ABSTRACT
The Introduction offers an overview of the chapters included in the volume and shows that thinking about ‘indigeneity’ among the indigenous communities is strikingly different from thinking about it within the disciplinary boundaries of anthropology. In the context of the indigenous, the term cannot be restricted merely to the ‘differentials’; it needs to be seen as ‘essential’ to the indigenous. The identity issue begins in the case of the indigenous with their habitat and history. As the chapters in the volume indicate, the state intended as protective apparatus falls too short of achieving its intended objective because it tends to segment the indigenous identity into different administrative groves. The Introduction discusses how the chapters comprising this volume expose the inadequacy of the understanding of the relationship between identity and the ancestral land that the indigenous hold sacred. The question of ‘nation’ for the world’s indigenous communities is interlocked with the autonomy of communities, their traditional wisdom and the symbiosis between nature and humans. In commenting on the chapters and discussing the conceptual framework of ‘nation’ and ‘indigeneity’, this Introduction points out that though modern nations have gained independence, the indigenous in these nations are still struggling to attain a reasonable measure of their autonomy. Since territories inhabited by the indigenous get invariably targeted as areas for resource exploitation, the idea of modern nation comes to be viewed by the indigenous mostly as an adversarial presence. The Introduction presents the context for various struggles by indigenous communities for protecting their identity as the indigenous and for justice and citizenship. It orients the reader to the insights offered by the seven chapters included in the volume.
