Globalization And Indigenous Peoples
Brief description of indigenous people
There is no universal definition of indigenous people, but generally indigenous people are those that have historically belonged to a particular region or country, before its colonization or transformation into a nation state. They often have distinct cultural, linguistic, traditional, and other characteristics to those of the dominant culture of that region or state. There are approximately 370 million indigenous people among 70 countries, worldwide. It is about 6% of the world population. These indigenous people are predominantly subsistence-based (i.e. pastoral, horticultural and/or hunting and gathering techniques), and non-urbanized.
The impact of globalization on indigenous people
What makes indigenous people special is that they are located in the places where the world’s scarce resources located as well. Thus, with a desire to gain the access to these resources, indigenous people are always the disadvantaged group. In this section, I will focus on several issues caused by globalization that impose undesirable impact on indigenous people.
To facilitate world trades, countries signed different multilateral economic and trade agreements to lower the trade barriers. These legally enforceable agreements protect and enhance the rights of investors over the rights of citizens, over indigenous peoples’ rights to their natural resources, etc. International organizations like WTO also facilitate the signing of more and more trade agreements which aim to open up the market.
In addition, some third world countries are forced to open their market by the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP). The SAP opens up the local economy to foreign investments and MNCs, while eliminating subsidies and protection to local industries. For countries seeking financial assistance, the IMF and World Bank provide it but apply a neoliberal economic ideology or agenda as the preconditions...
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