Indigenous Encounters with Neoliberalism:Place, Women, and the Environment in Canada and Mexico

Description

The recognition of Indigenous rights and the management of land and
resources have always been fraught with complex power relations and
conflicting expressions of identity. In “Indigenous Encounters with
Neoliberalism, ” Isabel Altamirano-Jimenez explores how this issue
is playing out in two countries very differently marked by
neoliberalism’s local expressions – Canada and Mexico.

Weaving together four distinct case studies, two from each country
– Nunavut, the Nisga’a, the Zapatista “Caracoles” in
Chiapas, and the Zapotec from Juchitan – Altamirano-Jimenez
presents insights from Indigenous feminism, critical geography,
political economy, and postcolonial studies. These specific examples
highlight Indigenous people’s responses to neoliberalism in their
respective countries, reflecting the tensions that result from how
Indigenous identity, gender, and the environment have been connected.
Indigenous women’s perspectives are particularly illuminating as
they articulate diverse aspirations and concerns within a wider
political framework.
What emerges is a theoretical and empirical discussion of how
indigeneity as an act of articulation is embedded in tensions between
local needs and global wants. By exploring Indigenous peoples’
relations “to” and “in” different locations, this study
attempts to uncover the complexities of materializing neoliberalism and
the fluidity of indigeneity.

Isabel Altamirano-Jimenez (Zapotec) is an
associate professor in the Department of Political Science and in the
Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta.”