Modern Indigenous

This essay will explore the difficulties surrounding the concept of modern indigeneity, as well as the ways in which indigeneous peoples work within the constructed confines of this modernity to create and re-imagine their own identities. Beginning with a discussion of the concept of modernity, and the ideologies developed within this time, this essay will seek to explain the historical background to today’s problems in the context of modern indigeneity. Beyond this, examples taken from different indigenous peoples both in North and South America will illuminate the repression that western influence has had on these same indigenous groups.

        To understand indigenous modernity today, one must first come to an understanding as to what constitutes the term “modernity” itself. In essence, the period in time which we consider to be the “modern era” is undeniably difficult to pin down. However, in this case, we may consider the distinction between the modern era and the past to have occurred occur at the point in which feudalism was on the decline. Indeed, this period of feudal decline saw the rise of a new form of individualism and the willingness of these individuals to detach themselves from the yoke of oppressive guidance by institutions such as the Church. Instead of a reliance on being told how one should act in accordance to pre-defined rules, the modern era focused on the ways in which individuals could act on their own behalf. In this manner, the core ideology behind modernity was the philosophy that people were free to exercise their own agency in order to come to grips with their own understanding of reality. To Berman, this agency could best be considered an “experience of space and time, of the self and others, of life’s possibilities and perils – that is shared by men and women all over the world today”. He also notes that “Modern environments and experiences cut across all boundaries of geography and ethnicity, of class and nationality, of religion and ideology: in this sense, modernity can be said to unite all mankind” (Berman; 1982). Yet, in actuality, can modernity truly be said to have united all mankind?

        Undoubtedly, the experiences of indigenous peoples in the modern era have deviated greatly from the supposed universalism that Berman proposes. Indeed, during the period in which Man’s enlightenment and individual release from the Church’s grip was said to occur, be it in the 1800 or 1900s, indigenous people were still repressed under western colonialism. As such, that prime kernel of modernity – the ability to exercise one’s agency – was stripped away from many indigenous groups. The concept of universal modernity had found a barrier. However, contrary to the theories of Berman, authors such as Paul Gilroy have put forth and subsequently discussed the schism that has occurred between the modern indigenous experience, and the modern western experience.

        In his essay Masters, Mistresses, Slaves and the Antinomies of Modernity, Gilroy raises the discussion of mixed experiences of modernity within the context of imagined identities of African slaves during western colonialism. To begin, as a counterpoint to the belief in a singular, all-encompassing modern experience, he discusses the need to view modernity as a subjective experience couched in an undeniably plural nature. While Gilroy’s essay discusses the nature in which African slaves have encountered the modern experience, the lessons he discusses can just as easily be viewed in the context of indigenous peoples living within both North and South America. His main argument here is that, instead of white-washing all experiences as being “more or less the same”, in order to better understand the complexities and difficulties encountered by African slaves (or, in this case, indigenous peoples) in the modern era, we must allow ourselves to view these experiences not only from a western point of view, but also from the point of view of those who have suffered during this period. By doing so, he argues, we can confront our own rigid views of history and, thusly, discuss the discontinuous modern experience as a way to combat long-held ethnocentric policies.

        If we can come to an understanding that the modern experience is not universal and that many peoples and groups have experienced it in varying ways due to varying levels of interaction, we must then come back to the original philosophy behind modernity – self-agency. As this essay has argued, it may be said that indigenous groups in North and South America have been restricted in their own self-agency through colonial practices of western modernity. Yet, one must wonder, had western colonialism never occurred, if these same indigenous peoples would have then shared the same path towards individualism and enlightenment that their western counterparts took. Unfortunately, since western modernism has had such an intense impact on indigenous peoples, such pontification is all for naught. Despite the fact that indigenous groups have increased their self-determinism and self-agency greatly in recent times, their growth into “modernity” is still ultimately shaded by colours of western thought.

        Fundamentally, however, western thought ultimately seeks to universalize – much in the same detrimental manner discussed earlier within this essay. Indeed, while many within the western framework would argue that our current system – one that emphasizes a form of scientific rationalism focusing on the individual – is undoubtedly the ideal, what happens when a group does not mesh properly into this framework? Indigenous cultures have long had to come to terms with this very problem. As Niezen notes in The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity, indigenous groups have been subject to “secret massacres, forced relocations, imprisonment without trial (and) torture” while also having to contend with “megaproject development, dispossession, broken treaties, loss of subsistence, and the imposition of tormented idleness” (Niezen; 2003) due to their perceived or literal inability to fit into a western model of what constitutes an ideal society. The western modern system, then, works to create a universal “ideal” while seeking to assimilate or reject those who threaten the creation of this ideal. These reactions, it may be argued, are the very same that have worked to strip away the self-agency of indigenous cultures worldwide.

        As indigenous peoples found themselves slipping further outside the western modern ideal, they were seen by the colonizing forces as aberrations that merely stood in the way of the progress towards social improvement. In response to this perceived indigenous blockade, in both North and South America, indigenous people were either simply killed, and in this way eliminated as a problem, or, more subtlety, they were subject to policies of ethnocide. Ethnocide, as Niezen writes, is the policy of “”assimilation” aimed at eliminating stark cultural differences and rival claims to sovereignty” with its overarching goal being “the elimination of knowledge of, and attachments to distinct and inconvenient ways of life” (Niezen; 2003). This policy of forced cultural assimilation was well-experienced by both the indigenous peoples of Canada as well as those living in Bolivia.