2 - Characteristics of Indigenous Peoples and Development Projects

Summary

This chapter gives more clarity on indigenous peoples as communities that, given their special social and cultural connection with land and natural resources, are inherently vulnerable to the global spread of projects that necessitate significant, and often irreparable, land disturbance and the transnational legal dynamics and behaviours that facilitate that disturbance. Far greater effort is needed to think about the indigenous movement in a more pluralistic framework: as specifically vulnerable to development projects in a much broader outlook, that is, beyond settler-colonial geographical area and one in which private concessionaires and financiers are, through contractual and policy mechanisms, shaping the movement with significant impacts for rights recognition and implementation. This chapter also defines the specific characteristics of modern development projects that matter for indigenous land rights issues, including the diminished role of the state in these projects and the implementation gaps that appear in development finance mechanisms for resettlement. The chapter concludes by examining the private legal nature of the plural contracts that secure a development project.