Authenticating Strategic Essentialisms: The Politics of Indigenousness at the United Nations

In the politics of indigenousness in international fora there are discourses and practices that strategically delimit the universe of meanings and that seek to define what are indigenous traditions, histories, collective memories, worldviews, present conditions, ways of life, and future aspirations. I argue that indigenous intellectuals and activists depict a strategically essentialized indigeneity to legitimize claims for social justice and rights; thus, this depiction should not be understood simply as an uncritical and retrograde essentialism. The (re) construction of peoplehood involves negotiating concepts used by nation states and, at the same time, a continuous conscious redrawing of cultural boundaries.