Epistemological Perspectives

#### **Chapter 11**

## Utilizing Environmental Analytical Chemistry to Establish Culturally Appropriate Community Partnerships

*Jonathan Credo, Jani C. Ingram, Margaret Briehl and Francine C. Gachupin*

#### **Abstract**

In the United States, minority communities are disproportionately exposed to environmental contaminants due to a combination of historically discriminatory based racial policies and a lack of social political capital. American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) communities have additional factors that increase the likelihood of contaminant exposure. Some of these factors include the disparity of social, cultural, and political representation, differences in cultural understandings between AI/AN communities and western populations, and the unique history of tribal sovereignty in the US. Since the 1990s, research from both private and federal organizations have sought to increase research with AI/AN communities. However, although rooted in beneficence, the rift in cultural upbringing can lead to negative outcomes as well as further isolation and misrepresentation of AI/AN communities. Environmental analytical chemistry (EAC) is one approach that provides a means to establish productive and culturally appropriate collaborations with AI/AN populations. EAC is a more holistic approach that incorporates numerous elements and disciplines to understand underlying environmental questions, while allowing direct input from AI/AN communities. Additionally, EAC allows for a myriad of experimental approaches that can be designed for each unique tribal community, to maintain cultural respect and probe individual nuanced questions.

**Keywords:** American Indian/Alaska Native, analytical chemistry, environmental science, tribal sovereignty, environmental justice, cultural competency

#### **1. Introduction**

The tumult of the 1960s saw the rise of various social rights movements (e.g., civil rights, Native American activism, the environmental movement, etc.) and established the foundation for a change in ideology that sought justice for disenfranchised populations and issues [1, 2]. When focusing on just the environmental

movement, arguably its greatest success was the establishment of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in 1970 [3]. The purpose of President Nixon's presidential directive that created these agencies was to address the rising public concern about air and water quality, as well as the implications to ecosystem and human health from a contaminated environment. The establishment of these two federal agencies also gave the American public a federal outlet to argue for the rights of nature and human health.

The 1970s would see the application of the environmental argument for human health, the coining of the term "environmental justice," and the birth of the environmental and economic justice movement. In 1978, African American residents in Houston, Texas formed the Northeast Community Action Group (NECAG) to fight against the placement of a "sanitary landfill" in their suburban neighborhood [4, 5]. With the help of their attorney, Linda McKeever Bullard, NECAG filed a class action lawsuit in 1979 against Southwestern Waste Management, Inc. [4, 5]. The 1979 lawsuit would be the first of its kind to use a civil rights argument to propose environmental discrimination, highlighting the "economic, political, psychological, and social advantages for whites at the expense of blacks and other people of color" [4]. The lawsuit would ultimately fail, but it set a legal precedent to argue environmental justice and set the stage for the first environmental justice incident that would captivate the nation. In 1978, oil containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were illegally dumped along the roads in fourteen North Carolina counties. In 1982 the roadways were cleaned, but the state needed a disposal site for the contaminated soil. It was decided that the disposal site would be constructed in Warren County, a predominantly black community in North Carolina. Like the scenario in Houston, Texas that led to the formation of the NECAG, the PCBs disposal site would be built in Warren County. Though the State of North Carolina would eventually spend more than \$25 million to cleanup and detoxify Warren County, the decision to build the PCBs disposal site would galvanize grassroot organizations around issues of environmental discrimination nationwide [5–7].

#### **2. Disproportionate impact to minority communities**

The late 1970s, through the 1980s, saw many environmental issues across the United States (U.S.) that demonstrated environmental justice was applicable to more than just African American communities (e.g., Love Canal and creation of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act [CERCLA—aka 'Superfund'] 1977–1980, the Church Rock uranium mill tailings accident—the largest uranium mill tailings accident in U.S. history—in 1979, pesticide reform and justice for agricultural workers led by Cesar Chavez in 1988, etc.) [5, 8–10]. In 1987 the United Church of Christ Commission on Racial Justice released the first report in U.S. history that examined the relationship between race, class, and the environment at a national level [6]. The report found that millions of minority Americans (e.g., African Americans, Hispanics, Asian/Pacific Islander, and American Indians/ Alaska Natives [AI/AN]) were exposed to abandoned or uncontrolled toxic waste sites within their community.

The creation of the USEPA in 1970 gave the American public a means for environmental issues to be addressed by the federal government. This was expanded and strengthened following the enactment of CERCLA by Congress in 1980 following the

#### *Utilizing Environmental Analytical Chemistry to Establish Culturally Appropriate Community… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106237*

events of Love Canal in New York state [9]. Through CERCLA, sites across the U.S. that were deemed hazardous to human health, or the environment, were ranked on the national priorities list. CERCLA also served as a mechanism to provide funding for clean-up and remediation efforts of polluted sites. As of May 2021, there are 1322 sites on the national priorities list [11]. For a site to be placed on the list it requires a minimum hazard ranking system (HRS) score of 28.5 [12]. HRS is a scoring system developed by the USEPA that uses information from a variety of reports and site inspections that gather information about one of four pathways: "ground water migration (drinking water); surface water migration (drinking water, human food chain, sensitive environments); soil exposure and subsurface intrusion (population, sensitive environments); and air migration (population, sensitive environments)" [12]. Each of these four pathways are then compared to a rubric that is broken into three categories and then tallied for a final score: likelihood that a site has released or has the potential to release hazardous substances into the environment; characteristics of the waste (e.g., toxicity and waste quantity); and people or sensitive environments (targets) affected by the release [12].

Despite these defined criteria and the intent of CERCLA to address the disparity of the existence of environmental contaminants in vulnerable communities, both CERCLA and the HRS have been criticized for failing to address these inequalities of exposure [9, 13, 14]. Specifically looking at AI/AN communities, 532 sites, approximately 40%, are found on AI/AN lands, with the possibility of additional sites requiring clean-up that do not meet the criteria to be placed on the national priorities list [11, 14]. CERCLA and HRS do not address the underlying reasons why minority communities are disproportionately at risk for exposure, specifically the historical based discriminatory policies (e.g., land value, population density assessment, administrative resource management, etc.) [9, 14]. Tribal populations are additionally at a disadvantage due to the confusion on which regulatory agency (e.g., local, state, federal, or tribal) has oversight and which agency will contribute resources to either clean-up or seeking legal action against polluting enterprises [14]. An additional limitation of CERCLA and the HRS is that both are designed on historical pollutants (e.g., inorganic elements, metals, respiratory toxins, etc.), leading to a lack of evaluation for modern chemicals, especially emerging contaminants of concern such as organic pollutants [9, 15, 16].

During the 2000s there was a rise in studies that sought to understand and investigate the root causes of environmental injustice, including official recognition in 2002 by former USEPA Director of Environmental Justice, Barry Hill, confirming that minority communities are disproportionately impacted [17]. While there are many nuances to what causes environmental injustice, one of the unifying themes is the lack of political representation and influence of minority and low-income communities. Perhaps best summarized by the Cerrell Report in 1984, the report stated that although every community resents the building of a waste or toxic disposal site in their community "middle and upper socioeconomic strata possess better resources to effectuate their opposition" [18]. The report also identified the factors that make a community either more or less likely to resist placement of contaminating sites, including rural versus urban, political leaning, education, income-status, etc. [18]. At the core of this report, as well as many studies that have come after, the inability for vulnerable communities to exercise political influence is one of the most significant factors determining environmental injustice [19–24]. For this reason, it is understandable why minority communities tend to have a higher incidence of environmental exposure from contaminating

industries as they tend to lack political representation and do not have the social capital associated with the majority.

An additional compounding factor is that existing regulation and enforcement tend to favor majority communities over minority communities. As an example, existing regulation considers population density as a marker for public health and as a factor for placement of noxious facilities: the higher density a population, the less likely the placement [22, 25, 26]. This means that lower density areas, such as rural communities/counties, have a higher likelihood of placement for contaminating facilities. Unfortunately, because these facilities need power, water, and other infrastructure they are placed near access points which tend to be adjacent to higher concentrations of residential areas in rural communities. Sites on the national priorities list, a list of sites marked for environmental remediation by the USEPA, also use population density as a significant factor in evaluating which sites receive financial support and clean-up [27, 28]. The continued existence of contaminating sites in certain communities also impacts enforcement. Placement of contaminating sites result in a decrease in land-value as well as an exodus of individuals that can afford to leave the community [7, 22, 29, 30]. These two factors synergize to move a site even lower on the priorities list because the land is cheap and less well-populated. Even once these sites are evaluated, the cost of any infractions or potential harm to the community is less expensive to the polluting enterprise than if it was placed in a non-minority community, in some cases as much as 500% less expensive [22, 31]. The reason for this price discrepancy is based on the inherent economic value of the community, which further perpetuates the vulnerability of minority communities versus majority communities.

Perhaps the path of least resistance to address this discrepancy is to understand how to give minority communities greater political influence. Unfortunately, studies undertaken in the name of environmental justice uncovered that this potential solution is mired in the root causes that created minority communities in the first place. Historically, minority communities were established by blatant racial segregation practices and policies that separated the majority (i.e., whites) from the minority (i.e., blacks, Hispanics, Asian/Pacific Islanders, AI/AN) [22, 26]. Following legislative changes after the Civil Rights movement, the basis for segregation switched to concepts of economics (e.g., land value) and spatial separation (e.g., rural versus urban) [22, 32, 33]. Despite this change, the legacy of racial segregation practices and policies would still be apparent under the new paradigm. As an example, historically white neighborhoods had a higher level of infrastructure (e.g., internet access, renewable power, clean water, etc.) and luxuries (e.g., schools, green-spaces, health care access, etc.) that conferred a higher intrinsic land value and tended to be in urban centers which made them less likely to be targeted for placement of polluting sources [22, 34, 35]. An additional lasting impact of racial segregation practices was that of social homophily, which predicts that individuals are more likely to interact and live in communities with others they considered like them (e.g., similar ethnicity, culture, appearance, beliefs, etc.) [36]. While social homophily confers certain benefits (e.g., social protection, cultural connection, etc.), it does stymie an individual's ability to escape environmental injustice situations by limiting their network capabilities or limiting their ability for social advancement [36–39]. As an example, areas with lower land value attract both minority populations as well as noxious facilities (e.g., waste disposal sites, polluting industries, etc.).

Interestingly, one of the concerns for environmental injustice also provides a means to increase social political influence. Health disparities, or social determinants of health, is the difference in health equity between populations resulting from a

#### *Utilizing Environmental Analytical Chemistry to Establish Culturally Appropriate Community… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106237*

variety of extrinsic factors (e.g., socioeconomic status, access to healthcare and education, lack of infrastructure, etc.) [40, 41]. While it may be morally and ethically unjust for there to be environmental exposure inequalities between communities, that approach can be ephemeral as it is vulnerable to sways in public opinion and media coverage [42, 43]. Relating environmental injustice and contaminant exposure to human health provides a stronger basis for public concern as well as being associated with political influence [44–46]. Not only this but using health outcomes as a quantifiable measure allows conceptualization of a goal. For example, air quality can be evaluated by the presence or absence of certain airborne factors (e.g., particulate matter, carbon emissions, ozone, etc.) [47]. Individuals that live in areas with "poor air quality" are at risk for measurable detrimental health outcomes (e.g., headaches, asthma, cancer, etc.). Removal of the factors that contribute to "poor air quality" result in an improvement in health outcomes. This example was one of the clarion calls of the environmental movement that would establish the USEPA in 1970, as it not only provided the public a means to understand the problem but also motivated political action. It is well documented that minority communities, specifically those of lower income and ethnic minority backgrounds, experience higher rates of asthma, cancer, mortality, and overall poorer health than majority communities and that these differences, in some cases, are associated with differences in environmental exposure [19–21, 41, 48, 49]. Establishing the link between environmental exposure and health equity has been the approach for many governmental agencies, most notably the National Institutes of Health (NIH). More recently, President Joe Biden announced environmental justice linked to public health as one of his presidential goals under "Justice40" [50].

#### **2.1 Tribal communities and environmental justice**

Although across the U.S. minority communities are at a higher risk of disproportionate exposure to environmental contamination, it is important to understand that every minority community is nuanced in the variables that impact severity of the exposure. AI/AN communities frequently are recognized as one of the greatest under-represented populations for demographical reporting of any kind in the U.S., and this has been known for decades [25, 51–59]. Federal demographic information is collected through the decennial U.S. Census, arguably the largest, most extensive, and possessing the greatest resources of any demographical study in the U.S. An initial evaluation and interpretation of the decennial U.S. Census would suggest that the cause for this under-representation is simply due to the population of AI/AN peoples either remaining stagnant or not growing at the same rate as other populations in the USA [25]. However, a closer evaluation of the methodologies for the census reveals a more complex story. One explanation is because AI/AN communities are considered "hard-to-count" populations, meaning that they are either "hard to locate," "hard to contact," "hard to persuade," "hard to interview," or a mixture of these reasons [51, 54, 58]. To demonstrate this point, imagine a scenario of an AI/AN community on the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation is the largest contiguous Native American sovereign nation in the U.S. and is spread across the states of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah with the land mass of approximately the state of West Virginia (71,000 km2 ) [60]. Complicating this matter, some families on the Navajo Nation may travel to different homes within the Nation depending on family situations, work availability, possession of livestock, etc. Even once a community is located, the Navajo Nation is largely rural with only one interstate (I-40) and six state roads (64, 89, 160, 163, 191,

and 491); by comparison the state of Rhode Island, the smallest state in the union and 183 times smaller than the Navajo Nation, has eight interstates, five U.S. highways, and 74 state roads [61, 62]. The lack of maintained roads means that many communities utilize unmarked dirt roads that are subject to varying degrees of travel. A precipitation event may make a road impassable or may even obfuscate its location or route entirely. Next, outside of American English, Navajo, or Diné Bizaad, is the most common language spoken on the Navajo Nation [63]. Famously, the language is so obscure as well as difficult to speak and understand yet shared by a significant number of people that it was used by the Americans as a code language during World War II and not declassified until 1968, 13 years after the end of the war [64]. Finally, if a census volunteer has been able to locate, contact, and can communicate with this hypothetical community on the Navajo Nation, as with most AI/AN communities, the Navajo people have a long history of distrust towards the US Government and outsiders due to treaty violations, inhumane practices, economic exploitation, etc. [65–69]. While this is a hypothetical situation, it demonstrates the challenges that qualify AI/ AN populations as "hard-to-count" and simply because these communities may be congregated on reservations does not mean they will be adequately represented.

