In September 2012 we hosted our second research partner meeting with indigenous communities and academic partners coming from across the Americas. During this meeting, we agreed in an agenda of research topics for our coming projects. Our discussion might be summarized as following:
+ Shared Foci
- Protected areas and environmental protection
- Resource extractive conflicts (mining, forestry, hydro-electricity)
- Sacred sites and ceremonies (heritage, identity, recovering places, spaces territory)
- Indigenous knowledges and the politics of their interaction with the state
- Sustained relationship of collaboration between researchers and indigenous partners
+ Themes arising in discussion
- The ‘life projects’ of indigenous partners as a starting point and guide for collaboration
- Quality of life, living well [buen vivir], over development measured in monetary revenue
- Indigenous knowledge of land and relationships key to understanding environment
- Linking this knowledge to power, and giving power to this knowledge
- Vital connection of land, livelihood and language
- How ceremonies/rituals, sacred site, archaeological heritage are used in strategies for cultural survival & resistance
- Governmentality: indigenous partners’ circumstances of governance, colonial governance, and rights in environment
- How to tackle the inexorable quality of neo-liberal ‘conventional’ development?
- Multiple models of development; ‘energy’ models, ‘food security’ models, etc.
- Multiple sovereignties: indigenous, state, ‘food sovereignty,’ ‘energy sovereignty,’ etc.
- How to say ‘no’ to conventional models of development & state-centred jurisdiction for resources
- Strategies of resource extractive corporations and state governments to infiltrate and divide
- Criminalization and how to resist it
- What can be stopped; what advantage can be taken of what cannot be stopped?
- How can indigenous partners learn from one another’s successes and setbacks?
- Strategies for indigenous peoples to network/work together outside of formal UN/NGO organizations/frameworks
- How can INSTEAD support communities’ communication and access to information?
- How can INSTEAD contribute to capacity of indigenous partners for self-directed research on vital issues?
+ Elements for Comparison of Indigenous Partner Communities’ Experience
- ‘Cultures of nature’ at play for each indigenous partner; implications for actor-oriented approach to responsibility for managing environmental relations
- Landscape ecology – critical habitats and connections for living things in each indigenous territory
- Demographic profile – human population, distribution, settlement pattern, etc.
- Economic practices, livelihoods; challenges and prospects
- Property regimes and their history; multiple and sometime conflicting claims on land and resources
- Governance institutions, often competing jurisdictional claims, ‘formal/informal’, ‘local/external’ relations
+ Our Way of Working
- Ethical responsibilities and political positioning of our project
- Identification of appropriate funding sources for ‘activist’ research agendas
- Coordinating our work with the research that partner communities and organizations have undertaken themselves
- Indigenous leadership in project governance