ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we examine the genealogy of the concept and practice of indigeneity. Particular ideas, concepts and descriptors are embedded in networks of ideas, concepts and descriptors, and have a history. So, for example, indigeneity as a concept is always positioned in a complicated network of other terms, such as innateness, colonisation, decolonisation, race, ethnicity, trait theory, genetics, phenotypicality, biology, historical origin, evolutionary theory and many more. Indigeneity as a concept and as a practice therefore has antecedents, is related to other concepts and praxes, and is used in the lifeworld in particular ways. Epistemic colonisation refers to notions of language, social organisation, religion and belief systems, powerful hierarchies, modes of production, laws, institutions, ways of life, healing processes and learning modes, which the coloniser declares to be illegitimate. Marie Battiste (2011, Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision, Vancouver: UBC Press) identified a set of criteria for determining what indigenous knowledge is, with this indigenous knowledge designed to apply to all indigenous knowers in the world, even if they are separated in time and place: knowledge of unseen powers in the ecosystem, knowledge that all things in the ecosystem are inter-dependent, knowledge that reality is conceptualised by concepts that are well known to participants in the indigenous practice, knowledge that personal inter-relationships are central to personal, community and ecosystem practices, and knowledge that sacred traditions and persons should have as their primary function – the preservation of specialised forms of knowledge.
