Indigenous Struggles for Equipotentiality

Indigenous alter-globalism:

The WSF(P) has been a key platform through which both Indigenous peoples and related ‘un-touchables’ co-articulate the racial-caste basis of global economic exploitation. At the 2004 Mumbai WSF, (Indigenous) untouchability was discussed by Indian, African, Japanese and other representatives. At many other forums, including in Melbourne, Indigenous struggles have featured as a critical voices of change. Likewise, the conflict between Indigenous people’s territorial claims and ancestral lands and trans-national corporate efforts at expansion, in particular for mineral exploration and exploitation, has led Indigenous peoples to be at the forefront of the struggle against corporate globalisation. This is not expressed as an abstract global struggle, but as specific defences of the localised basis of a people’s eco-sufficiency and livelihoods. Indigenous world-views and perspectives on knowledge, nature and society offer a significant contrast to modernist visions, which should be acknowledged, discussed and included in conversations on alternative globalisation.