The Indigenous Space and Marginalized Peoples in the United Nations

For more than 20 years, Jens Dahl has observed and now analyzed how a relatively independent space, the Indigenous Space, has been constructed within the confines of the United Nations. In the UN, indigenous peoples have achieved more than any other group of people, minorities included. The book traces this to the ability of indigenous peoples to create consensus among themselves; the establishment of an indigenous caucus; and the construction of a global indigenousness in a continuously developing process in which contentious relationships and symbols have been constructed, reformulated, negotiated and re-negotiated internally and with the states. In this process 'indigenous peoples' developed as a category and an evolving concept. Dahl looks into the ability of different indigenous representatives to make an impact on the UN processes and use achievements for purposes at home. Combining an historical overview and first-hand account of the indigenous involvement with the UN with an analysis of global indigenous identity as a relativist and constructed term rather than a positivist definitional concept, Dahl addresses how indigenous peoples have implemented the UN achievements at home.