ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ways that various strategies and discourses regarding indigenous peoples’ rights intertwine at national levels. In the early decades of the indigenous peoples’ rights movement, updating this convention was a major focus of indigenous peoples’ rights activists, and this international body became a central site for the movement. There are three overarching groups generally considered to be indigenous peoples in Namibia. Despite this important turnaround, there was critique of the process of creating the convention, which did not specifically involve indigenous peoples’ organizations. The concept of indigeneity is notoriously contested in Africa. The Namibian Constitution provides for affirmative action, and makes provisions for communal land. The Working Group of Indigenous Minorities in Southern Africa (WIMSA), based in Windhoek was very active from 1996. Indigenous peoples are everywhere among the most vulnerable people on the planet.
