2 - The Process of Susceptibility and Exclusion

Summary

The global ascendancy of neoliberal economics has deepened inequalities between and within nations and largely undermined efforts toward sustainable development. Based on a belief that the market should be the organizing principle for social, political and economic decisions, policymakers in many countries promoted privatization of state activities and an increased role for the free market, flexibility in labor markets and trade and investment liberalization. The benefits of these policies frequently fail to reach the indigenous peoples of the world, who acutely feel their costs, such as environmental degradation, cultural dispossessions and loss of traditional lands and territories. As vulnerable and often marginalized segments of the world’s population, indigenous peoples are at a heightened risk of experiencing the negative consequences of globalization. Understanding this reality could provide pathways for effective interventions to alleviate, overcome or, at the very least, minimize such effects.