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'Making up' others? Ethnographic encounters with selection, climate change, and being indigenous

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posted on 2023-06-09, 17:16 authored by George Byrne
This thesis is an ethnographic and self-reflexive exploration of the ways in which international concern for indigenous peoples in various contexts, including conducting academic research itself, can challenge, but more often contributes to, the creation of categories of people - Others - which serves to reinforce existing patterns of social, cultural and epistemological dominance. While the project started out as an investigation into how and why indigenous people interact with Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) projects, like REDD+, the reflexive and iterative research methodologies used meant that this became a lens through which to consider a different question: what, if anything, does it mean to be Indigenous? Through an ethnographic account of various encounters with indigenous people and indigeneity, including in a small community in the Ecuadorian Amazon,the offices of an international Indigenous Peoples’ Organisation (IPO), and international climate change conferences in Lima and Paris, the thesis argues that the very meaning of being Indigenous, particularly in relation to climate change, is continuously being negotiated by indigenous and non-indigenous actors. Writing reflexively about my own research, as well as broader international processes, the thesis illustrates some of the ways in which ‘selection’ leads to the reification, or ‘making up’, of particular notions of indigeneity. As such, the thesis also reflects on the impact of research itself, including on the researcher. I draw upon influences from decolonial and feminist scholarship, using autoethnography as a tool to consider how and why I have produced this research, and the extent to which it contributes to the process of ‘Othering’ the very people that it (re)presents.

History

File Version

  • Published version

Pages

207.0

Department affiliated with

  • International Development Theses

Qualification level

  • doctoral

Qualification name

  • phd

Language

  • eng

Institution

University of Sussex

Full text available

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2019-05-10

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