The lack of standardized methodologies and methodological protocols also present difficulties when trying to obtain accurate population information for AI/AN communities. Although Tribes may collect their own demographical information through health forms, registration for utility services, blood quantum, etc., these forms may not use the same methodologies to prevent miscounting or representation or may not collect enough usable information to qualify them to count as an individual on the census [54, 55, 59]. Many AI/AN individuals also identify as multi-racial/ethnic. Unfortunately, disaggregating this data is difficult, hard to interpret, and hard to discuss, all resulting in potential inaccurate representation. There are approaches that can be taken to attempt to address these inaccuracies, but all represent their own challenges and typically result in an over-simplification of the dataset and analysis. One approach assumes that multiracial people are the same as single-race individuals and does not bias the result significantly [55]. Unfortunately, this is not the case, and, for example, multi-racial AI/AN individuals tend to have greater income, education, and live in different environments than single-raced AI/AN individuals [55, 70]. A different approach groups all multi-racial responses into a single category and interprets this new group as an individual category [55]. This presents difficulties because not all multi-racial individuals are similar and subtleties like culture, language, behavior patterns, and health statistics are lost, which invalidates the usefulness of the survey/data [53, 55, 71, 72]. An added difficulty was the previous approach by the US and state governments that disallowed disaggregating data as well as many federal and state guidelines only allowing or using single race responses [25, 53]. While this approach may provide some protection against demographical fraud, it disregards the polyethnic nature of the US resulting in an inaccurate enumeration of its citizens. There have been attempts by various organizations, including the National Congress of American Indians, to institute a re-evaluation of the methodologies used by the US Census and other demographical surveys, and it remains to be seen if these attempts proved successful [51, 52, 54].

Separate to the under-representation of AI/AN communities that contribute to a lack of political and social influence, western colonization of AI/AN communities have left a legacy of environmental injustice [57, 73–75]. White Americans used the doctrine of "manifest destiny" in the 1800s to justify the westward expansion and colonizing of lands under control of AI/AN communities [76, 77]. This doctrine

#### *Utilizing Environmental Analytical Chemistry to Establish Culturally Appropriate Community… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106237*

elevated white Americans as superior, portraited the AI/AN in a negative light, and emphasized that the land was being underutilized by AI/AN people and under American control the land could be developed for maximum economic value. For more than 100 years, various laws, treaties, and other policies were adopted that favored American interests over AI/AN interests [57, 76–79]. Because the land was under the auspices of the American government or private entities, there was no need for consent from AI/AN people. This opened the land to the construction of various industries that either harvested the land for natural resources (e.g., minerals/ores, oil, natural gas, etc.) or developed the land for economic growth (e.g., agriculture, cities, utilities, etc.). Looking at mining and natural resource extraction as an example, this period of American development has left more than 160,000 abandoned mines in the western U.S. (defined as Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming), the location of the majority of Native American lands [75]. In addition to land development, the policies of the time saw the exile of AI/AN communities from their traditional boundaries and confinement on reservations, small allotments of land that were deemed harsh or of low-economic value therefore undesirable for development. The reservation system also contributed to severely limiting AI/AN autonomy and produced a system of dependence on the federal government. Though the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act appeared to give AI/AN communities autonomy back through tribal sovereignty, there were caveats to consider [78, 79]. As mentioned, many AI/ AN communities were located on lands that were undesirable and still greatly relied on federal aid for survival. To this day, many reservations lands are under-developed and lack significant infrastructure; as an example, approximately 30% of the people on the Navajo Nation lack access to running water and are required to haul water from unregulated sources [80, 81]. Another condition lies in the meaning of "sovereignty" outlined by the 1934 act. A better definition is that tribes that met the qualification to be considered "sovereign" gained *limited sovereignty*; the US government retained "plenary power" meaning Congress still has authority to regulate AI/AN affairs [78, 79]. This dichotomy created by the Indian Reorganization Act has been the basis for numerous legislative issues for AI/AN people since the 1960s. An example that demonstrates this fact and how environmental injustices persist is the case of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation.

Previous hard rock mining ventures and surveys from the late 1800s through the 1940s revealed large amounts of uranium in the American Southwest, much of it within the boundaries of what would be the Navajo Nation [69, 75, 82, 83]. In attempts to establish a strategic source of domestic uranium for the US military, uranium extraction and refinement began on the Navajo Nation in 1944 [69, 75, 82]. Following the start of the Cold War with the former USSR, in 1946 the US military seceded control of the atomic science and technology sector to the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) [69, 82]. To ensure continued availability of refined uranium for atomic munitions and remove the dependency on foreign uranium, the AEC set a guaranteed price for uranium in 1948 and established itself as the sole purchaser of uranium mined in the US [69, 82]. This policy directive led to a uranium boom, attracting dozens of private entities to the American Southwest and the Navajo Nation. These companies employed thousands of Navajos to work in the uranium industry: uranium extraction, refinement, and transport.

At the time, little was known about the occupational hazards of uranium exposure, so the Navajos worked in conditions without any engineering controls (e.g., mine ventilation) and minimal personal protective equipment, often limited to helmets and flashlights [69, 82]. In 1951 the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) began conducting health evaluations and surveys on the Navajo miners. By 1952, preliminary data from the PHS study suggested detrimental health outcomes from uranium exposure. These findings were confirmed in 1962 when PHS released its first report that documented significant occupational health hazards from the uranium industry being experienced by the Navajos, including respiratory distress, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and cancer [69, 82]. Citing national security concerns, the AEC and federal government kept the results and findings of these studies as well as the hazards of uranium exposure from the Navajo people through the mid-1960s [69, 82]. The federal government did respond by instituting recommendations for limiting exposure, including the need for ventilation and limits an individual could work, but these were weakly enforced, and few companies invested in these safeguards.

The uranium industry on the Navajo Nation would continue until 1989. During this 45-year period almost 4.0 million tons of uranium ore was extracted, and thousands of Navajos were exposed from either directly working in the uranium industry or indirectly due to the proximity of communities to uranium features [65, 68, 69, 73, 82]. While over the years there have been legislative successes to reconcile the injustices committed against the Navajo people, more than 1000 abandoned uranium mine features still exist on the Navajo Nation today and hundreds of families have likely been impacted by the uranium legacy [69, 82]. The plight of the Navajo people and uranium mining is just one example of how historic policies towards natural resource extraction and land rights for AI/AN communities have contributed to their disproportionate exposure to environmental contaminants and persistent environmental injustice. Across Alaska, Alaska Native communities have been displaced since the 1940s for military and economic reasons [57, 84–86]. Many of these sites, abandoned or otherwise, are still polluted with industrial chemicals such as PCBs and flame retardants that are associated with cancers, developmental conditions, and chronic health diseases [73, 86]. Along the Colorado River corridor on the Arizona and California border is a large agricultural sector that applies year-round agrichemicals to support crop production. These lands are also home to Native American Tribes, such as the Chemehuevi, Cocopah, and Quechan, that face daily exposure with an unknown impact to their health [87, 88].

Both previous points demonstrate the subtlety in the shared factors of environmental injustice to minorities; however, AI/AN communities possess a unique dimension that requires redefining what environmental injustice means to them. Unlike other minority communities, though AI/AN people are US citizens they are also the original inhabitants of North America, and most tribes have a cultural and spiritual element wholly different to western conventions [66, 89–93]. A recent survey funded by the First Nations Development Institute, the leading American Indian non-profit in the US, found that 40% of respondents believed that AI/AN people no longer existed [94]. Respondents also held a dual-nature belief about AI/AN people: AI/ AN people live in abject poverty yet are wealthy due to "casino money" and "government handouts" or AI/AN people are cultural and spiritual leaders/protectors of the environment, but their communities are polluted [94]. These cultural misunderstandings may exist given the inaccurate depiction of AI/AN people in US culture. These inaccuracies have created a mystique about AI/AN people that has persisted since the first European settlers arrived in North America, through westward expansion, to application of the AI/AN image for social licensing and marketing [94]. The survey found this misunderstanding of AI/AN communities extended to elected officials

#### *Utilizing Environmental Analytical Chemistry to Establish Culturally Appropriate Community… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106237*

as well, many of whom did not know there were distinctly different AI/AN tribes, some tribes possessed "sovereignty," or what "tribal sovereignty" entailed [94]. As of January 2022, the U.S. Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs federally recognize 574 tribes in 35 states and within the 15 states (Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont, and West Virginia) that lack a federally recognized tribe, some possess distinct tribal communities lacking the qualifications for federal recognition [95]. The number of distinct federally recognized tribes in the US across a diverse landscape demonstrates that these communities cannot be lumped together when thinking about AI/AN populations, especially when trying to address environmental injustice. Additionally, the degree of sovereignty and the wording of the tribal constitutions for each tribe poses a significant challenge for all federal-tribal relations and regulations. These differences have been highlighted throughout the USEPA's and NIH's long history of attempting to rectify injustices committed against AI/AN communities or both agencies' various resources for individuals and organizations seeking to partner with AI/AN populations [89, 91, 96, 97]. Unfortunately, many of these problems arise from cultural differences and understanding between outsiders (e.g., federal agents, scientists, activist, academics, etc.) and tribes. Perhaps one of the most significant examples of this is the unethical collection and use of biological specimens from the Havasupai Tribe in Arizona collected by Arizona State University scientists [98, 99].

#### **2.2 Case study: Havasupai blood case**

In 1989, Dr. John Martin, an anthropologist at Arizona State University (ASU), was approached by members of the Havasupai tribe, a tribe located within the Grand Canyon and 1 of 21 federally recognized tribes in Arizona. The tribe hoped Dr. Martin could provide insight on why diabetes was increasing in their community and, if possible, help combat the chronic disease. As there had been other genetic links to diabetes in a different tribe, Dr. Martin enlisted the help of Dr. Therese Markow, a geneticist at ASU whose research involved genetic causes of disease.

From 1990 to 1994, samples of blood and medical records were collected from approximately 400 members of the Havasupai Tribe, all of whom signed a broadly worded consent form that allowed the researchers to "study the causes of behavioral/ medical disorders" [98, 100]. The Havasupai members who consented in the study believed their samples would solely be used for the purpose of diabetes research and would help their tribe fight the disease. The ASU team discovered that the previous genetic link to diabetes was not present in the Havasupai. However, research utilizing the Havasupai samples continued in other pursuits, including studies on tribal migration and origination, mental health, and alcoholism, all conducted without the Havasupai's knowledge.

While attending a dissertation presentation in 2003, Carletta Tilousi, a member of the Havasupai Tribe, learned her sample and those of her tribe had been used in studies that she viewed were never consented, including some studies centered on controversial and taboo topics in the Havasupai culture. In 2004, the Havasupai Tribe filed a case against the Arizona Board of Regents and Dr. Markow about the misuse of the samples [98, 100]. The case would be settled out of court in 2010 with the tribe receiving USD 700,000 in direct compensation, funds for a tribal clinic and school, and the return of the collected samples [98, 100].

As a result of the Havasupai case, the Havasupai tribe passed a "Banishment Order" that barred all ASU researchers and employees from the Havasupai lands and stopped all ongoing research with the tribe. In addition, the case exemplified the concerns other Native American tribes had of working with outside researchers. To this day, many tribes are wary of entering research partnerships with outside entities and many continue to refuse to participate in genetic research studies. The effect in the scientific community has not been as widespread. While the Havasupai case serves as an example of the importance of communication and how "informed consent" can be misused, many researchers and institutional review boards still are not aware of the significance of this case or have not internalized any general lessons about tribal ethical considerations or cultural sensitivity [98]. Therefore, it necessitates new approaches and adaptations of existing methodologies to build productive and successful partnerships with tribal Nations to address environmental injustice.

The conflict between western trained scientists and AI/AN communities stems from the prevailing western scientific pedagogy that establishes the researcher in a paternalistic role [99]. In this capacity, regardless of intent, a researchers' innate training and approach to a situation may come off as disrespectful while the researcher may find the hesitation from the AI/AN community as unfounded, ill-informed, or short-sighted [91, 101, 102]. This can also provide a possible rationale for why cultural diversity trainings do not have the desired effect, as western trained researchers may find it difficult to either understand why certain precautions are taken or to change their behavior when approaching situations [103, 104]. U.S. scientific evaluations (e.g., grants, funding agency reviews, manuscripts, etc.) also contribute to the promotion of the existing paternalistic dogma because their evaluation criteria fail to consider the unique considerations when working with AI/AN communities, such as the amount of time needed for capacity building, requirement to seek tribal approval prior to dissemination or project expansion, etc. [91, 105].

However, if done appropriately, tribal research collaborations can be incredibly fruitful and productive. Since the mid-2000s, there has been an increased level of discussion for the benefits of approaches that view AI/AN communities as equal stakeholders, most prominent is Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) which has been promoted by the National Institutes of Health [106, 107]. Adoption of culturally appropriate epistemologies, such as TEK, can confer benefits such as facilitating a two-way exchange of knowledge and ideas, ensuring intervention or research approaches are successful, or securing social political capital for AI/AN communities [89, 92, 108]. An example that demonstrates the potential benefits of a tribal community collaborating with an outsider researcher is the case of the 2016 Sanders, Arizona water quality news story [109]. This research collaboration, led by Dr. Tommy Rock, demonstrated that for over a decade the water supplying the Sanders community had uranium concentrations that exceeded the USEPA Clean Water Act guideline, including the water supplying the community center and school. Although the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality had records of this elevation, no action was taken until the work conducted in 2016. Upon further investigation, it was suggested that one of the reasons for the chronic exposure was the size and location of the Sanders community. Sanders is a small community of 575 residents located in eastern Arizona on the border of the Navajo Nation [110]. The community size as well as its location on the border, led to a combination of nebulous administrative oversight and neglect resulting in the decade long water contamination. This collaboration led to changes that addressed the water contamination and provided a voice to a community facing environmental injustice.

