In the Way of Development
Indigenous Peoples, Life Projects and Globalization
Published on 1. May 2004
Book
Hardback
384 pages
978-1-84277-192-1 (ISBN)
Description
Indigenous peoples today are enmeshed in the expanding modern economy, subject to the pressures of both market and government. This book takes indigenous peoples as actors, not victims, as its starting point in analysing this interaction. It assembles a rich diversity of statements, case studies and wider thematic explorations, primarily from North America, and particularly the Cree, the Haudenausaunee (Iroquois) and Chippewa-Ojibwe peoples who straddle the US/Canadian border, but also from South America and the former Soviet Union. It explores the complex relationships between indigenous peoples, civil society, and the environment. It shows how the boundaries between indigenous peoples' organizations, civil society, the state, markets, development and the environment are ambiguous and constantly changing. These complexities create both opportunities and threats for local agency. People resist or react to the pressures of market and state, while sustaining 'life projects' of their own, embodying their own local history, visions and strategies.
Reviews / Votes
'This superb book builds on the illuminating contrast between the 'life projects' of indigenous people and the 'development projects' funded by global capital. 'Life projects' are about the right of any people to define the meaning of their life and their place in the cosmos. The book is filled with ambiguous but sometimes hopeful examples of indigenous peoples working with NGOs, governments, and corporations to defend their autonomy, and in the process shaping human rights and development agendas nationally and globally' - John H. Bodley, Professor of Anthropology, Washington State University, author of Victims of Progress (1999) and The Power of Scale (2003). 'A comprehensive account of relations between agents of globalization - corporations and states - and indigenous peoples worldwide. The book provides a unique synthesis of indigenous peoples' strategies of active resistance and approaches to living autonomously. It indicates lessons for us, both about the importance of supporting indigenous peoples who are at the front lines in this struggle, and for the ways we orient our own agency as we come to grips with similar forces.' - Michael Asch, University of Victoria, CanadaMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 27 mm
Weight
757 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84277-192-1 (9781842771921)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Mario Blaser | Glenn McRae | Harvey Feit
In the Way of Development
Indigenous Peoples, Life Projects and Globalization
E-Book
07/2013
1st Edition
Zed Books Ltd
€39.99
Available for download
Persons
Harvey Feit is professor of anthropology at McMaster University in Canada, where Mario. E. Blaser is a doctoral candidate. Glenn McRae is an applied anthropologist and environmental consultant. The contributors are a mix of indigenous peoples' leaders and social scientists from a wide range of disciplines.
Content
1. Indigenous Peoples and Development Processes: New Terrains of Struggle - Mario Blaser, Harvey A. Feit and Glenn McRae; 2. Life Projects: Indigenous Peoples' Agency and Development - Mario Blaser; SECTION A VISIONS: LIFE PROJECTS, REPRESENTATIONS AND CONFLICTS: 3. Life Projects: Development Our Way - Bruno Barras; 4. 'Way of Life' or 'Who Decides': Development, Paraguayan Indigenism and the Yshiro People's Life Projects - Mario Blaser; 5. Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Sustainable Development: Toward Co-Existence - Deborah McGregor; 6. James Bay Crees' Life Projects and Politics: Histories of Place, Animal Partners and Enduring Relationships - Harvey A. Feit; 7. Grassroots Transnationalism and Life Projects of Vermonters in the Great Whale Campaign - Glenn McRae; 8. 'The People Had Discovered Their Own Approach to Life': Politicizing Development Discourse - Wendy Russell; SECTION B STRATEGIES: STATES, MARKETS AND CIVIL SOCIETY: 9. Survival in the Context of Mega-Resource Development: Experiences of the James Bay Cree and the First Nations of Canada - Matthew Coon Come; 10. The Importance of Working Together: Exclusions, Conflicts and Participation in James Bay, Quebec - Brian Craik; 11. Defending a Common Home: Native/Non-Native Alliances against Mining Corporations in Wisconsin - Al Gedicks and Zoltan Grossman; 12. Chilean Economic Expansion and Mega-Development Projects in Mapuche Territories - Aldisson Anguita Mariqueo; 13. Hydroelectric Development on the Bio-Bio River, Chile: Anthropology and Human Rights Advocacy - Barbara Rose Johnston and Carmen Garcia-Downing; SECTION C INVITATIONS: CONNECTIONS AND CO-EXISTENCE: 14. Revisiting Gandhi and Zapata: Motion of Global Capital, Geographies of Difference and the Formation of Ecological Ethnicities - Pramod Parajuli; 15. A Dream of Democracy in the Russian Far East - Petra Rethmann; 16. The 'Risk Society': Tradition, Ecological Order and Time-Space Acceleration - Peter Harries-Jones; 17. Conflicting Discourses of Property, Governance and Development in the Indigenous North - Colin Scott; 18. Resistance, Determination and Perseverance of the Lubicon Cree Women - Dawn Martin-Hill; 19. Restoring our Relationship for the Future - Mary Arquette, Maxine Cole and the Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment; 20. In Memoriam: Chief Harvey Longboat (1936-2001)