ACT In The News | September 2005

Defining "indigenous people"

ACT is now working to compose an accurate definition of the term "indigenous people." Please read our draft definition and send us your comments, additions, subtractions, replacements, etc. so that we can come up with the best definition possible. We are particularly interested in hearing from our indigenous colleagues.

Submit your definition.

Indigenous People

    

Amazon Conservation Team draft definition: July 2005

An indigenous group has its own language (even though, in some cases like the Pataxos tribe of Brazil, it may no longer be spoken), which is different than the "national" language of the country in which they live. They have lived within the boundaries of their country - often in the same locale - since prior to contact with or colonization by the outside world. Indigenous peoples tend to have unique customs, traditions, and/or beliefs. They self-identify as a group different from those found outside their territories. They tend to have some form of self-government. Indigenous peoples tend not to be the dominant culture (this becomes more difficult and less true in places like Malaysia and Nigeria than in Brazil and Mexico) and are typically underprivileged in terms of both politics and economics.

Indigenous: originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native

--From the compact Oxford English Dictionary online

Other Definitions

Below are some other definitions:

United Nations

Working definition of the term "Indigenous Peoples" by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Study of discrimination against Indigenous Peoples - Mr. Martínez Cobo

 

Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that developed on their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies now prevailing on those territories, or parts of them. They form at present non-dominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own cultural patterns, social institutions and legal system.

This historical continuity may consist of the continuation, for an extended period reaching into the present of one or more of the following factors:

a. Occupation of ancestral lands, or at least of part of them;
b. Common ancestry with the original occupants of these lands;
c. Culture in general, or in specific manifestations (such as religion, living under a tribal system, membership of an indigenous community, dress, means of livelihood, lifestyle, etc.);
d. Language (whether used as the only language, as mother-tongue, as the habitual means of communication at home or in the family, or as the main, preferred, habitual, general or normal language);
e. Residence on certain parts of the country, or in certain regions of the world;
f. Other relevant factors.

On an individual basis, an indigenous person is one who belongs to these indigenous populations through self-identification as indigenous (group consciousness) and is recognized and accepted by these populations as one of its members (acceptance by the group).

This preserves for these communities the sovereign right and power to decide who belongs to them, without external interference.

UN Publication on Defining "Indigenous People" 

World Bank (1991):

Because of the varied and changing contexts in which indigenous peoples are found, no single definition can capture their diversity. Indigenous people are commonly among the poorest segments of a population. They engage in economic activities that range from shifting agriculture in or near forests to wage labor or even small-scale market-oriented activities. Indigenous peoples can be identified in particular geographical areas by the presence in varying degrees of the following characteristics:

a) close attachment to ancestral territories and to the natural resources in these areas; b) self-identification and identification by others as members of a distinct cultural group; c) an indigenous language, often different from the national language; d) presence of customary social and political institutions; and e) primarily subsistence-oriented production.

wikipedia.org definition of indigenous people
Link to Cultural Survival on defining "indigenous"

 

Thank you for your thoughts and comments.