*Utilizing Environmental Analytical Chemistry to Establish Culturally Appropriate Community… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106237*

#### **2.3 Application of environmental analytical chemistry to address environmental justice**

Environmental analytical chemistry (EAC) is a subspecialty of analytical and environmental chemistry, with roots in numerous other disciplines, including biology and ecology, focused on quantifying chemicals in environmental samples, using instruments (e.g., inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry) or techniques such as separation and purification. Although technically EAC has been around for hundreds of years, the rise of environmental concerns in the 1970s has led to an increase in EAC application to understand the nature of chemicals within the ecosystem.

Given the diversity and broad application of EAC, it is an excellent model to establish culturally appropriate and successful collaborations with AI/AN populations. At its foundation, EAC is relatable to everyone given that EAC focuses on environmental samples. Everyone on Earth drinks water, eats food, breathes air, and both anthropogenic (e.g., mining, use of chemicals, farming, combustion, etc.) and natural processes (e.g., volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, algal blooms, etc.) can result in fouling of any of these components. From the youngest child to the eldest adult, regardless of our education or upbringing, our innate senses allow us to determine if something smells, tastes, or looks bad or abnormal. Further, dependent on an individual's level of curiosity, there is a transitive property of environmental contamination. If a substance is offensive and known to cause harm it stands to reason that observation of this substance being added to food, water, or air may lead to those being contaminated, even if we are no longer able to perceive the substance. EAC provides a means to investigate if these resources are contaminated and, if so, to what extent and what is the significance. As an example, a lasting question and concern of the Navajo people in relation to the uranium legacy (*vide supra*) is how uranium has impacted the environment (i.e., air, food, soil, water) and how does it impact their health and lifestyle [67, 69, 75, 111].

EAC is also applicable as an educational modality at every level of knowledge and training [112–115]. Primary school children can be introduced to EAC with coffee filters or mesh grating. These barrier devices are implemented to provide varying levels of filtration to water, based on pore size. With this understanding this lesson can be related to the functionality of wastewater treatment plants that filter and test water at various stages within the plant. There are a variety of means high school and college age adults can be introduced to EAC. One example is the application of a barrier device (e.g., white sock or borosilicate glass chamber) to the tailpipe on vehicles that are then driven around a parking lot. Students likely understand that vehicle exhaust smells bad and can leave a residue, but some students may not give it much thought once the exhaust is diluted in the atmosphere as its noxious qualities dissipate. The barrier device acts as a filter and provides visualization of previously unobservable microscopic atmospheric pollutants, such as carbon and sulfur particulates. This lesson could then be pivoted to a discussion of petrol grades and how they impact emissions, the rationale for the institution of the USEPA and air quality, or analysis of benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene via gas chromatography–mass spectrometry, all dependent on the level of education, educational setting, and resource availability.

Outside of formal education, EAC provides a means to involve the public as well with "citizen scientists." The use of "citizen scientists" is widely recognized as successful for a variety of reasons including motivating the public in STEM disciplines and issues, providing an inexpensive way to gather samples for a study, or early to

long-term surveillance, among many more [116, 117]. An example of the wide-reaching teaching possibilities of EAC is the long-term surveillance of water quality on the Navajo Nation. As part of an ongoing project at Northern Arizona University (NAU) and a cornerstone project of The Partnership for Native American Cancer Prevention (NACP), a collaboration between the University of Arizona Cancer Center and NAU, hundreds of water samples across the Navajo Nation have been collected since 2012 and analyzed for elemental contaminants [67]. Throughout this process, community members have been incorporated from relatively low engagement such as providing directions to a water source or sharing their story of uranium contamination to high engagement such as actively collecting water samples or visiting the laboratories at NAU. This project has also provided opportunities to for hands-on lessons taught to K-12 students on impactful EAC research.

EAC provides a bridge between western thought and AI/AN indigenous knowledge, dissolving the barrier that can prevent meaningful collaborations from forming. Many AI/AN cultures place a significance and respect for the environment in their cultural practices and teaching, imparting an understanding that nature is equally as important as living creatures [66, 89–93]. This teaching imparts a holistic worldview that describes everything as having a purpose and a level of interconnectedness, so if the natural world is impacted it necessitates an understanding of how all aspects of life may be affected [66, 89–93].

Previous western endeavors tended to be interested in a singular aspect of an event, such as how to maximize profits from a mine. In this approach, no forethought was given to how the mine may impact human or ecosystem health. This singular thought process is also evident in the dogmatic application of the scientific method. The scientific method teaches us that a "good" experiment/experimenter will *control* all possible variables in each system to understand the effect of a singular variable. The benefit of this approach is that it gives the impression that we understand how this variable will act, once we know how it behaves, we can predict future outcomes. Unfortunately, the world does not exist in a vacuum, and we are unable to control all variables.

As an example of the limitation of a singular thought process, consider the numerous inventions from Thomas Midgley Jr., a chemical and mechanical engineer in the early twentieth century. Two of his most infamous inventions would be tetraethyl lead, a fuel additive in gasoline as an "anti-knocking" agent and protection for valves, and chlorofluorocarbons that saw a wide array of applications from refrigeration to aerosol propellants [118, 119]. While both inventions were excellent at accomplishing their designed purpose, humanity would learn dozens of years later that both pose significant danger to the health of the environment and humans [118, 119].

The application of EAC seeks to understand the environment through a multifaceted lens, often relating quantified measurements to a regulatory standard or mechanistic study to describe the impact of the chemical concentration. While EAC may not elevate the environment to the same cultural significance as some AI/AN tribes, it does acknowledge the ecosystem as a web of interconnected interactions and provides a modicum of the same holistic worldview shared by some AI/AN tribes. An additional benefit to EAC is its ability to provide quantifiable numbers and objective evidence that allows regulatory science and standards to compare the content of the environmental sample. As an example, while a direct emotional, ethical and even spiritual appeal has been used to address the controversy of the lasting impact of uranium contamination on the Navajo Nation, these approaches do not provide quantifiable data for federal agencies to assess regulatory standards [89, 91, 93, 120].

*Utilizing Environmental Analytical Chemistry to Establish Culturally Appropriate Community… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106237*

Further, without objective data any possible detrimental health effects experienced may be related to other possible variables such as lifestyle choices (e.g., diet, smoking habits, etc.), occupational exposure, or family history.

As the goal of EAC is to make measurements of environmental samples, this approach can provide hard numbers to determine if there is any actual threat from exposure. The adaptability of EAC also allows its methodologies to be applied to the quantitation of contaminants in a variety of matrices, both abiotic and biotic. This versatility is beneficial because EAC practitioners can track a contaminant throughout an ecosystem to understand the mobility and characteristic of the contaminant. As it pertains to AI/AN communities, this versatility is beneficial because it offers AI/AN communities the option to donate biological samples that are not considered sacred or taboo while still providing a means to quantitate contaminants in humans. If an AI/ AN community, or any community, is hesitant about providing biological samples, but is concerned about the impact a contaminant has on living organisms, EAC methodologies can utilize animal models or other biological proxies that circumvent this controversial sample collection.

#### **3. Conclusions**

Both minority and tribal communities are disproportionately exposed to environmental contaminants and tribal communities have additional factors that exacerbate this inequity. This disparity creates an environment in which government agencies, academic institutions, and other research driven organizations may want to partner with AI/AN communities to address these concerns [121]. However, this desire, while potentially rooted in beneficence, can result in unintentional disastrous outcomes if not approached in a culturally appropriate manner. The prototypic example is that of the ASU and Havasupai blood case [98, 99, 122]. In that case, the initial intent of the study was not only to help the tribe but was also instituted at the request of the Havasupai people. In the end, the study was a failure as not only did the original purpose of the study not produce fruitful results, but the biological samples collected were used in research endeavors that went beyond the consent of the Havasupai Tribe. Outside of Arizona and indigenous research networks, the case of the Havasupai study has produced mixed interpretations within the U.S. [98, 105]. In general, researchers and institutional review board (IRB) members that have either previously worked with indigenous individuals or identify as a minority themselves, especially AI/AN, saw the Havasupai case as a clear violation of human rights and one that necessitates expansion of cultural understanding [98, 102]. On the opposite side, IRB members and researchers that did not have these shared experiences broadly had a difficult time understanding why the case was controversial, citing that the language of the informed consent covered the expanded research projects and the potential for research may have ultimately benefited not only the Havasupai people but other populations [98]. This rift in understanding of the significance of the case demonstrates that there is still an underlying need for western trained scientists to appreciate cultural nuances that exist in non-majority communities.

Environmental analytical chemistry [EAC] provides a means that may help establish research collaborations with tribal communities. The inherent hybrid nature of EAC provides a foundation for the spirit of collaboration. Practitioners recognize that their training represents a component of the project and to address the underlying question necessitates teamwork from a variety of experts, including community members. As

EAC focuses on the quantification of contaminants in the environment, this approach is also apt for assessing both the existence and the potential impact of contaminants an AI/AN community may be exposed. In addition, the versatility of sampling modalities for EAC provides an anodynic pathway that affords the time for trust and collaboration to build between the AI/AN community and the researcher. As an example, had the community of Sanders wished to pursue quantifying biological availability and uptake of uranium from the water, EAC provides a means to do so with a wide range of approaches: using biological samples (e.g., blood, hair, serum, etc.), animal models, or even environmental sampling (e.g., soil, water, plants, etc.) [123, 124].

Environmental exposure to contaminating industries is a problem that plagues all individuals across the globe, regardless of race, gender, economic status, political affiliations, etc. The environmental movement that captivated the U.S. in the 1960s–1980s shed light on these concerns. Unfortunately, since modernization and industrialization, there have been communities that face an increased risk of exposure to these contaminants. Compounding these issues, historical policies have made minority communities additionally vulnerable to exposure, and AI/AN communities have a further set of unique considerations that change the definition of environmental injustice. The diverse nature of EAC, including approaches that analyze environmental contamination from a variety of perspectives as well as the ability to provide regulators objective evidence, makes it a great model for addressing environmental concerns in minority and AI/AN communities.

Within the NACP, EAC has helped to destigmatize science and STEM for many AI/AN and minority individuals, one of the commonly cited barriers to STEM [125]. Dozens of students have been mentored through the NACP partnership using the lens of EAC methodologies to understand how environmental contaminants effect human and ecosystem health. Many students, both minority and majority, as well as community members have commented how the research is not only relatable, but it demonstrates that even they are able to contribute to science in a meaningful way. This normalization of science and STEM is greatly important for both students and communities. For students, it breeds curiosity for the next generation and demonstrates that science is not an unobtainable art, but rather a functional process that occurs every day of our lives all around us. For communities, it helps to empower these communities because it provides a means for them to come to the table as equals with scientists, policy makers, politicians, businesses, and other stakeholders and contribute to a two-way exchange of knowledge. Increasingly, research is demonstrating that science, especially disciplines and fields concerning the environment, requires a network of approaches to understand how a contaminant or system functions. Our world is one of mixtures and our antiquated approaches to evaluating individual variables is ill-equipped to answer the questions we have today.

#### **Acknowledgements**

We acknowledge the American Indian/Alaska Native communities that have worked with us over the years. They have shared their knowledge and teaching, as well as opening their communities for us to learn and collaborate. Special thanks to The Partnership for Native American Cancer Prevention (NAU Grant Number U54CA143925 and UACC Grant Number U54CA143924) for providing years of support and training. Lastly, thank you to the members of the Ingram research group of the years, without your hard work this work would not be possible.

*Utilizing Environmental Analytical Chemistry to Establish Culturally Appropriate Community… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106237*

#### **Conflict of interest**

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

### **Author details**

Jonathan Credo1 \*, Jani C. Ingram<sup>2</sup> , Margaret Briehl3 and Francine C. Gachupin3

1 University of Arizona College of Medicine, Tucson, AZ, USA

2 Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA

3 University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

\*Address all correspondence to: jmcredo@email.arizona.edu

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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#### **Chapter 12**

## A Decolonial Approach of Indigenous Identity in Africa

*Coro J.A. Juanena*

#### **Abstract**

European African studies traditionally deny the existence of *indigenous* communities in Africa, even though in the same way as the American continent, Africa was once too a region colonised by Europe. The new social and historical identities created under the *coloniality of power*, endure in the political and academic imagination to the extent of negating the current *indigenous* status of a large proportion of African nations. This issue is of great relevance in contemporary international politics due to the resurgence of the idea of indigenous identity on a global scale and as a response to modern capitalism. Particularly, following the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples adopted by the General Assembly in 2007. My objective of this article is to deconstruct the historical processes that have resulted in the current denial of the existence of indigenous peoples on the African continent as part of a decolonial project.

**Keywords:** African indigenous people, political identity, decolonial, coloniality of power, ideology of representation, social engineering, indigenous, postcolonial, formal legal rationality

#### **1. Introduction**

In traditional African European studies and many African policy areas, it is common to deny indigenous status to a large number of African indigenous peoples. However, like the American continent, Africa has been a region colonized by the Europeans; both territories have been subjected to white colonial oppression and their technology of exploitation/domination. Both territories have been geographically and politically constructed by European imperial power. In contrast, only the first peoples of the Americas are recognized as indigenous people questioning the status of most African communities. At present, only the first peoples of the Americas were recognized as indigenous, and very few indigenous peoples in Africa were granted that status, especially in the European imagination of Latin origin. It is even more surprising since the four languages of the colonial forces that acted on both continents—Africa and America—chose the same term to designate the native peoples, i.e., indigenous.

