Indigenous Peoples
Andy Thomason
Latest Articles
Fourth World peoples are fighting to protect their cultural knowledge and intellectual heritage from intellectual theft and exploitation.
Nunavut--Canada's Newest Territory
On April 1, 1999 Canada's Northwest Territories officially divided and Nunavut came into existance. The new territory, one fifth of Canada, gives the indigenous Inuit as much self-rule and control of their political destiny as is perhaps posible for any people in this modern world.
Tribal Identity and Loss of Self
The loss of a tribal identity for modern people has resulted in a loss of personal identity, loss of stability and sense of well-being that can be directly contributable to all our modern neurosis.
Ethnic minorities in Burma have been struggling for survival under what Amnesty International calls ones of the worlds most repressive regimes. The Karenni are representative of that struggle and the human rights abuses occuring in Burma today.
Protecting Mother Earth Conference
The Tenth Annual Protecting Mother Earth Conference was held in New Mexico to discuss the impact of uranium mining and other environmental issues has on indigenous peoples and what they can to to protect themselves and their lands.
The Ainu of Japan: The History, Culture, and Discrimination Against this Aboriginal Group
After years of discrimination and forced assimilation policies the Ainu culture is precariously close to extinction. It wasn't until 1991 that the Japanese government admitted that they were a distict ethnic minority. Still today, it is the perception of most of the Japanese people, and the position of the government, that ...
Third of three articles on the Yanomami. This articles discusses some of the ethical questions facing Anthropologists and western cultures on the preservation of Yanomami culture.
Contact with the twentieth century has resulted in some dramatic social and cultural changes for the Yanomami that has resulted in a breakdown of their traditional values and struggling for their identity and survival. Some of those changes are detailed here.
The Yanomami are the largest group of Neolithic people known. Contact with the western world has degraded their traditional culture, possibly beyond repair. Disease and violence against them threatens their survival. This is the first of two articles examining their plight and their future.
A short history of the Maori People, their struggles to overcome oppression, and questions they must answer if they are to have a viable future as a people and cultural identity.