Indigeneity

Given the complex, and overlapping, histories of indigeneity and coloniality in the Americas, as well as the multiple ways indigeneity is deployed in Latina/o studies, the discussion that follows is as much about the parameters of indigeneity in the field as what it has been mistaken for. Indigeneity has best been described as a field of power by Aida Hernández Castillo (2010) to name how Indigenous peoples negotiate an array of power relationships (within nation-states or with social scientists, for example) in a struggle over meaning that delegitimizes their forms of knowledge and ways of being. As the original inhabitants of the Americas, most identify first as tribal nations or pueblos (peoples, communities, towns, following Lynn Stephen [2007]), as well as embracing the broader constructions of First Nations, American Indian, Native American, or Indigenous peoples to articulate a diplomatic and legal framework for their survivance, self-determination, and territorial integrity in relation to colonial powers and settler states. The political, spiritual, social, and discursive practices of original (aboriginal) peoples are embedded in cultural continuity within the living, transforming (and intervened upon) cultures of their ancestors. Many government officials and policymakers have tied this definition of continuity to a territorial framework, which fails to acknowledge that many Indigenous groups had territorial bases that included seasonal settlement and migrations based on hunting, social and ceremonial gatherings, and trade. Further, many tribes and Indigenous peoples have been forcibly removed for purposes of colonial settlement and its aftermath, including policies of relocation, termination, and urbanization. Other Indigenous pueblos and nations have been falsely divided by colonial borders. Relationships to land are at the heart of Indigenous political and spiritual beliefs and practices, and yet, there is a growing recognition of how even when Indigenous communities are deterritorialized, they retain their cosmovisions, civic and political structures, and relationships to their ancestral homelands.