Lastly, in addition to this great paradox, there is the politico-historical context in which the academic discipline has traditionally named and constructed indigenous peoples, that is to say, anthropology. African indigenous peoples played a key role as "object of study" at the beginning of the constitution of anthropology as an area of knowledge and in its process of institutionalization as a scientific speciality. Despite being prominent protagonists as indigenous peoples, especially in the birth of British applied anthropology, ironically, at the end of the twentieth century and in the twenty-first century, they will be denied their right to claim their indigenous status, the same condition that they were invested by the "servant of colonialism" like Talad Assad's reference to anthropology [1].

In this chapter, I propose to explore all these contradictions in which a large part of the European Academy is located, especially the Latin-based institutions of knowledge, which like other political actors, barely recognize the identity of Native Americans. I aim to unveil the *ideology of representation* [2] behind these academic positions and the ideas of African and international politicians that hold those postures. In other words, analyze the power of denomination using the construction of knowledge as one of the most powerful tools employed by the imperial apparatus of the representation of the Others colonized.

In the current context of the resurgence of indigenous identity as a political identity of resistance in much of Africa and the international arena, it is particularly urgent to dismantle the genealogy of prejudices of those who reject the existence of indigenous peoples on the African continent. The proclamation of the two International Decades of the World's Indigenous People, 1995–2004 and 2005–2014, along with the adoption of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2007, has this international space a leading player in this new institutional fact, according to the definition given by Jonh Searle to this term [3].

In order to reach the above purpose, I am going to use different concepts, theories and analyses of the authors who deal with decolonial criticism, making a comparative historical analysis with the aim of deconstructing the processes that have led the current capitalist power pattern to manifest the absence of *indigenous* people in Africa, thereby perpetuating what has very aptly been called Antonio Quijano [4] the *coloniality of power*.

This work is based on participant observation that I have been practising at the United Nations (UN) Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (PFII), in New York, since 2005 and at the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) UN, in Geneva, since 2008. In addition, a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of statements made in these spaces by *African indigenous peoples*, states, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and experts has been carried out. To this must be added the review of abundant literature on the subject.

#### **2. Re-conceptualizing the reality: the first contact of the "colonial disencounter"**

Considering that the primary function of theory is to "conceptualise reality", as mentioned in Ezequiel Ander-Egg's famous book on social research [5], it is essential to explain and understand the socio-historical-theoretical framework in which this expression of reality is formulated. In our case, it is particularly relevant because our goal is to demolish the social representations that have been constructed for more

#### *A Decolonial Approach of Indigenous Identity in Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106920*

than five hundred years around the term "Indigenous". Even though this voice existed before the colonial encounter between Europe and America, it is from this point on that the concept of "indigenous" acquires the modern meanings that persist in the current collective imaginary. That is why our analysis takes this historic moment as its starting point.

In order to help understand the different factors that have contributed to the construction of the paradox I am trying to resolve; I will structure the discourse in three narrative threads that are historically consistent: (1) I will begin by analysing the terms given by the colonisers to the Others colonised in the first contact of the "colonial encounter", (2) Next, I will examine how different models of colonial administration have affected the naming of colonised Otherness: two Europes, two continents, two historical moments and finally, (3) I will explore the effects of the processes of independence on the construction of the new devalued identities. Along the way, we will be accompanied by the thesis of Aníbal Quijano and other post- and de-colonial authors.

Before I begin, I would like to point out that these three historical causes are not the only ones that have influenced the current recognition of the existence of *indigenous peoples* in Africa. Factors of political conjuncture in each case have a direct bearing on the issue. Nonetheless, in this paper, I have focused on the importance that historical events have had in the construction of the current Western imaginary that weighs on the indigenous African identity.

The socio-cultural conditions in which the modern identity of the Other so-called *indigenous* began to be constructed under the "modern/colonial world system" [6]. The capitalist world-system has produced and reproduced the *coloniality of power*, according to what Anibal Quijano said, creating new historical and social identities whites, Indians, blacks, mestizos, olives—which, combined with a racist distribution of labour and forms of exploitation of colonial/modern capitalism, articulated a new Eurocentric hegemony based on naturalised identities [7]. Let me take a moment to go through Quijano's concept of *coloniality of power* in detail since, although I share the essence of this concept, I differ in some critical nuances that emerge when we apply it to the African case.

Aníbal Quijano distinguishes between "colonialism" and "coloniality". According to this, there have been many kinds of colonialism, but only one coloniality is understood as "a pattern of power". The "coloniality" was born with the constitution of America and reached our days expressed in what we usually call globalization. So, globalization was based on the imposition of racial/ethnic classification on the world's population as a cornerstone of the pattern of power and operates in each of the planes, spheres and dimensions, material and subjective, of everyday social existence and societal level. In his own words, this pattern of power: "It originates and globalizes from America"… With America (Latin), capitalism becomes a world, eurocentric and coloniality and modernity are installed and associated as the constituent axes of its specific pattern of power." [4, p. 342].

This "specific pattern of power" originated during colonialism as a formal political system and is a structure that perpetuates the situation of domination created under the colonial relationship. The current hegemonic pattern of power, which is developed within the framework of the Wallerstenian world-system [8], was established on two fundamental axes, namely: Frist "... the social classification of the world population on the idea of race, a mental construct that expresses the basic experience of colonial domination..." and second "the articulation of all historical forms of control of labour, its resources, and products, around capital and the world market" [4, p. 246].

Quijano's analysis of that "fundamental axis", which is the concept of race, is especially interesting for our work. A modern mental category codifies the phenotypic differences between conquerors and conquered and produces historically new identities: Indians and blacks, among other categorizations. These new identities were associated with the hierarchies of the colonial domination pattern that is according to Quijano: race and racial identity were established as instruments of basic social classification of the population. Nevertheless, we are faced with an interesting paradox: while it is true that the original peoples of these two continents were called differently at the beginning of American colonisation—blacks and Indians—which led to two singular institutional facts, it is no less accurate that, both in the bureaucratic administrations of the American colonies in the fifteenth century and in the African colonial governments of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the same term was used to refer to the other colonised peoples: Indians. As seen below, this issue goes beyond a mere nominal question and significantly impacts today's reality.

The second axis Quijano writes about is the: constitution of a new structure of control of labour and its resources and products that establishes a new, original and unique structure of relations of production in the world-historical experience, i.e., world capitalism. This world structure was mostly established through the creation of two institutional facts: "(a) native serfs = Americans; (b) black slaves = Africans in early American colonisation". [4, p. 247]. However, centuries later, as Europe has embarked on its modern industrial development, largely thanks to the colonization of the African continent, an African forced labour army that will join its imperial project will also be named "indigenous". The same bureaucratic term used at different historical points will give rise to different contemporary political realities.

#### **3. Two different ways of naming the other at the earliest moment of the "colonial disencountre"**

The saying goes: "Who dominates denominates", and behind the different forms of naming are hidden centuries of technology of domination; thus, my discourse begins from the very first moment that the modern meanings of indigenous and black identities have started to be constructed. According to this theory, this time comes when the first modern and global geocultural identity called America is created. Next to it, the first identity of the colonized subject emerges, the indigenous identity. Later, blacks, those Africans brought to the Americas to work as slave labour, will become the second modern identity given to colonized subjects. Up to this point, I share Quijanian's thesis and his powerful concept of coloniality of power, but I dissent with his idea that America was the only place where it emerged and globalized the coloniality of power. From where I stand, Africa, like America, participated in the genesis and globalization of the global pattern of capitalist power. The "modern discovery" of the two continents by Europe takes place simultaneously; both are used simultaneously in the new worldwide system in which triangular trade is constituted; although they will indeed play different roles from their peripheral places. Let us go through these roles in detail. Let us reflect on the discursive arguments that colonial power used to differentiate the two racial categories on which the coloniality of power was founded, which Aníbal Quijano finds irrelevant. We will find the different roles played by these two new racial categories and their idiosyncrasies.

Bartolomé de las Casas, in his famous theological, juridical and philosophical defence of the capacity of the native Americans to possess reason and soul, left out the

#### *A Decolonial Approach of Indigenous Identity in Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106920*

enslaved black Africans. However, he did indeed dedicate some lines denouncing the situation of the black Africans in America and defending their freedom. These were scarce and very discreet [9]. At no time did the Catholic Church have as its policy the defence of the freedom of black slaves; proof of this can be found in the various papal bulls and decrees of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries against the enslavement of Native Americans and in favour of African natives [9, p. 13]. This allowed for the further dehumanisation of the black African slave in relation to the indigenous American serf. Above all, it gave wings to the most significant bloody exodus in human history: the Atlantic slave trade.

A few years before Christopher Columbus landed on the American coast, the Portuguese Henri the Navigator landed on the African coast looking for gold and slaves. The voyages made by the Portuguese during the "Age of Discovery" during the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries not only served to expand European knowledge of Africa but also initiated a process that would transform European thinking about Africans. As with the Americans, the background to this transformation of African people was the transatlantic slave trade. Africa, along with America, is "discovered" by Europe. Relations between Africa and Europe existed in the past, but there was still no coloniality of power. They were not "modern" relations, as they were later constructed by Europe.

A few years before Christopher Columbus landed on the American coast, the Portuguese Henri the Navigator landed on the African coast looking for gold and slaves. The voyages made by the Portuguese during the "Age of Discovery" during the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries not only served to expand European knowledge of Africa, but also initiated a process that would transform European thinking about Africans. As with the Americans, the background to this transformation of African people was the transatlantic slave trade. Africa, along with America, is "discovered" by Europe. Of course, relations between Africa and Europe existed in the past, but there was not yet coloniality of power as such; they were not "modern" relations.

The context for this transformation in the image of the African people was the transatlantic slave trade. Slavery had been a prominent feature of classical Mediterranean culture and continued in various forms in medieval Europe. It also existed in the Muslim world, including North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. However, the Atlantic slave trade during the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries caused the forced migration of 12 million Africans to the Americas, which forged an explicit link in European minds between racial inferiority, slavery, blackness, and Africa in many ways, the modern idea of Africa emerged from the crucible of dehumanisation of Atlantic slavery, and this had different consequences from what A. Quijano points out about American indigeneity.

This difference between African blackness and American indigeneity was created and perpetuated institutionally until the beginning of Europeans' penetration of the African continent. That was at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. Since then, the effective colonization of African lands required the abolition of slavery and the official end of their Atlantic trade, which has been replaced by the exploitation of forced labour on the black continent. Africa moved from a slave-producing continent into a quasi-slave mode of production continent, what it meant to move from slavery to servitude. Servitude under slave conditions in most cases, but servitude after all.

Quijano indeed reported that Castilla's crown decided early on the cessation the slavery of the Indians, as he argues: "to prevent their total extermination" [7, p. 249]. Nonetheless, this author does not value the arguments used in constructing these two distinct identities created by the coloniality of power. From the very beginning, these arguments helped construct the collective imaginary that would emerge around these two subaltern identities of the colonized Others: indigenous and black. For the subject under study, I consider the reasoning used to distinguish between the African black slave and the American Indian servant is particularly relevant because those arguments were the cornerstone upon which the "ideology of representation" was based. This "ideology of representation" was imposed by the colonial power with the emergence of the capitalist mode of production. As a result, the boundaries between these two modern identities—black and indigenous—were marked, and the constructed pre-judices persist in the European collective imagination, especially in the Latin one. Currently, we can clearly hear the echoes of this "ideology of representation" that persist in the pre-judices of many of the political and academic discourses about these two racial categories: indigenous versus black.

Less relevant but no less curious is the erroneous assertion of Quijano when he states that "only the Spanish and the Portuguese, as the dominant race, could receive wages, be independent traders, independent artisans or independent farmers, in short, independent producers of goods" [7, p. 249]. In Africa, certain native elites played a role that cannot be ignored. A few black Africans engaged in the slave trade, trading with European slaveholders in exchange for manufactured goods. Therefore, whereas black Africans in America certainly did not act as independent traders, the same cannot be said of Africa at the time. An Africa that was still unexplored and much less colonized.

To sum up: under the original designation in the American colonial encounter of differentiating between Indigenous and Blacks, it hides the need to maintain slave labour—black Africans—for the exploitation of the American colonies, without which there would have been no possibility, or it would have been quite different. In the same historical period, Africa was initially conceived by the Iberians and later by the rest of the Europeans as a breeding ground for slave labour. The subaltern status of African identity surpassed in time and status the indigenous category given to the natives Americans. As a modern geo-cultural identity, Africa was constructed based on the greatest contempt for the human condition, a mental structure that would leave an indelible mark on the Western imaginary. From the nineteenth century onwards, with the penetration of the African continent and its resulting effective occupation, the colonial administrations named "indigenous" all the colonised subjects of the territory. However, Africans have been living their blackness for centuries on the American continent and the coasts of their own continent.

#### **4. The significance of the colonial administration model and its impact on the denomination of colonized otherness. Two continents: Africa and America; two Europe: Iberia and Western Europe**

European explorers, more precisely the Iberian ones, landed on the African and American coasts around the same decade, but the African continent's penetration took place many years later, well into the nineteenth century, as the Berlin conference met in 1884–1885. Let us not forget that the Berlin conference was held in 1884–1885; by then, the Americas had nearly four centuries of colonial administration behind them. However, African colonisation had not started. During that time, Africa suffered the drain of the Atlantic Trade, but we cannot speak of colonial administration

#### *A Decolonial Approach of Indigenous Identity in Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106920*

until the nineteenth-twentieth century. The Europe of the "scramble of Africa" was a very different Europe from the pre-modern Iberian Europe of the early American colonisation. Even though global capitalism was colonial/modern and Eurocentric from the very beginning, as defended by the authors of the modern global system [8].

According to A. Quijano, with the creation of America, a second geo-cultural identity called *Europe* was created: a historically new region that emerged "as the central seat of world market control". Although, he also recognises that "in the same historical movement there was also the relocation of the hegemony the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and the Iberian coasts to those of the north-west Atlantic" [7, p. 249]. So, geographically and temporarily speaking, two different Europes dominate the other colonised one by naming it. Both use a single term in their colonial administrations: indigenous.

