Indigeneity in Waiting: Critical Reflections on Power and Progress
 
Significant institutional and legal advances concerning indigenous peoples have taken place both on national and international levels during the past two decades. The access of indigenous peoples to state-based political arenas has been improved and their rights are being increasingly negotiated and recognised. There is a sense of progress and a promise that change for the better is taking place. This paper problematises this perception and claims that the promise and anticipation of progress has engendered new forms of power. The paper asks, how to make sense of the power exercised over indigeneity today. How does the anticipation of political and legal progress govern and position indigeneity?
 
Bio:

Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen is a postdoctoral researcher based at the Unit for Gender Studies, University of Lapland, Finland. Her research interests combine questions of development, power, gender and indigeneity from a critical perspective. She is currently working in a research project that studies the progress in indigenous peoples’ rights in Western developed states. The project, titled ”Indigeneity in Waiting: Elusive Rights and the Power of Hope” (2016-2020), looks into developments in three locations: Australia, Finland and Greenland.