the inspiration and key insights behind this article:
Aillaquillen: The Island of Nine Moons. Cosmovision and Animism in Performance
This essay examines the narrative of the co-created community theatre show Aillaquillen: The Island of Nine Moons, presented at the Liquen Cultural Centre in the town of Villarrica, Chile, in 2022. The show was the result of a practice research project, in which I partnered with local Mapuche activist Alejandra Aillapan Huiriqueo to explore how the intrinsic values of the Mapuche worldview or cosmovision and (new) animism could be translated into intercultural theatrical practice and the performance of an environmental narrative. The intercultural process of co-creation transformed my own approach to my surroundings and culminated in a performance that told a story out of local cultural and environmental necessity.
Indigenous Food Sovereignty: Literature Review
Indigenous peoples have practiced food systems intertwined with the plants, animals, lands, and waters around them for thousands of years. These connections have frequently been severed by colonialism, producing devastating effects on Indigenous health, culture, and sovereignty. In the face of this devastation, the reflourishing of Indigenous food sovereignty constitutes a critical form of resistance. This paper provides a broad review of the academic literature on Indigenous food sovereignty, analyzing themes and case studies. This paper argues that 5 themes (health, law and the state, social perceptions of food, gender, and free trade) reflect helpful entry points for understanding this multidimensional topic. The case studies detail important aspects of food sovereignty, such as data ownership, anticolonial resistance, relationality, and seed saving. First, background on traditional food systems is given, followed by an exploration of food sovereignty, Indigenous food sovereignty, and food security in common literature. Five themes are used to ground Indigenous food sovereignty in key debates and challenges. Using the five case studies, this review aims to give the reader a sense of the inherently political nature of food systems in the experiences of Indigenous peoples by touching on a wide set of illustrative texts, examples, and cases.
Siekopai Human Ecology Achieves Land Rights Victory
On November 24, 2023, the Siekopai indigenous population residing in the Ecuadorian Amazon won a claim for the titling of their lands to their Nation. Ecuador recognized indigenous land ownership within a protected area for the first time in history. This decision also acknowledges the value of land management by the indigenous population, who, through their profound knowledge of the place, environment, animals, and spirits that inhabit it, are the best stewards of this green space as a common heritage of humanity. This paper challenges the Western logic that typically drives conservation efforts and examines the role of Indigenous self-determination as a means of ecological advancement. It further outlines the complex role of International mechanisms like Free, Prior, and Informed Consent, ILO Convention 169, and the Rio Declaration as enforcers of sustainable resource management. The court’s decision sets a valuable precedent for government collaboration with Indigenous peoples worldwide and the inclusion of Indigenous stewardship practices into environmental justice frameworks.
Re-territorializing Climate Governance: The REDD+ Initiatives in the DR Congo
The Congo has long been a site of contestation for global environmental governance strategies, with Indigenous Batwa, Bambuti, and Baaka groups at the center of transnational climate discourse. One such strategy, the REDD+ initiative (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation), has come to the fore as a carbon-trading-based solution to the environmental challenges facing the Congo Basin. This article critiques the REDD+ initiative’s deterritorialized approach, which favors the voices of international stakeholders over forest-dependent peoples Indigenous to the region. Taking a political ethnographical approach to the area of Mai-Ndombe, this research is based on formal and informal interactions with international actors, local communities, and Indigenous peoples. The strengths and weaknesses of mitigation methods like community forestry, institutionalized participation, and participatory mapping are explored. Ultimately, it is asserted that Indigenous decision-making, rather than institutionally imposed hegemony, must be integrated into the REDD+ initiative.
Indigenous Etsako Names Among Auchi People: The Influence of Islam on Their Current Naming Practices
The name or names that an individual bears is an important aspect of his or her social identity. Among the Etsako people of Auchi, Edo state, Nigeria, their indigenous names are not just couched in abstract or without justification. The article explores the influence of Islam on various Etsako names among Auchi people. This study uses an in-depth unstructured interview (IDI) to collect indigenous Etsako names, employing an accidental sampling method with a crosssection of twenty (20) key informants in each of the five indigenous communities of Auchi. The key informants are heads of households/families. The study provided several indigenous Etsako names and their literal meanings. It also revealed that before the introduction of Islam to the Etsako people of Auchi, parents gave their children indigenous Etsako names at birth. Later, however, parents started giving their children Muslim names together with indigenous Etsako names. But lately, indigenous Etsako names are increasingly endangered because the names are no longer being given to children at birth but have significantly shifted to Muslim names. The study thus concludes that the challenges of redeeming, resuscitating, and stabilizing the culture of indigenous Etsako names should be the collective responsibility of the Etsako people of Auchi.