However, despite the coincidence in using the same signifier, the imaginary constructed on the signified differs substantially. The Mediterranean Europe of the first colonial encounter with America is an agricultural Europe, where traditional or charismatic Weberian rationality predominates more in its colonising logic, far from the modern rationality of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries that will dominate the colonisation of the African continent. In the course of this "second colonial encounter", the development and importance of bureaucracy as a *dispositive of power*, understood in Foucault's terms [10], imposed on the administration of the colonies, will play a transcendental role. In contrast, the church was the central *dispositive of power* during the first encounter in Mediterranean Europe with the Americas was the church. On the contrary, the colonising Europe of Africa is the Europe of the thoroughly modern industrial revolution, whose *logically formal legal rationality* and patriarchal and heterosexual of its bureaucracy were fully developed. Of course, the brutality and violence of the invasion of the territory are common to the "two Europes". The three Weberian logics of domination are present Even in both imperialist processes. By contrast, the development of formal legal instrumental power achieved during the nineteenth to twentieth century is far from what was realised on the Iberian Peninsula during the fifteenth to sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.

This last feature is highly relevant, particularly when it is a question of creating what Quijano calls a new global intersubjectivity as part of that "pattern of world power" [4, 251 p.]. Though it is true that "with America, a whole universe of new material and intersubjective relations begins" in Quijano's words, I consider that this new "intersubjectivity" will not fully develop before the development of this typically western mode of rationalization that Max Weber described in his work [11]. The application of the *formal legal logic* that governs the new hegemonic centre of power constituted in Western Europe will be the one that governs and helps "the control of all forms of control of subjectivity, of culture, and especially of knowledge, of the production of knowledge." [4, 251 p.] and will be applied in all its glory during the African colonization.

I believe that Quijano's analysis of how modernity and rationality were imagined as European products is far from satisfactory. Much more detailed and accurate seems to me the one elaborated by Max Weber [11].

Let us remember Weber's four ideal types of social action and his three types of domination; only *formal legal rationality* occurred in the West with its industrialization. Formal rationality involves the rational calculation of means to ends based on universally applied rules, regulations, and laws [12], especially in economic, legal, and scientific institutions, as well as in bureaucratic forms of domination. Formal rationality is institutionalized in such large-scale structures as the bureaucracy,

modern law, and the capitalist economy. The choice of means to ends is determined by these macro structures and their rules and laws. It was the same rationality that reigned in the administration of Western Europe, prevailed in the academic world, and dominated the capitalist system. We must keep in mind that Weber thought that in social reality, both forms of domination and types of rationality were not given purely but that elements of one or the other were found even if one dominated. Weber is talking about ideal types that are models or the type of social action that dominates society. Even so, *formal legal rationality* could only be found in the West and along with the birth of modern capitalism.

The modern scientific disciplines born in the heat of the new rationality originated will collaborate, constructing the imperial power and dominion over the Other cultures arming arguments to the epistemicide they will carry out. Anthropology played a crucial role, a product of this particular form of rationalization that contributed to constructing the ideology of representation of this colonized Other. Alongside the other "sciences" which supported it, anthropology occupied the *epistemic place of the enunciation of colonial power*, that is, as the space where the knowledge of colonial power is created and expressed: Its place of enunciation. Under his "universal reason", he created the regulating fiction of the human/animal, masculine/feminine, here/ there, rational/irrational and many other representations of his modern/colonial world-system, including that non-rational otherness which their/he called *indigenous* or *black*. They relegated subjects categorized as indigenous or blacks to the corner of the primitive, savage and barbaric, invalidating them as gnoseological subjects. En ocasiones, la antropología fue más allá y colaboró con los gobiernos coloniales. Specifically, applied anthropology, in hits consolidation as a Scientific discipline, received the British Government's support for hits service in the overseas colonies [1]. From India to Africa, anthropology served to power to "solve the problems" to which indigenous societies were affected by the new influences due to the modern colonial encounter [13]. Now, as a university discipline, anthropology did not consolidate its status until the Second World War; but that was not an obstacle that prevented it from participating in the creation of the rules of imperial representation of the Others African indigenous. To the imaginary constructed on the devalued native American alterity is added the weight of being underdeveloped of the industrial era, more primitive if it fits in the scale of western evolution [14].

This typically Weberian legal rationality also existed in all fields of the new colonial administrations. French direct *governments* and British indirect *governments* named the other colonised African: indigenous. All the fully capitalistic colonial authorities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries used formal legal domination to exercise their rule, which led to structural changes in African societies. This typically Weberian legal rationality also existed in all fields of the new colonial administrations. French direct *governments* and British indirect *governments* named the other colonised African: indigenous. All the fully capitalistic colonial authorities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries used formal legal domination to exercise their rule, which led to structural changes in African societies. The creation of local "tribal leaders" [15] and forced internal migrations where there was not enough labour to exploit the resources of a wealth-hungry Europe completely altered community life. Colonial authorities used customary laws to enforce *native policy* [16], making their *social engineering* a true example of typically Western Weberian rationality and often with the assistance of applied anthropology. Not only were ethnic groups or political leaders created, but the link between authority and power possessed by traditional African leaders was broken.

#### *A Decolonial Approach of Indigenous Identity in Africa DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106920*

These "new traditional leaders" chosen by the colonial government will acquire a power that did not exist until then, while local authority will continue to be exercised by religious or other leaders. In this regard, I would like to clarify that before European colonisation, the political organisation of African societies was not only in the hands of tribal leaders. Far from it, political power as a social concept reaches subtleties that are difficult to measure, and African societies are as diverse as their territory is vast. I only want to highlight the colonial administration's disruption of the "traditional" social organisation of African communities and the changes related to authority and power. This disconnection between power and authority will go crescendo, and the consequences will be difficult to foresee in contemporary Africa. For example, Patrick Chabal writing about "the politics of being" in Africa, talks about the need for "modern" politicians to use "traditional" authority in order to satisfy the demands of the "traditional" world in which the political leaders themselves also belong [17], 65–68 pp.

Summing up: A Western Europe that started its industrial revolution creates and applies the technology of domination—the formal legal rational bureaucratic apparatus—more complex and sophisticated than the one constructed by Iberian Europe, agricultural and far behind the modernity of the north. The representation of this colonised indigenous Other in both Europe differs significantly, to the point of denying indigenous status to the African due to comparative offence with that "first" image created under the colonisation of Mediterranean Europe about "the indigenous" in America. To this subtle difference, which Quijano does not include in his analysis, between the two Europes—agricultural and industrial—we could add the effects they have had and continue to have on the recognition of the indigenous African identity, depending on how this *formal legal-rational domination* was applied in the different models of European colonial administration. What we call *direct* or *indirect governments*, and their variations have had an impact on the prevalence of an *indigenous* African identity up to the present day. This other historical condition will result in a greater or lesser obstacle on the road to recognising their political identity.

For example, it is interesting to note that most African indigenous peoples from British colonial administration tend to have less difficulty in recognising their indigenous identities, such as the Maasai (Kenya, Tanzania), the Ogiek, the Samburu, the Turkana (Kenya), the Cushite, the Nio-Hamite, the San (Tanzania), the Himba (Namibia) or the Khoekhoe (South Africa). On the other hand, fewer cases of indigenous identity are recognised in African countries under the French administration. However, the forms of colonial domination were more complex than the simple classification of "direct" or "indirect rule", so a case-by-case study is mandatory. The variability of the cases and their historical particularities make it difficult to elaborate a universal proposition on this question, which also goes beyond the purpose of the present chapter. In this paper, I only want to point out the need for a historical analysis of colonial administrations if we are to understand better current attitudes to the recognition of indigenous identities in Africa.

#### **5. Independent processes and reconstruction of postcolonial identities**

We move on to the third narrative thread: how new contemporary subaltern identities have been influenced by how colonial subjects were named and named themselves during the processes of independence. The leaders who participated in the new nation-states and their nationalist discourses have had, and continue to have, a notable influence on the construction of the identities currently claimed by the collectives living within their national borders. While on the American continent, it was the white elites, mainly the colonists themselves, who led the process of independence from the metropolis in Africa, it was the African elites—albeit *occidentalised* ones—who led the process. *Occidentalised* or the new *occidentalised* class refers to the acculturated African social group, knowledgeable in the colonisers' languages and prepared for the tasks of administration or economic management. Introduced to Western logic and behaviour, this social group was a necessity of the coloniser who had the collaboration of African sectors who saw in their rapprochement with European power the possibility of improving their social positions. From this group came conformists and Protestants, but for all of them, nationalism would be the theoretical expression of the *occidentalised*, as Ferran Iniestas rightly points out [18].

As a consequence of this, the white American pro-independence elites had the need to preserve in their nationalist discourse the distinction between a differentiated white "we" and an indigenous "they". An indigenous "they" was used as a national symbol, although not included in the emancipatory project. In the African case, the "we" of the African independence elite is constructed by the *occidentalised* black African, where there is no place for a "we" other than the *indigenous* "they". The elites of the new national governments will declare: "In Africa, we are all indigenous".

By the 1950s and 1960s, most African countries had become independent, resulting in a new change in the internal organisation of African societies. The gap between authority and power created under the colonial rule will widen with the creation of nation-states with complex and unpredictable consequences for contemporary Africa. Previously exercised by colonial "tribal leaders", Political power will be replaced by modern nationalist bourgeois leaders, the so-called *occidentalised*. Whether rebellious or conformist, this black elite will be educated under the modern rational eurocentric hegemonic model and will constitute a qualitative and transcendent change in the interpretation of power in the "new" African national societies. Many of them educated in Western universities, this new social elite—the *occidentalised*—led the struggles for independence in Africa.

Over the years and with the birth of nation-states, *indigenism* became an instrument at the service of the new national identity, a tool to destroy the multiple local identities. Korsbaek and Sámano have referred to this political instrument as *state indigenism* that hides or shows integrationist, assimilationist, paternalistic policies [19], that is, the use of indigeneity to integrate them into a single national identity. That will be the same *state indigenism* that will lead most African states NOT to recognise *Indigenous Peoples* in their territories under the claim that "we are all indigenous in Africa".

The Western-educated male elites will lead this national integrationist discourse, while millions of subalterns will continue their silent resistance. Their voices remain silenced until they encounter new transnational spaces of demands in which they can once again raise their voices. The years of oppression by the old and now new economic, political and cultural powers, together with the disillusionment with the grand narratives of modernity—Marxism and nationalism—that were at the centre of the first anti-colonial struggle, began to take root in the social consciousness of the natives.

New post-colonial identities and the re-signification of the "old" ones that had been dormant or manipulated up to that point are emerging. A qualitative change has occurred in the meaning of identity, in the meaning of "being indigenous". Colonial history and the processes of independence of the new states will play a transcendental role in recognition of this collective subject called indigenous in what some authors have called the Second-wave indigeneity [20]

#### **6. Conclusions**

In this chapter, I have tried to unravel the historical ideological and political burden that hides the denial of the existence of indigenous people in Africa. *African indigenous peoples* have been adapting to the harsh circumstances that have come their way: first to European colonisation and later to nationalist policies of integration and assimilation. As indigenous peoples, they are confronted with the forms of domination brought about by developing the *global pattern of capitalist power*. However, new spaces of resistance are opening up in the complex pattern of power.

Nevertheless, new spaces of resistance are opening up in the complex pattern of power. At the end of 1993, and following the recommendation of the World Conference on Human Rights, the General Assembly proclaimed the first International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (1995–2004) to be followed by the Second International Decade of the World's Indigenous People (2005–2014). During this time, spaces of global confluence have been created where Indigenous Peoples from all parts of the world come to express their demands and their subordinate situation. The result of the joint work between them and other institutions is the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, approved by the General Assembly in 2007. In the meantime, significant linguistic changes will also occur as a result of the confluence of the various forms of resistance of peoples that remain under the yoke of colonisation. This second wave of indigeneity assumes that decolonisation is an unfinished process and indigeneity is a politics of resistance [20], 2 p.

The most serious error in which those who deny the *indigenous* status of Africans is to interpret identity from an essentialist perspective. To consider any identity as an immanent being is to continue reproducing the *coloniality of power.* It is as foolish to understand indigenous identity in an essentialist way as it is to conceive of Western identity in the same way.

Like all current *indigenous* identities, *indigenous African* identity is a political, postcolonial, contemporary, and global identity [14] that forces us to take a constructivist approach. *Indigenous* identity is political because it is constructed under and through social conflict. As such, it can only be explained within the socio-political contexts in which it emerges. We must consider the struggles and the power that constitute them. As a collective identity, it generates consciousness in and for itself, expressed in a differentiated "we".

On the other hand, the adjective postcolonial is particularly significant in our case, as it places us in the geographical and historical context. Geographically, it places us in the territories conquered by the colonial power and historically, it places us in the process of colonisation [21]; this adjective is relevant because of the centrality that the immaterial social fact of colonisation acquires.

Also, being a contemporary identity means that it could adapt to current political conditions. The term indigenous has travelled through time, acquiring different meanings. While for centuries, marked by colonialism, "*the Indian*" in its subaltern condition has undergone a *process of pejorativisation*, today it is being re-evaluated. In the process of exaltation, the new Planetary Indigenous Social Movement has re-semantized the old *indigenous* category positively, endowing it with *identity pride* and directing it towards the conquest of cultural and political self-determination.

A struggle strengthened after the approval of the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007 by the UN.

Furthermore, it is a global identity since it has suffered and suffered with different collective subjects around the globe the experience of colonisation. From their different realities, they agree on a different way of *being in the world*, cooperating with other counter-hegemonic actors of the organised global resistance, whose objective is to respond to the global hegemonic power. The new *Indigenous* being emerged from the dialectic of colonisation. They claim their right to relate, imagine and think of themselves as a collective subject that puts into practice its own mode of representation after centuries of colonial repression and in response to the collective identities invented by the West.

