SDG Detail

Indigenous Rights and Capitalism

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Project description

Over the past decades Indigenous rights have been codified in international law, transforming the relationship between political activism, legal claims, and market forces. For Indigenous peoples, legal rights have produced formal structures for political recognition and mechanisms for raising territorial claims, but they have not resolved the problems of sovereignty and self-determination. They have, however, raised questions around if, how, and on what terms to engage with capital. In this course, we will explore different answers to these questions. We will examine how Indigenous groups, movements, and organizations navigate state and corporate power; why they choose (or are compelled) to embrace or resist capitalist relations; and how this conjuncture shapes radical projects that seek to break with the imperatives of profit, competition, and growth. By critically studying how rights shape larger economic processes and ideologies, we will ask whether legal rights advance Indigenous political struggles or reinforce colonial domination.