Indigenous Economic Development

by

Rick Colbourne, Robert Anderson, Irene Henriques, Ana María Peredo, Bettina Schneider

• LAST REVIEWED: 23 November 2021
• LAST MODIFIED: 23 November 2021
• DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199766567-0273

Introduction

Indigenous economic development is a distinctive activity that operates at the intersection of social and economic development and entrepreneurship wherein economic and entrepreneurial activities are moderated by a community’s particular social, cultural, environmental, and economic values and by access to resources contained within or proximate to their traditional territories. As Indigenous peoples act on their inherent rights and assert their sovereignty in the judicial courts, the political arena, the economic arena, and in the court of public opinion, a deeper understanding of the issues regarding Indigenous Worldviews, Indigenous Rights and Relations, Sovereignty, Self-Determination, and Self-Governance, the interplay between Indigenous and Political Economy, Sociopolitical Development, Sustainable Development, Indigenous Enterprise, Leadership and Management, Health and Well-being, as well as methods and approaches is needed to support, strengthen, and increase Indigenous economic development, self-determination, and sovereignty.

Books

This section contains six edited volumes and four authored volumes. Hosmer and O’Neill 2004, and Dana and Anderson 2007, the older collected works, provide an overview of Indigenous development thought and efforts up until the early 21st Century. The newer collected works Verbos, et al. 2017; Bone and Anderson 2017; Colbourne and Anderson 2020; and Hall and Patrinos 2012 build on this earlier work documenting the evolution of Indigenous development activities as result of the growing recognition of Indigenous rights and self-determination, and an increasing emphasis on sustainable development and socioeconomic health and well-being. The edited volumes contain more than one hundred chapters dealing with a broad range of topics and regions. Deloria and Wilkins 1999 examines all sections of the Constitution that directly and indirectly apply to American Indians in the United States. Coulthard 2014 argues that recognizing Aboriginal cultural rights within the political and legal structure of the Canadian state reproduces colonialism, patriarchalism and racism embedded in power relations and instead calls for an Indigenous politics of resurgence and decolonization. Drahos and Frankel 2012 frames traditional knowledge systems as innovation systems and analyzes the relationship between intellectual property and Indigenous innovation across disciplines including law, ethnobotany, and science. Tuhiwai Smith 2021 asserts that colonization has excluded, marginalized, and delegitimized Indigenous knowledge systems and argues for the need to decolonize research methodologies to give control back to Indigenous peoples.

• Bone, Robert M., and Robert B. Anderson, eds. 2017. Indigenous peoples and resource development in Canada. Concord, ON: Captus Press.

  The authors have amassed an impressive collection of articles and commentaries that examine the role natural resources play in the world of Indigenous peoples. The text is divided into three parts: (1) Two Worldviews, (2) Renewable Resources, and (3) Non-Renewable Resources.

• Colbourne, Rick, and Robert B. Anderson, eds. 2020. Indigenous wellbeing and enterprise: Self-determination and sustainable economic development. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

  Brings together global case studies that explore the intersection of Indigenous enterprise and community health and well-being. The editors have compiled a series of chapters that provide practical examples of how Indigenous socioeconomic health and well-being is premised on self-determination that is, in turn, dependent on a community’s evolving model for economic development, its cultural traditions, its relationship to its traditional territories, and its particular spiritual practices.

• Coulthard, Glen. 2014. Red skin, white masks: Rejecting colonial politics of recognition. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press.

  DOI: 10.5749/minnesota/9780816679645.001.0001

  This book reviews and develops a critique of Indigenous–settler politics in Canada. The author argues that recognizing Aboriginal cultural rights within the political and legal structure of the Canadian state reproduces colonialism, patriarchalism, and racism embedded in power relations. Building on Frantz Fanon’s works, it calls for a new form Indigenous politics of resurgence and decolonization.

• Dana, Leo-Paul, and Robert B. Anderson. 2007. International handbook of research on Indigenous entrepreneurship. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

  DOI: 10.4337/9781781952641

  Compilation of a comprehensive set of forty-eight chapters that develop a multidisciplinary focus on Indigenous entrepreneurship as being grounded in Indigenous values, traditions, and culture through the presentation of empirical research and case studies that explore different facets of Indigenous entrepreneurship globally.

• Deloria, Vine, Jr., and David E. Wilkins. 1999. Tribes, treaties, and constitutional tribulations. Austin, TX: Univ. of Texas Press.

  Examines all sections of the Constitution that directly and indirectly apply to American Indians in the United States and discusses how they have been interpreted and applied throughout history. The authors argue that the treaty-making process should govern relations between American Indians and the federal government because the Constitution does not provide any legal rights for American Indians.

• Drahos, Peter, and Susy Frankel. 2012. Indigenous peoples’ innovation: Intellectual Property pathways to development. Canberra, ACT: ANU Press.

  DOI: 10.22459/IPI.08.2012

  The authors frame traditional knowledge systems as innovation systems and analyze the relationship between intellectual property and Indigenous innovation across disciplines including law, ethnobotany, and science. They draw on examples from Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands to explore the possibilities of using the notion of intellectual property to support innovation by Indigenous peoples.

• Hall, Gillette H., and Harry Anthony Patrinos, eds. 2012. Indigenous peoples, poverty, and development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

  This edited volume systematically documents poverty for the world’s Indigenous peoples in in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It draws on nationally representative data to compare trends in countries’ poverty rates and other social indicators with those for Indigenous subpopulations and provides comparable data for a wide range of countries all over the world, estimates global poverty numbers, and analyzes other important development indicators, such as schooling, health, and social protection.

• Hosmer, Brian, and Colleen O’Neill. 2004. Native pathways: American Indian culture and economic development in the twentieth century. Boulder: Univ. Press of Colorado.

  Explores how American Indians in the 20th century altered mainstream capitalist strategies to fit their own cultural beliefs and practices. The book is a multidisciplinary collection that includes contributions from historians, anthropologists, and sociologists who explore how American Indians in the 20th century braided modern and traditional worlds, thereby creating alternative pathways to economic development.

• Tuhiwai Smith, L. 2021. Decolonizing methodologies: Research and Indigenous peoples. London: Zed Books.

  DOI: 10.5040/9781350225282

  Asserts that colonization has excluded, marginalized, and delegitimized Indigenous knowledge systems and argues for the need to decolonize research methodologies to give control back to Indigenous peoples. The author demonstrates that Indigenous cultural protocols, values, and behaviors are an integral part of Indigenous methodology and sharing knowledge is a long-term commitment. They explore important issues such as who will benefit from the research and whose interests are served?

• Verbos, A. K., Ella Henry, and Ana Maria Peredo, eds. 2017. Indigenous aspirations and rights: The case for responsible business and management. London: Routledge.

  Compilation of a collection of twelve papers that considers the role of business activity in advancing Indigenous interests as reflected in the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the UN Global Compact and the Principles for Responsible Management Education. Chapters focus on how business, government, and Indigenous communities interact and explore challenges related to justice and human rights faced by Indigenous communities.