The integrative function that nation-states were intended to fulfil is diluted in the new globalised world. "New" imagined communities are re-emerging in the international arena with new conceptualisations of the world that are more transnational than Western [21]. As part of this so-called Fourth World, the indigenous cultural minorities reappear on the global stage. Devalued Otherness during years of equalitarianism is now re-signified in the identity process, and it becomes the ontological desire, the desire "to be" at the "Age of difference". It is not simply that postcolonial critique denounces the new material and cultural conditions to which the subalterns are subjected, but also that those marginalised, subjugated memories of colonisation, those memories of minorities, alter-native counter-memories [22], are now re-written by the colonised subaltern subjects helping them to re-establish macerated pride. Postcolonial "new" political identities sprout re-constructed through new identitarian pride [14].

The imperialist social engineering used under African colonisation, based on a more complex formal legal logic than that which initiated the coloniality of power in the Americas, makes the cases of African Indigenous Peoples particularly difficult. The imperial social order of European colonialism has left an inheritance to African indigenous peoples that overshadow and further obstructs the tortuous path that can lead them out of the subaltern place to which they have been relegated. To reveal the condition of subjugation in which they have been displaced, we have to study the historical context and the processes of domination. To this must be added the complex reality that dominates the ongoing globalisation: aided by today's economic powers, new actors reproduce the global pattern of capitalist power more strongly.

Moreover, nevertheless, in the heat of the new social movements of resistance, *African Indigenous* Peoples are breaking through, staging the history of the West entangled in the webs of their own language. A terminology that talks about the structure of capitalist power, they were told they were slaves; they were told they were black; they were told they were subjects of kings they did not know; they were told they were indigenous, without knowing what it meant; they were told they belonged to a state and had to comply with its borders and its laws, laws they ignored; now they say "we are", in a struggle they never gave up.

*Brief Genealogy of an African Political Identity. A Decolonial Approach of Indigenous Identity… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106920*

#### **Author details**

Coro J.A. Juanena Center for Postcolonial Studies, KOIZ, Mendexa, Spain

\*Address all correspondence to: koro@postcolonialstudies.org

© 2022 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

#### **References**

[1] Asad T. Antropology & the Colonial Encounter. Atlantic Highlands, N. J. and London: Ithaca Press and Humanities Press; 1973. p. 264

[2] Woolgar S. Science: The Very Idea. London: Routledge; 1988. p. 119

[3] Searle JR. The Construction of Social Reality. New York: Free Press; 1995. p. 241

[4] Quijano A. La colonialidad del saber: eurocentrismo y ciencias sociales. In: Lander W, Comp. Perspectivas Latinoamericanas*.* Buenos Aires: CLACSO, Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales; 2000. pp. 246-274

[5] Ander-Egg E. Técnicas de investigación social. 22nd ed. Buenos Aires: Humanitas; 1992. p. 270

[6] Mignolo WD. Local Histories/ Global Designs. Coloniality, Subaltern Knowledges, and Border Thinking. Princeton, New Jersey: Princenton University Press; 2000. p. 416

[7] Quijano A. Colonialidad del Poder y Clasificación Social. Journal of World-Systems Research. 2000;**VI**((2summer/ fall)):342-386

[8] Wallerstein I. Análisis del sistema mundo. México: Siglo XXI; 2005. p. 153

[9] Rivera Pagan LN. Bartolome de las Casa y la esclavitud africana. In: Proceeding of the Sentido Histórico del V Centenario (1492-1992): 16th Simposio de (CEHILA 1989; Costa Rica: DEI; 1992. pp. 63-84

[10] Foucault M. Microfísica del poder. Madrid: La Piqueta; 1978. p. 200

[11] Weber M. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. EEUU: Couire Corporation; 2003. p. 320

[12] Kalberg S. Max Weber's types of rationality: cornerstones for the analysis of rationalization processes in history. American Journal of Sociology. 1980;**85**:1145-1179

[13] Goldschmidt W. Antropología: Estudio de la Sociedad moderna. In: Sills, David L, editors. Enciclopedia Internacional de las Ciencias Sociales. Madrid: Aguilar; 1968

[14] Juanena J-AC. Investigando al otro diferente cultural. Un modelo metodológico no etnocéntrico. El estudio de caso: La identidad de las Mujeres Indígenas en los organismos internacionales [thesis]. Facultad de Ciencias de la Comunicación. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos; 2010

[15] Hobsbawn E, Ranger T. La invención de la tradición. Barcelona: Crítica; 2002. p. 320

[16] Campos A. Colonia, Derecho y Territorio en el Golfo de Guinea: Tensiones del colonialismo español en el siglo XX. Quaderni Fiorentini per la Storia del Pensiero Giuridico Moderno. 2004/2005;**33/34**:865-898

[17] Chabal P. África: la política de sufrir y reír. Barcelona: Oozebap; 2011. p. 285

[18] Iniesta F. Kuma Historia del África negra. Barcelona: edicions bellaterra; 1998. p. 303

[19] Korsbaek L, Sámano MÁ. El indigenismo en México: antecedentes y actualidad. Re Ximhai. 2007;**3**(1):195-224 *Brief Genealogy of an African Political Identity. A Decolonial Approach of Indigenous Identity… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106920*

[20] Venkateswar S, Hughes E, Kidd C, Kenrick J, Glauser B, Waitere H, et al. Introduction. In: Venkateswar S, Hughes E, editors. The Politics of the Indigeneity. Dialogues and Reflections on Indigenous Activism. Nueva York: Zed Books; 2011. pp. 1-15

[21] Young RJC. Postcolonialism. An Historical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.; 2001. p. 498

[22] Foucault M. Nietzsche, la genealogía, la historia. Valencia: Pre-Textos; 1977. p. 76

#### **Chapter 13**

## Researching African Indigenous Population in Contemporary Times: What Scholars and Practitioners Need to Know

*Eucharia Chinwe Igbafe*

#### **Abstract**

Researching indigenous people has been characterized by debate on what indigenous knowledge systems and epistemologies should guide the research. This debate is a result of limited knowledge of who indigenous people are, and what epistemologies, philosophies, cultural values and practices that inform their physical and spiritual beliefs. There are questions on how the indigenous research paradigm and research methodology can help to provide quality research outcomes. However, these questions have deterred emerging scholars and practitioners who are interested in researching indigenous people. This chapter aimed to advance awareness of what scholars and practitioners need to know about researching indigenous people in contemporary times. An exploratory approach was used to identify, describe and discuss information from diverse publishing sites to build holistic knowledge for scholars and practitioners. The concepts that the scholars and practitioners can refer to, for an appropriate understanding of indigenous people were defined. Then, considered why the research on the indigenous population by scholars and practitioners matters. The chapter presented and discussed the indigenous research paradigm and research methodology suitable for the indigenous setting. The chapter also explored relevant human rights frameworks and the competency to guide scholars and practitioners in an indigenous setting.

**Keywords:** African indigenous population, indigenous epistemologies, indigenous knowledge systems, indigenous paradigm, scholars and practitioners

#### **1. Introduction**

Research plays a vital role in developing, protecting, and preserving human life. Scholars and practitioners engage in research for personal promotion and professional development. Researching is a methodical examination of life-associated challenges by gathering reliable information with different designs, methods, and analytical approaches for better understanding and solutions [1]. Researching the indigenous population or people by scholars and practitioners in contemporary times demands an understanding of indigenous knowledge and epistemologies embedded in their cultural philosophies to assure right-based practices that recognize and promote respect for indigenous peoples' heritage. This implies that research targets new information and seeks to add or verify existing knowledge to make decisions and inspire action.

Researching the indigenous population contributes to understanding their social and cultural identities, natural environment, and spiritualities [2]. Researching indigenous people in the indigenous setting seeks to obtain information about 'who they are, their pattern of knowledge construction (epistemologies), realities (ontologies), and moralities (axiology) [3, 4]. Researching indigenous populations with a relevant human rights framework promotes approaches that do not impinge on the rights of the participants ethically or legally, whether in research methodology or publication of the research results [5]. The human rights framework for indigenous people advances sustainable interaction and relationships between indigenous and non-indigenous people [researcher].

According to Igbafe [1], reciprocal interaction is a two-way communication relevant to authentic relationships vital for gathering information required for the betterment of the people. Reciprocal interaction is rooted in the indigenous people's way of life, in which relationships are promoted as the essence of life. The indigenous people describe a distinct social and cultural group that shares collective ancestral ties to the lands and natural resources where they live, occupy, or from which they have been displaced. The land and natural resources are inextricably linked to their identities, cultures, livelihoods, and physical and spiritual well-being ([6], p. 1). A more inclusive definition described indigenous peoples as:

'People with self-identification at the individual level and accepted by the community as their member; historical continuity with pre-colonial or pre-settler societies; strong link to territories and surrounding natural resources; distinct social, economic, or political systems; distinct language, culture, and beliefs; form non-dominant groups of society; resolve to maintain and reproduce their ancestral environments and systems as distinctive peoples and communities ([7], pp. 1–2).

The definitions identify indigenous people as a group passionate about their indigenous identities, cultures, philosophies and spiritual practices and self-determination as an individual or collective group for the betterment of their lives. Hodgson [8], went on to explain that African indigenous people are often identified as marginalized and discriminated against by diverse organizations. Hodgson [8], elaborates that African indigenous people could be identified with the following characteristics:


Researching indigenous peoples in an African setting aims to advance a rightbased approach that recognizes and respects indigenous identities, cultures,

*Researching African Indigenous Population in Contemporary Times: What Scholars… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107591*

philosophies and spiritual practices and self-determination fundamental for developing and strengthening knowledge systems. Researching indigenous people is vital to understanding these concepts, giving meaning to information gathered and giving voice to indigenous people stated in the United Nations Human Rights framework [9]. To increase the quality of the information in this chapter, an exploratory approach was used to identify what scholars and practitioners need to know about researching indigenous peoples. The exploratory research contributes new insights into the understanding of a domain with scant information by describing and discussing different perspectives [10, 11]. The use of the exploratory approach is on gathering relevant information and explaining, rather than investigating or interpreting the concepts in a particular context.

In this chapter, I explain relevant terms and terminologies to promote conscious awareness of the indigenous population, the goals, and the importance of researching the indigenous population to indigenous people, researchers, and research institutions. This chapter discussed the relevant human rights framework for studying indigenous peoples, the indigenous research paradigm, and the research methodology.

#### **2. Concepts vital in researching indigenous population**

Researching indigenous populations requires clarification of some terms to enhance an understanding of the meaning and how are applied in this chapter (**Figure 1**).

#### **Figure 1.**

*Concept vital for researching indigenous people.*

#### **2.1 Indigenous knowledge**

The Indigenous knowledge system is generational knowledge developed from experiences, tested in practices, and affirmed by results, transferred from generation to generation to ensure indigenous people's sustainable growth. Hodgson ([8], p. 8) is of the view that African Indigenous Knowledge is shaped by the development of wisdom and communal values—it is the application of knowledge in a moral, cultural and environmental framework which makes African knowledge so important for sustainability…." Indigenous knowledge has been defined as the understandings, skills, and philosophies developed by societies with long histories of interaction with their natural surroundings…including cultural life…systems of classification, resources, practices,

social interactions, rituals, and spirituality" ([12], p. 8). The definition presents the understandings, skills, and philosophies as a vital set of theoretical frameworks in the indigenous people's conceptions about life which form the foundation for knowledge development, verification, and sharing. Kaya and Seleti ([13], p. 31) affirms that African indigenous knowledge incorporates indigenous beliefs, practices, customs, worldviews, and informal forms of education. Kaya and Seleti [13] explained that African indigenous knowledge is developed and strengthened by communal histories, communal thoughts, and indigenous literary and philosophical foundations, which are vital for understanding indigenous people and their epistemology.

#### **2.2 Indigenous epistemology**

Epistemology is the philosophical study of the process of gaining knowledge through providing answers to questions that help in knowledge construction. Epistemological questions are: How do we know [search for information] or how can we know [process of searching for the knowledge] or how do we know that we know [process of testing our knowledge], how do we know that what we know is true [affirmation of acquired knowledge [14]. Epistemological questions connect human thoughts to reality and help to identify the acceptable or unacceptable nature [15, 16]. Epistemology reveals the philosophies, thoughts, values, and theories of past and present knowledge [17]. Epistemology presents values and ideas that have been areas of study which are an aspect of a larger body of epistemological work [18, 19]. Epistemologies, therefore, are the core of understanding a set of theoretical plans that is belief-driven to promote and advance the knowledge system of indigenous people.

African indigenous epistemologies describe the indigenous theory of Knowledge, the African conception of the nature of knowledge, the means of gaining the knowledge, the criteria for the assessment of the validity of knowledge, the purpose of the pursuit of knowledge, and the role that knowledge plays in human existence [20]. The pursuit of knowledge with indigenous epistemology advances an African philosophy with a distinctive epistemic identity and unique knowledge [21]. African indigenous philosophy is an intellectual product produced with cultural, historical, and geographic traditional standards and promoted to establish African knowledge order and to direct focus on problems relating to African experiences [22]. The African experiences reveal the critical truth of Africa's local realities and the different ways they create meaning out of life events [23]. African perception of realities and ways of knowing are developed and strengthened with African indigenous philosophies.

#### **2.3 Indigenous philosophies**

Indigenous philosophies refer to philosophical discourses developed by Africans and their descendants [24, 25]. African indigenous philosophies are a set of experiences and explanations relating to the values and practice, which in most circumstances involve the worldview of the local communities, tested and verified by the locals, unlike the assumption from colonialism proposing that African knowledge is not [26]. African indigenous philosophies provide research scholars and practitioners with information on the nature of African realities, and their association with cultural values and practices to enable the researchers to engage in critical thinking about the people and their experiences [27].

*Researching African Indigenous Population in Contemporary Times: What Scholars… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107591*

#### **2.4 Ontology**

Ontology is concerned with the body of knowledge which studies the concepts like existence (who are am I), being (why do I or we exist), becoming (what changes am I going to encounter as I continue to exist) and reality (what is the quality of my existence and how do I face the realities of my existence whether positive or negative) [21, 28]. In this regard, ontology deals with the features of reality, connected with a fundamental question of what indigenous communities regard as what is real or false based on their collective worldview of realities [29]. Ontology in researching indigenous people draws from the knowledge of the community, their ways of life, their common sense and experiences developed from a body of knowledge presented in oral history, proverbs and folktales [30]. Ontology is relevant for the understanding of how African indigenous people view the realities of life through oral stories and proverbs to improve the quality of their existence.

