In the Way of Development: Indigenous Peoples, Life Projects and Globalization

Abstract

Indigenous peoples today are enmeshed in the expanding modern economy, subject to the pressures of both market and government. This book takes indigenous peoples as actors, not victims, as its starting point in analyzing this interaction. It assembles a rich diversity of statements, case studies, and wider thematic explorations, primarily from North America, and particularly the Cree, the Haudenausaunee (Iroquois), and Chippewa-Ojibwe peoples who straddle the US/Canada border, but also from South America and the former Soviet Union. It explores the complex relationships between indigenous peoples’ organizations, civil society, and the environment. It shows how the boundaries between indigenous peoples’ organizations, civil society, the state, markets, development, and the environment are ambiguous and constantly changing. These complexities create both opportunities and threats for local agency. People resist or react to the pressures of market and state, while sustaining “life projects” of their own, embodying their own local history, visions, and strategies.