Land Grabbing: A Colonial Tool to Marginalize an Indigenous Rural Santal Community in Bangladesh
Employing a descriptive qualitative case study methodology, this article postulates that land grabbing is a man-made situation of coercion and oppression for the indigenous Santals in Bangladesh. The violent nature of land grabbing in Palashpur, a remote village in Bangladesh, has dispersed and dislocated the once closely-knit Santal community, destroyed Indigenous social and economic institutions, traditional ways of life, pristine and serene milieu, and the community’s rhythm of life. The article analyses how land rights as essential components of human rights are being violated because of the colonial nature of the nation-state and its failure to protect the land of the indigenous peoples. By disregarding various international Indigenous land rights and the many state tenancy acts, the nation-state provides covert support to the land-grabbers. Thus, the state violates basic principles of human rights and acts as an accessory to the misery associated with territoriality. Moreover, the article explores a deep-seated nationalism engaged in insidious ethnic cleansing, resulting in an identity and existential crisis perpetrated through the dispossession of the Indigenous land in Bangladesh.
Indigenous social and economic institutions
A Critical Review of the United States Government’s Guidance for Federal Departments and Agencies on Indigenous Knowledge
Perhaps the most significant milestone in the United States Government’s advancement of indigenous knowledge in the 21st century was the recently released White House First-of-a-Kind Indigenous Knowledge Guidance for Federal Agencies. The Government Wide Guidance for Federal Departments and Agencies on Indigenous Knowledge was released on November 30, 2022, with the primary objective of equipping federal agencies and departments with clear directions on respectfully acknowledging and integrating Indigenous Peoples’ knowledge in their decision-making processes. There is an urgent need for the Department of Education to integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) into K-12 curricula. The need has never been greater for inclusive and honest discussions within educational spaces regarding the importance and value of indigenous knowledge. This article offers many possible solutions to the absence of Traditional Ecological Knowledge in K-12 curricula as developed and practiced by Indigenous Peoples. This paper seeks to advance this objective by critically reviewing the Government Guidance, exploring the importance of TEK in K-12 curricula and drawing from examples around the world, emphasizing countries that effectively integrate TEK and uphold the voices of Indigenous Peoples in the classroom. The paper first presents a critical overview of the “Guidance for Federal Departments and Agencies on Indigenous Knowledge.” It goes on to address the issue of the dearth of TEK in K-12 curricula. It follows with a call to action to the Department of Education on ways to implement techniques included in the “Guidance for Federal Departments and Agencies on Indigenous Knowledge,” as well as other possible solutions. After proffering solutions, the paper acknowledges places worldwide that have already attempted to integrate TEK in K-12 curriculum, before the concluding paragraph.
Salmon are central to the culture of Indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest. Research indicates that a diet that includes fresh salmon protects from health problems such as diabetes and heart disease, lower poverty rates, and lower mortality rates for Tribal members (Meyer 1999). In addition to these health benefits, salmon provide economic benefits to Tribal communities, including fishing-related jobs and trading opportunities (UCUT 2015). Pacific Northwest Salmon species are struggling for survival as their populations decline. A lack of salmon can be a detriment to health, the economy, social exchanges, the unity of communities, and traditional knowledge and skills handed down through generations. Deep cultural and spiritual connections with salmon are why many Tribes in the Northwest refer to themselves as “Salmon People.” This article describes this collaboration, explores the history of salmon recovery in the region, discusses the cultural importance of salmon, examines salmon recovery projects underway in the region, and details how United States-based Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians (ATNI) supports and enhances these projects with its Resolution 2022-25. During the annual session of the Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, member tribes agreed to collaborate on ATNI Resolution 2022-25 stating a shared vision and principles for salmon recovery in the Pacific Northwest. The resolution calls for strategic, collaborative, and coordinated mobilization for Tribal and federal action to address salmon recovery. The history of salmon recovery in the region is discussed to better understand this collaboration’s significance and the opportunities it presents. Regional salmon recovery projects undertaken by Inter-Tribal Organizations are detailed to show how ATNI Resolution 2022-25 can support and enhance the projects.
Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Knowledge in the Era of (Re) colonization
This paper analyzes how various of contested sites of the internationally recognized state encapsulated in the ethos of the West perpetuate colonial legacy, marginalize indigenous wisdom, and disregard ecological awareness and actions that go against the well-being of humans and the planet itself. These contested sites have been occurring due to ongoing imperialist-colonialist practices and policies imposed on indigenous peoples in the name of progress, development, and homogenization. This paper highlights the urgency and agency of restoring indigenous ecological consciousnesses and alternative ways of knowing so that they can re-emerge in our private and public lives to rebuild nations, peoples, and communities. The knowledge and acknowledgment of these issues drawing from a rural indigenous context in Bangladesh will help generate a broader understanding to formulate appropriate education policies, pedagogy, and practices that address, educate, and enlighten the world about the colonialist-capitalist agenda of exploitation and eradication of the indigenous way of life. More specifically, this paper reflects on the possibilities of an ecologically, economically, and culturally sustainable world, and it recommends ideas and concepts for sustainable education policies and practices for various stakeholders to transform damaging attitudes towards indigenous culture as well as the ecology of our planet.
Fourth World Nations vs. The States’ “Nation-Destroying” Projects From 1946 to 2020
The objective of this paper is to provide empirical analyses of the global armed conflicts between the nation and the state in the post-WWII era from 1946 to 2020. The empirical data comes from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) and the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo (PRIO). Other comparable data on global armed conflicts also exists, including the Correlates of War (WCO) information; the Militarized Interstate Dispute (MID) dataset, which is an outgrowth of WCO; the Minority at Risk (MAR) datasets from the Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM) at the University of Maryland; and the Konflict-Simulations-Modell (COSIMO) datasets from the Study Group for the Causes of War (AKUF), among others. The present analysis relies on the UCDP/PRIO dataset because it provides the most updated and regionally-detailed empirical information on armed conflicts, military confrontations, and violent battles that have taken place throughout the world. Specifically, the UCDP contains information on all contested battles situated in the “government and/or territory over the use of armed force between the military forces of two parties,” and the violent confrontations that have “resulted in at least 25 battle-related deaths each year.” Empirical examination reveals that most post-WWII military conflicts around the world have been fought between the state, on one side, and Fourth World peoples and nations (89.9%), on the other. Most of these conflicts in Asia and the Middle East (or West Asia) have also involved territorial and land disputes, while most of the intra-state armed struggles in Africa and the Americas have been fought over geo-political control of the government and its bureaucratic authority. The paper concludes by summarizing the past conflicts between the state and the nation, considering the devastating consequences of the state and state-assisted corporate projects that have facilitated the continuous destruction of biodiversity and the evisceration of the environment, thereby ultimately threatening the future survivability of both human and non-human life on our planet.
Although genocide is commonly used today to describe the dramatic challenges indigenous peoples face worldwide, the significance of the Guarani-Kaiowa genocidal experience is not casual and cannot be merely sloganized. The indigenous genocide unfolding in the Brazilian State of Mato Grosso do Sul –“Kaiowcide”– is not just a case of hyperbolic violence or widespread murdering, but it is something qualitatively different from other serious crimes committed against marginalised communities. Kaiowcide is the reincarnation of old genocidal practices of agrarian capitalism employed to extend and unify the national territory. In other words, Kaiowcide has become a necessity of mainstream development, whilst the sanctity of regional economic growth and private rural property are excuses invoked to justify the genocidal trail. The phenomenon combines strategies and procedures based on the competition and opposition between groups of people who dispute the same land and the relatively scarce social opportunities of an agribusiness-based economy. Only the focus in recent years may have shifted from assimilation and confinement to abandonment and confrontation, yet the intent to destabilize and eliminate the original inhabitants of the land through the asphyxiation of their religion, identity, and, ultimately, geography seems to rage unabated. In that challenging context, creative adaptation and collective resistance have been the most crucial requisites for the Guarani-Kaiowa to survive through recurrent genocides, particularly Kaiowcide.
This article examines how settler colonialism translated Indigenous social systems—rooted in communal responsibilities and kinship with both humans and "more-than-human" beings—into Western structures of individual rights and state sovereignty. Eric Cheyfitz argues that, prior to colonization, Indigenous societies operated through principles of consensus, reciprocity, and responsibility, without the separation between society and state that defines Western political systems. Using examples such as U.S. federal law, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), and the Constitution of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, the author illustrates how this legal "translation" subordinated Indigenous peoples within colonial power structures, maintaining domination under the language of rights and sovereignty. Cheyfitz contends that imposing a regime of rights over one of responsibilities has eroded the egalitarian foundations of Indigenous societies, contributing to their cultural and political dispossession under neoliberal capitalism and state structures. Finally, he suggests that addressing today's crises requires recovering systems based on responsibilities toward both humans and the natural world.
United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
Constitution of the Plurinational State of Bolivia