The legacies of borders are far-reaching for Indigenous Peoples. This collection offers new ways of understanding borders by departing from statist approaches to territoriality. Bringing together the fields of border studies, human rights, international relations, and Indigenous studies, it features a wide range of voices from across academia, public policy, and civil society. The contributors explore the profound and varying impacts of borders on Indigenous Peoples around the world and the ways borders are challenged and worked around. From Bangladesh’s colonially imposed militarized borders to resource extraction in the Russian Arctic and along the Colombia-Ecuador border to the transportation of toxic pesticides from the United States to Mexico, the chapters examine sovereignty, power, and obstructions to Indigenous rights and self-determination as well as globalization and the economic impacts of borders. Indigenous Peoples and Borders proposes future action that is informed by Indigenous Peoples’ voices, needs, and advocacy.

Contributors. Tone Bleie, Andrea Carmen, Jacqueline Gillis, Rauna Kuokkanen, Elifuraha Laltaika, Sheryl Lightfoot, David Bruce MacDonald, Toa Elisa Maldonado Ruiz, Binalakshmi “Bina” Nepram, Melissa Z. Patel, Manoel B. do Prado Junior, Hana Shams Ahmed, Elsa Stamatopoulou, Liubov Suliandziga, Rodion Sulyandziga, Yifat Susskind, Erika M. Yamada

Sheryl Lightfoot is Professor of Political Science at the University of British Columbia and author of Global Indigenous Politics: A Subtle Revolution. She was Canada Research Chair in Global Indigenous Rights and Politics from 2013 to 2023.

Elsa Stamatopoulou is Director of the Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Program at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University and author of Cultural Rights in International Law. She became the first Chief of the Secretariat of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in 2003.

Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction / Tone Bleie, Sheryl Lightfoot, and Elsa Stamatopoulou  1
Part I. Rethinking Borders, Sovereignty, and Power in Indigenous Spaces  39
1. Reconciling Witchcraft and Hor Cosmopolitanism: Boundary Restorative Violence and the Spatial Temporality of Ancestral Transboundary Practices / Tone Bleie  41
2. Rethinking Neoliberal Internet Communication Technology Governance for Indigenous Peoples: Lessons from Kurdish Subaltern “Counterpublic Spheres” / Melissa Z. Patel  73
3. Friendships and Broken Friendships: Reframing Borders, Anglo Settler States, and Indigenous Peoples / David B. MacDonald  101
Part II. Borders as Obstructions to Indigenous Peoples’ Rights  123
4. South Asia’s Fractured Frontier: Armed Conflict and Trafficking of Narcotics and Small Arms in the Indigenous Border Territories of Manipur and Northeast India / Binalakshmi Nepram  125
5. Russia’s Arctic Dream and Indigenous Disempowerment: Change and Continuity / Liubov Suliandziga and Rodion Sulyandziga  143
6. The Biopolitics of Government Directives and the Jumma Indigenous Peoples along the Borders of Bangladesh / Hana Shams Ahmed  167
7. COVID-19, States of Exception, and Indigenous Self-Determination / Rauna Kuokkanen  184
Part III. Globalization and Economic Integration’s Impacts on Cross-Border Indigenous Peoples  203
8. Environmental Violence, Cross-Border Traffic in Banned Pesticides, and Impacts on the Indigenous Peoples of Rio Yaqui, Sonora, Mexico / Andrea Carmen  205
9. Colonial Environmental Interventions: Foregrounding Indigenous Sovereignty within Global Geoengineering Governance / Jacqueline Gillis  227
10. Disconnected Clans in Fragmented Rangelands: Aligning the East African Community Integration Process with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples / Elifuraha Laltaika  256
Part IV. Indigenous Peoples Exercising Self-Determination Across Borders  273
11. No Borders on Gender Justice and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights: The Power of Transnational Solidarity and Exchange / Yifat Susskind, Madre  275
12. The A'i Cofán Nationality of Ecuador: Between Invasion, the Border, and Resistance / Tao Maldonado Ruiz  295
13. Indigenous Peoples and Borders in the South American Context: Displacement, Migrations, and Human Rights / Erika M. Yamada and Manoel B. Do Prado Junior  309
14. Haudenosaunee Passports and Decolonizing Borders / Sheryl Lightfoot  332
Contributors  351
Index