ABSTRACT

Instead of offering conclusions, this chapter presents some final thoughts about the contradictions, paradoxes, and implications of the relationships between indigenous peoples and environmentalism. These relationships are in constant transformation, and it is difficult to say if they have produced any clear victories or losses for indigenous peoples. Nonetheless, I want to highlight some specific outcomes and consequences concerning the introduction of indigenous peoples into new eco-political and eco-economic processes. The fact that these outcomes and consequences so often result in contradictions between indigenous and nonindigenous values and complicate the achievement of the goals of all involved certainly puts in question any triumphalist analysis of indigenous peoples' movements. Of course, these processes are ongoing and open-ended, and so I can produce no final answers here regarding their outcomes. What is clear, however, is that Indigenous peoples can use and transform eco-governmentality to serve their own ends and possibly those of nature and humanity, although they face many difficulties in their efforts to do so.