Twelfth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

Indigenous peoples were colonized by the Europeans from sixteenth century onward. This early wave of colonization expropriated their lands and pushed them away in lives of misery. The decade of 1990’s witnessed a new wave of colonization, in the name of economic globalization, as a threat to their existence. Economic globalization wreaked havoc in the lives of these indigenous peoples by appropriating their lands for natural resource exploitation, building of dams and palm oil plantations, construction of highways and so on. This economic exploitation also gradually paved way for cultural domination as states like Canada and Australia adopted practices of cultural assimilation by forcefully uprooting indigenous children from their families to make them adept at Western culture. This paper highlights the impact of globalization on indigenous communities. The first part of the paper highlights, through many examples from developing countries, the negative impact of economic globalization on indigenous peoples which violated their rights and resulted in their displacement and loss of identity. The second part of the paper argues that while globalization has been largely bad for indigenous peoples, however, indigenous peoples have also been empowered by gaining an international identity, acceptance from the international community about their sufferings and vulnerability, and the recognition of their rights as a community of people through many international norms and standards. This empowerment of indigenous peoples is also a result of globalization. The paper thus concludes that globalization, though bad, has also been an important factor for the resurgence of indigenous peoples.