Indigenous Peoples’ Resistance to Globalization

No community is more directly impacted by economic globalization than the world’s 350 million indigenous peoples, yet their voices have been largely excluded from the globalization debate. And so we are very pleased to offer the second edition of: Paradigm Wars: Indigenous Peoples’ Resistance to Globalization.

Co-edited by IFG founder Jerry Mander and IFG board member Victoria Tauli-Corpuz (Director of the Tebtebba Foundation/ Indigenous Peoples International Centre for Policy Research and Education, and the elected Chair of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues), this new edition contains 28 articles on every phase of the global struggle for indigenous rights, and the stories of resistance.

With many of the planet’s remaining natural resources on indigenous lands, traditional indigenous practices of biodiversity preservation have, ironically, made these lands targets for global corporations seeking the last forests, genetic and plant materials, oil, and minerals to feed their unsustainable growth. But native peoples refuse to be victims. Their stories of resistance and growing success are inspirational.

Participating authors include Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, Winona LaDuke, John Mohawk, Arthur Manuel, Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson, Debra Harry, Oronto Douglas, and indigenous activists from South America, among others, as well as non-indigenous writers and activists Jerry Mander, Vandana Shiva, Atossa Soltani, Mark Dowie, Victor Menotti, and others. Specific themes include:

• The growing assault on indigenous lands, where the planet’s increasingly scarce natural resources are located;
• The specific rules of global bureaucracies like the WTO, IMF, World Bank and others that accelerate the loss of native sovereignty and native political and cultural rights;
• The devastating impact of extractive industries, with case studies on the problems and the resistance to today’s model of development;
• An overview of globalization’s other impacts: global marketing of cultural objects; loss of languages; impacts of tourism; impacts of giant conservation NGOs driving native peoples off their lands; the toll from climate change, et. al.;
• The report also details some extremely positive trends, for example in South America where indigenous people are now on the rise, especially in Bolivia and Ecuador; the new role played by American Indians in a safer energy future; new initiatives for impacting WTO rules; and major progress within the U.N.
• International Forum on Globalization
• The Pachamama Alliance