African indigenous ontologies promote and advance African realities inseparable from the culture and histories [31]. The knowledge of the culture, histories, and connectedness with the environment comprising the living and the non-living helps in the understanding of their relationship and duties to everyone in the setting [32–34]. This knowledge develops and strengthens ontological security describes 'as … the confidence that most human beings have in the continuity of their self-identity ([35], p. 59). Ontological safety limits the use of western paradigms and epistemologies [29, 36] in researching indigenous people.

#### **2.5 Axiology**

Axiology refers to the values of a given setting. Values are subdivided into ethics and esthetics rooted in the recognition of basic human, community and civil rights, as well as the beauty of the natural environment [16]. Ethics recognizes the rights and wrongs within indigenous settings unique to their worldviews and experiences. Axiology reveals the ethical values of the indigenous people such as moral laws that guide their knowledge, attitude and interaction in the setting [37]. Axiology in researching indigenous people is concerned with the standard of conduct expressed in cultural values and practices that Africans are known for or expected to display. African standards of conduct are principles derived from 'cultural inheritance: identity, history and beliefs that make life worth living ([37], p. 49). Indigenous cultural values encourage respect for everyone, the land, and other resources, the aged, the significant others in charge of the sacred resources, spiritualists, and clans [38]. These cultural principles guide how indigenous people perceive, evaluate, preserve and maintain their cultural behavior [37]. African indigenous cultural values discourage any activity that would demean cultural inheritance and disrespect cultural practices in the indigenous setting.

Scholars and practitioners should recognize and respect the moral standards of indigenous people evidenced in their spirituality, the pattern of communication, interaction, and relationship to assure immediate acceptance. Learning how to display respect for everyone, elders, and significant others to conform to the cultural order of the community is vital in an indigenous setting. Respectful behavior promotes collaboration, reciprocal interaction, and communication patterns characterized by verbal and non-verbal behavior [39]. Knowledge of indigenous ethical standards and practices guides scholars and practitioners to:


Knowledge of indigenous ethical standards and practices reduces complex relationship issues and optimizes honesty, respect, and integrity in collaborating for the quality of data. In the chapter, it is essential to identify the objectives and importance of researching indigenous peoples.

#### **3. Why does research on the indigenous population by scholars and practitioners matter**

Indigenous people play a vital role in the preservation and protection of traditional beliefs and practices in the field of indigenous knowledge systems. The principal aim of researching indigenous is to promote the study of indigenous people and share the information with the general public, and policymakers and produce an evidence-based document for future practice. Recognition and giving a voice to indigenous people have become the rationale for the increase in research on them. There is evidence that researching indigenous people reveals their unique knowledge, epistemologies and relationships between cultural values, practice and rationality of knowledge construction [23].

Researching indigenous people is critical to the development and preservation of indigenous worldviews addressing multiple perspectives and providing information for the understanding of differences in indigenous people, contributing to human diversity, and rich cultures and respecting spiritual, traditional and philosophies to achieve sustainable and equitable development [9]. Hence, researching indigenous people has the following benefits:

#### **3.1 Multiple perspectives**

African indigenous people's lives describe as "a part of a scientific tradition that advocates multiple perspectives in the understanding of indigenous peoples ([40], pp. xvi–xviii). Researchers understanding the different perspectives of African realities situate the data analysis to effectively identify and understand how the indigenous population perceives, thinks, and seeks to address issues confronting them [41].

The rationale for this goal is from the assumption that African indigenous people have diverse perspectives because of differences in ethnic groups. The ethnic groups within larger indigenous populations have cultural values and practices informing

*Researching African Indigenous Population in Contemporary Times: What Scholars… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107591*

their lifestyle and ways of handling challenges. In studying indigenous people, most of these perspectives are either grouped or undermined, which produces misunderstanding, misinterpretation, and misrepresentation in research interpretations, findings, and reporting of the results. Understanding the different perspectives from indigenous epistemologies would enable scholars and practitioners to approach researching the indigenous population unbiased.

#### **3.2 Interpret and align complex information**

Interpreting information about the indigenous population could be complex without knowledge of indigenous epistemology. Indigenous peoples' epistemologies promote critical thinking to ensure that meaning creation integrates indigenous people's ways of perception of realities with limited bias [30]. Bias reduction is by analyzing data gathered from indigenous people with cultural, spiritual, and natural environment principles.

#### **3.3 Developing human capital for indigenous research**

Human capital development is about developing and improving knowledge, skills, and attitude. The development of human capital is required to the meet demands of well-trained and well-prepared researchers and a growing commitment to study indigenous peoples. Well-trained refers to having the best education of indigenous people and their epistemologies and how to transfer the training in the research field. Well-prepared refers to having the skills to relate, interact and obtain in-depth data on the problem understudy. Researching the indigenous population would drive the motivation and determination among emerging scholars and practitioners in tertiary education, and increase inclusion in the curriculum or courses on research methodology.

#### **3.4 Improving experiences of researchers of indigenous people**

The goal of tertiary education is to solve human problems. Researching the life of indigenous people helps in better understanding of ways to interact, relate and protect their rights to existence. A lack of funding for extensive study has demotivated emerging researchers and increased experiences of frustration for existing scholars and practitioners [1]. Researching indigenous people would increase the possibility of funding support across funding agencies and improve the experiences of researchers.

#### **3.5 Increasing skills to work with indigenous people**

Researching the indigenous population would expose emerging scholars and practitioners to unfamiliar cultures and practices. Equipping academics with skills to work with indigenous people would increase the understanding of African perspectives, promote better acceptance of these perspectives and build better relationships between researchers and indigenous people. It would advance trust, partnership in decision making, and information sharing and improve working with indigenous people. Working with indigenous people would increase documentation of research outcomes for better sustainable development of indigenous communities.

### **4. Differences in indigenous and Western thinking in research**

There is a recognizable difference between African and Western thinking in research. African indigenous thinking in research is concerned about human beings and their environment as co-constructor of knowledge, thus experiences, intuition and supernatural power are means of knowing to address human problems. Intuitive knowledge is derived from personal perceptions and experiences. Africans also think knowledge is a product of supernatural revelation. While western thinking is that knowledge is an outcome of a scientific or empirical process. Knowledge without scientific backing is not authentic and human problems should be addressed with the outcome of scientific evidence. There are other sources of differences in thinking as relates to western and African indigenous research. **Table 1** compares the differences between African indigenous and western thinking in research. It ties the section together and provides a nice simplification of everything discussed so far.



*Researching African Indigenous Population in Contemporary Times: What Scholars… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107591*

#### **Table 1.**

*Differences between African indigenous and Western thinking in research.*

#### **5. Indigenous research paradigm**

There are perspectives fundamental in researching the indigenous population that is derived from African indigenous thinking reflected in their epistemologies. These perspectives are entrenched in indigenous people's paradigm recognized in concepts, practices, and values that define their holistic existence. Paradigm involves a dialogic relationship action within the setting in which indigenous people exist ([47], p. 51). An indigenous research paradigm is described as one in which knowledge is shared in the relationship among humans and between humans and the cosmos, and which requires relational accountability, with researchers meeting a few responsibilities to an extended relational network that includes humans, the natural world, and the spirit world ([48], pp. 176–177). Some studies provided an example of indigenous paradigms [49, 50], and are illustrated in **Table 2** below.

The indigenous paradigm shapes and reshape how indigenous people live and construct knowledge. The indigenous paradigm guides researchers on what is relevant in understanding the processes indigenous people follow in knowledge construction. The section focuses on four paradigm perspectives such as the clan, environment, spirituality, eldership, and reciprocal interaction that determine the epistemology,


#### **Table 2.**

*Perspectives underlying indigenous paradigm.*

axiology, and ontology of indigenous people. The concepts establish the standard model for understanding indigenous people. The concepts also guide the activities of the researcher with critical questions such as:


**Figure 2.** *Indigenous research paradigms.*

*Researching African Indigenous Population in Contemporary Times: What Scholars… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107591*


#### **5.1 Clan as an indigenous research paradigm**

A clan is an organized integrated system, ruled by leaders who are custodians of law and order. In a clan, people are bounded by relatedness such as kinsmen or kindred. The term 'Clans' refers to a group of families related by blood from a shared forefather living together in an area, often considered their community [51]. This suggests that clans are knitted by blood, the descent of families and the extended family system; thus, a clan is a natural life progression from shared ancestors. A clan comprises humans and the natural environment (plants, rivers and animals). In modern African society, a clan is referred to as a community comprising different tribes or ethnic groups. An ethnic group refers to a group of people bonded by common ancestral lineage. Consequently, the fundamental component of human existence is found in the group, not in individuality. In this regard, the clan pursues shared existence, collaboration is respected over rivalry and individuality. Collaboration is important; hence, empathy and support are considered the ways to live and make progress. Collaboration is also a vital part of family existence and organization which is reflected in communal living. For example, the component of an African family may include the parents, children, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles and they cooperatively care for and support each other [52].

Empathy is a principle in action. Empathy acts as a uniting power in connecting families and the community "as social creatures allowing them to know what other people are thinking and feeling, to emotionally engage with them, to share their thoughts and feelings, and to care for their wellbeing ([53], p. 2). Empathy is often used to explain the accommodation of relatives and shared communal care as well as support. Providing care to relatives is an acceptable obligation, since, the purpose of the support is to build a sustainable clan. Accommodating relatives is also a source of connection between family units and the community. The belief in the unified clan and extended family is an important characteristic of African indigenous people that increases support in times of life crisis or death. To achieve a clan-centred and integrated system, the families as a community promote reciprocal relationships and interaction with humans, nature, and the environment for sustainable existence. People are conscientious with the belief that extinction of one element will lead to exposure of others to vulnerabilities. Hence, clan members are also willing to change their thinking and behavior to protect and defend the clan, thus this perspective guided clan welfare and continued existence as an integrated system. Clan plays an important role in the life of the indigenous population as follows:


• Maintaining the cultural heritage through diligently continuing its restoration and acceptance national and international.

The knowledge of the clan and kindreds that form the major and minor ethnic groups, and the philosophies that influence and determine how data are gathered and interpreted would enhance the quality of the research.

#### **5.2 The natural environment as an indigenous research paradigm**

The natural environment is concerned with how the entirety of the clan and natural resources interact to influence the other. The indigenous people have a standard of conduct and relationships that encourage reciprocal interaction in protecting and preserving the natural environment. Reciprocity is in the recognition and respect of the two-way interaction between humans and other elements of the natural environment [1, 54]. The reciprocal interaction is derived from the assumption that humans and the natural environment contribute to each other's progress [1, 55]. Some studies affirmed the natural environment as indigenous paradigm research [56, 57]. Given that human interaction with the natural environment has been found to shape consciousness and thoughts about issues [58].

The indigenous people's interaction with the natural environment is sacred, spiritual and rooted in cultural practices and traditional customs aimed to improve living. Researchers need to identify and understand the sets of assumptions guiding indigenous people and their natural environment helps in framing the research problem, methods and approaches to data interpretation.

#### **5.3 Spirituality as an indigenous research paradigm**

Spirituality cannot be separated from indigenous people because it is informing every aspect of indigenous society, like agriculture, death, diet, dress, economics, health, marriage, and political art [59]. African indigenous spirituality recognizes that beliefs and practices are important for human survival. Sickness is often perceived as an outcome of a breakdown in the health practice or relationship between the individual and nature, people, or ancestors. Ancestors are considered a source of blessing or curse to their living descendants [59]. People who care, respect, and recognize supernatural beings attract blessings from their ancestors and while those who neglect their ancestors receive curses [60]. Indigenous spirituality is a part of the cultural heritage, born out of the experience and deep reflection of African forebearers, it provides answers to the stirring of the human spirit and elaborates on the profundity of the experience of the divine-human encounter based on the resources of Africa's cultural heritage and insight ([61], p. 67).

Understanding spirituality builds the connection between indigenous people and their ancestors for power to protect, prevent and punish. The power to protect and prevent punishment is inherently spiritual. The reverence of the spiritual beings or ancestors with songs and praises is the commonest way to obtain life progress. Thus, spirituality to indigenous people is "shared or participatory, open consciousness of, and exchange of ideas with, the extended interpersonal connection (ancestors, generations to come, and the cosmos). Within this networked relationality, getting guidance or counsel from a relative who has died is considered valuable information to many indigenous scholars ([62], p. 40). Although research methodologies that encourage information gathering from deceased ancestors [63]. The Indigenous

*Researching African Indigenous Population in Contemporary Times: What Scholars… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107591*

research paradigm recognizes and respects the role and place of spirituality in academic study [64, 65]. Indigenous spirituality contributes to the understanding of ways in which knowledge is influenced, learned, and formed by divine powers [58].

#### **5.4 Eldership as an indigenous research paradigm**

The concept of eldership defines the position of authority, power, and leadership in African indigenous society. The elders are the custodians of law and order in the community and are delegated administrative activities. The elders oversee the judicial systems, setting rules and enforcing them. Elders ensure that the indigenous institutional cultures and traditional systems are maintained and protected. Elders have deep knowledge of history, cultural relics and documents, geography, nature and environment, legends, poetry, reasoning, riddles, proverbs, and storytelling. The elders inculcate diverse ways of reasoning deemed appropriate for survival to the younger generation to enable them to continue in protecting and preserving the ancestral shared knowledge for a life of services.

Given elders contribute to intergenerational unity by transmitting knowledge, values, and cultural practices in a holistic approach ([66], p. 667), eldership as an indigenous research paradigm provide researchers with rules and regulations guiding indigenous peoples, the concepts, and belief pattern to guide the study. Elders guide the scholars and practitioners on whom to consult and how to engage in the process of consultation.

