Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Indigenous radicalism has a long and important global tradition dating back to precolonial times. Indigenous radicalism represents an anti-colonial response to the horrific psychological and epis-temic rupture created by European colonization among multiple aboriginal societies throughout the world. Indigenous radicalism subsequently developed during the traumatic transition from traditional economic and kin networks to a fullblown capitalist economy. Although indigenous resistance began with initial contact, the formation of European colonies and settlements in Africa, the Americas, and Oceania produced a spike in aboriginal anti-colonial radicalism. Since the colonial period, Native people have used a multiplicity of tactics that may be defined as indigenous radicalism. The four fundamental propositions put forth by radical indigenous movements have been: 1 Native people are humans and have rights accordingly. 2 The right to aboriginal self-determination. 3 That indigenous epistemologies, languages, governance, and cultural practice must be sustained. 4 That indigenous control of traditional lands must be preserved. The history of modern resistance is in many ways the history of tribal peoples resisting hegemonic imposition. From time immemorial, larger and more dominant societies have frequently attempted to colonize and incorporate those unlike themselves. In the ancient ... log in or subscribe to read full text