#### **6. Indigenous research methodology**

Indigenous research methodology has been defined as research by and for indigenous people using techniques and methods drawn from the tradition and knowledge of those people [67]. An Indigenous research methodology is an approach that promotes and advances:

*self-determination, social change, cultural maintenance, and revitalization…. It recognizes the values of indigenous people as individual and collective groups rather than objectifying the subject. It is a flexible model that encompasses the diversity of each community, validating their voice, through acknowledging the knowledge passed on to the researcher with respect and oral consistency.*

Indigenous research methodology provides a detailed description and analysis of what constitutes indigenous knowledge transmitted from generation to generation, from various knowledge systems thought through divination, a philosophical concept like ibuanyidandan, and storytelling with ethical standards of the indigenous setting.

#### **6.1 Divination and consultation methodology**

Divination is concerned with a system of knowledge production across every phase of human life. Ifa divination has been described as a highly tentacular system comprising computer science, mathematics, human evolution, medicine, geography, history, and astronomy are locked up in the numerous Ifa verses ([68], p. 1). Divination is part of indigenous epistemology that attempts to diagnose, analyze, and identify solutions to problems. The approach to consultation differs in many


#### **Table 3.**

*Comparison of divination and diagnosis process.*

indigenous settings. The consultant is the person chosen by the gods such as the Ifa priest, the native doctor, and the chief priest. The instrument of consultation includes cowrie, shells, kola nuts and sticks, and a divination chain [69]. Each of these objects carries a message and the language can only be understood by the consultants. The objects consulted connect the individual or group consulting to their roots to diagnose the problem and identify the solution. The Ifa divination is used to provide spiritual guidance to those seeking healing from physical and health concerns. Divination is firmly rooted in traditional spirituality. In divination, mastering the objects of divination, the systems and signs, and the ability to interpret the messages [70] helps indigenous people gain knowledge through supernatural powers.

Divination as an indigenous research methodology deal with 'symbolic, intensive, and diagrammatic ways of reading the world and tapping into forces that compose events to unfold their ramifications and draw lines from the known to the unknown [70]. Divination has been found to share similarities with western diagnosis as the analytical approaches look for signs in human presented problems (**Table 3**).

#### **6.2 Ibuanyidandan and collaborative methodology**

Ibuanyidandan is a philosophy with origin from the Igbo tribe of the southeast geopolitical zone of Nigeria. Ibuanyidandan describes the 'spirit of unity and quality in harmony' [71]. The 'Ibuanyidandan' is a product of three indigenous Igbo language terms: (a) Ibu meaning 'Load or errand'; (b) Anyi meaning 'insurmountable force' (c) Danda (ants). The concept of ants 'danda' illustrates the power of ants to overcome the greatest troublesome problems if they work in a concordant mutual way [71]. The ant's uniqueness in teamwork as relates to carrying loads to solve their problems informed these philosophical thoughts. Ibuanyidandan is a philosophical stance that promotes harmonious complementation and progressive transformation in knowledge production. Ibuanyidandan as a knowledge production approach maintains a stance that a system can only work when the diverse components of which it is constituted serve each other complementarily and authentically as an aspect of its existence [72].

Ibuanyidandan's epistemological stance contributes to the quality of the research by increasing the inclusiveness of different ethnic groups within the research setting. *Researching African Indigenous Population in Contemporary Times: What Scholars… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107591*


#### **Figure 3.**

*Illustration of major and minor ethnic groups of indigenous people.*

Inclusiveness entails the selection of major and minor ethnic groups within each indigenous community as illustrated in **Figure 3**.

In this context, researching indigenous people with Ibuanyidandan begins with the quest to understand the major and minor ethnic groups, and how they relate, interact and collaborate to identify problems and profound solutions. The ibuanyidandan approach includes the following:


The indispensability of complementation in indigenous people's relationships in the selection of research site and size to ensure no group is "overpowered, submerged, toppled and undermined" [72] in sample selection. This approach is premised on the fact that reality exists and is expressed in whole not in part because undermining a part in a group could alter reality. This approach also promotes harmonious collaboration among indigenous people and researchers. For example, researching health issues using ibuanyidandan as an approach demands that the relationship to a central idea (e.g., doctors) in a cycle consider all doctors that the patients are likely to visit for a consultation. **Figure 4** below illustrates demonstrates that inclusiveness in numbers eliminates the imbalance that affects all aspects of population sampling.

The analytical approach explores the diversity in the harmonious complementation and progressive transformation in knowledge production and problem-solving instead of muddling up a display of unity and quality in harmony in research interpretation, findings, and report as well as recommendation. The benefit of this approach reduces the exposure of research participants to methodical pressure, dehumanization, and mental suppression [73]. Thus, ibuanyidandan as an indigenous research approach increases self-sacrifice, exhaustiveness, and commitment against selfishness, exclusiveness, and a we-them, mentality in research collaboration [72].

#### **6.3 Storytelling as an indigenous research methodology**

This is narrative research, in which the researcher uses a story(ies) in the collection of qualitative data. The basic assumption is that in narrative research, there must be a storyteller, an individual (the researcher) or a group of individuals (the audience including the researcher) who listens and helps in the identification of important events that may further enable a proper understanding of the influence of the problem in the story under study. Storytelling research is a theoretical structure that guides the process of collecting and analyzing data about activities that is important to the storyteller and the viewers. The storytelling is carried out in any environment the storyteller deemed as natural with limited distraction. The rationale behind the use of the storytelling approach may be premised first because data can be collected from an individual or group of individuals depending on the objective, which helps the researcher to understand the link between the story and the context. Second, is the storytelling-build relationship that helps the people to connect, communicate and interact within their setting. Storytelling can be adapted to any setting. **Figure 5** presents the suggested process for the storytelling approach to researching indigenous people.

**Figure 5** illustration is an example of the storytelling approach and its interrelated nature. The first rectangular shape shows participants for data collection could be an individual or a group of individuals, the storyteller and the researcher. The second

*Researching African Indigenous Population in Contemporary Times: What Scholars… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107591*


#### **Figure 5.** *The storytelling research approaches.*

rectangular shape shows that the storytelling takes place in a natural and conducive environment. The third rectangular shape shows the researcher developing storytelling activities by connecting to the storyteller and other people involved. The fourth rectangular shape shows that the data can be collected with a series of questions, one question such as using interviews. The fifth rectangular shape shows that data collected be transcribed, coded, categorized and interpreted based on the research objective, and epistemologies of the research communities. The sixth rectangular shape shows that the interpreted data should be discussed with implications for further studies and conclusions.

#### **7. Human rights framework relevant to researching indigenous populations**

The human rights framework ensures the fundamental rights of an individual and collective group sacred cultural and spiritual resources, life and security, language and cultural identity, self-governance, participation, development, economic and social rights, and resources and knowledge are maintained and protected (9.1). Researching the indigenous population without appropriate information on human rights principles could raise historical issues of abuse; unfair research practices; looting of cultural knowledge, artifacts, and even bodies and genetic material; anthropological recasting of histories, and a situation where the community members become objects to be studied and the knowledge produced fails to reflect indigenous values [50, 74, 75]. The historical issue can replay the picture of hate, disrespect, and misrepresentations of indigenous people's existence. The human rights framework provides guiding principles in research practices as follows.

#### **7.1 Recognize and respect indigenous people's rights as an individual and a collective group**

The human rights act requires that indigenous people be recognized and respected as individuals and a collective group with the right to freedom of thought within their diverse ethnic group. Indigenous peoples' existence within ethnic groups is characterized as major and minor because of self-identification awareness. Self-identification defines group consciousness, a desire to protect ancestral land, a sense of solidarity against

historical injustices, and struggles to preserve group existence within indigenous populations [76]. Scholars and practitioners should adopt research designs and methods that protect, affirms and preserve the individuality and collective nature of indigenous people.

#### **7.2 Recognize and respect indigenous people's rights to their sacred cultural and spiritual resources**

Indigenous people have sacred land reserved for ancestral worship or other spiritual activities. Indigenous people regard actions that abuse these lands and spiritual resources as disrespect for their ancestral position. Researchers should obtain appropriate rites of passage for sacred places, which is often a challenge to modern African scholars and practitioners. Many modern Africans describe those who engage in indigenous practices and rituals as a fetish [38]. Researchers with modern perspectives about indigenous people should be sensitive because their insensitivity can produce disrespectful and harmful effects on their person. The display of disrespect to sacred resources and traditional customs is perceived as an abomination to spiritual rights and could endanger the researcher.

#### **Activity 1: Sacred cultural and spiritual identity: Peter**

Peter is 54 years old. A research scholar in Nigeria tertiary education and has been an employee for the past twenty years. Peter has developed a new research interest in indigenous people and indigenous settings. Peter is a Christian and views traditional practices such as sacred land and spiritual practices as a fetish. Peter views reverence to ancestors as worshipping the dead and evil because he failed to differentiate between reverence and worship. In reverence, indigenous people display deep admiration and respect because ancestors are the closest connection to the spiritual realm governed by divine beings. In worship, reverence is concerning a divine being or supernatural powers. Peter's dilemma is how to engage indigenous people without bias toward the sacred places and cultural views on ancestors and other spiritual rules. Peter's dilemma increased the awareness of the forbidden objects such as cameras, recording equipment, and shoes in entering the sacred land. Peter is contemplating how to engage indigenous people without violating his religious rights.

#### **Activity 1: Sacred cultural and spiritual**


#### **Question activity 1: Sacred cultural and religious**

Reflect on Peter's dilemma, and place yourself in his new interest in researching indigenous people.


**Table 4.** *Case study and activities.* *Researching African Indigenous Population in Contemporary Times: What Scholars… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107591*

Researchers should be sensitive to the differences and similarities between the indigenous setting and the effects on the research output. Sensitivity is about the degree of risk high, middle, or low involved in researching a particular problem. Insensitivity deals with undermining the degree of risk a phenomena understudy can pose to indigenous people or researchers. For instance, researching spiritual rituals for passage to manhood may compel the researcher to be initiated into the cult group to understand the various processes. This initiation forces indigenous people to reveal forbidden information, impinging on their cultural rights (**Table 4**).

#### **7.3 Respect and recognize the ethical rights of indigenous people**

Research ethics define the standard of practice in researching indigenous people to ensure their fundamental rights. Informed consent is an essential part of ethics because it is a written agreement with detailed information about the aims and risk level with principles of integrity and value for indigenous people. Integrity and values advance openness in disclosing the objectives, approaches, and benefits to the researcher, institutions, and the community. Research integrity and values are vital because the indigenous setting is about relationship building and accountability characterized by trust and loyalty. Accountability in studying indigenous people deals with accepting responsibility for mistakes and unbending loyalty to signed informed consent (**Table 5**).

#### **7.4 Recognize and respect indigenous people's language and cultural identity**

The indigenous people have the right to engage in research activities that revive, grow and improve their language and cultural identity. The scholars and practitioners should ensure that the research methodology reproduces a diversity of cultures, traditions and languages. The scholars should understand the intricacies of cultural identity among indigenous people to reduce discrimination, marginalization and bias in participant selection.

#### **Activity 2: Research ethics: Princess**

Princess, a 36-year-old in one of the notable first-generation public universities, is an emerging researcher who has issues with risk disclosure on the level of risk in the research activity to the indigenous people and self. Princess is willing to partake in any cultural activities for information gathering. Princess did not disclose her true intention in obtaining information about the secret cultural rituals is to test the validity of the myths with western epistemologies. Princess argued that she does not need to disclose all her intentions. **Activity 2.1: Research ethics**


#### **Questions Activity 2: Truly informed consent**

• What will be the ethical issues to the integrity and value of the quality of the information obtained with hidden intention if indigenous people dictate deceit?

How can Princess consider the rights of indigenous people in her research design and methods without ethical problems?

#### **7.5 Recognize and respect indigenous people's rights to protect their resources and knowledge**

Researchers should avoid designs and methods that negatively affect the manifestations of cultural, intellectual, religious, and spiritual property. Indigenous people have the right to protect their traditional knowledge or instinctual property by preventing or refusing researchers to study a particular area or topic. Indigenous people have the right to determine the level of information they should provide to the researcher. Researchers should seek proper access from significant others before conducting studies in excluded areas. Researchers should enter into a contractual agreement on the extent they will disclose any information during and after research [publications].

#### **7.6 Recognize and respect indigenous people's interaction and relationships**

The indigenous people's relationships and interaction patterns extend beyond the selection of appropriate participants. Indigenous people have been aware of the importance of interaction and communication, which hinge on recognizing and respecting cultural, religious, and traditional values. Respect is reciprocal among indigenous people. Researchers should identify and understand who takes the lead in determining the direction of the interaction, communication, and information sharing concerning the phenomenon understudy.

### **8. Competency for researching the indigenous population in contemporary times**

Indigenous people experience challenges as they strive to maintain, develop, and protect cultural and traditional lifestyles [77]. Researching indigenous people demands the commitments and skills of scholars and practitioners for cultural intelligence for cultural respect, harmonious collaboration, and reciprocal relationships with a focus on emotional intelligence. Thus, scholars and practitioners researching indigenous people in contemporary times need competencies such as cultural,

**Figure 6.** *Competency for the research on indigenous people.*

spiritual, and emotional intelligence to navigate the frontiers of researching the indigenous population. **Figure 6** illustrated the essential competency the researching indigenous people.

#### **8.1 Cultural intelligence**

Cultural intelligence is the ability to adapt, interact and relate with people from different cultural settings [78] and recognize and respect their values and practices. The ability to be aware of, understand and apply cultural competence to everyday decisions [79]. Scholars and practitioners should:


**Comment:** Scholars and practitioners should attend workshops, seminars and short courses to acquire cultural knowledge related to indigenous people.

#### **8.2 Emotional intelligence**

Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage personal emotions and emotions expressed by other people [80]. Experienced emotions are handled with self-awareness [knowledge of personal strength and weakness in responding to emotional events]; self-management [skill to handle experienced pressuring emotions]; social awareness [knowledge of emotions expressed by other people and how these emotions influence the activities within the social environment] and relationships management [ability to communicate, relate and interact with other people within their environment] [1].


**Comment:** Scholars and practitioners should identify the domain of weakness and strength, and leverage it with workshops and seminars or short courses.

#### **8.3 Spiritual intelligence**

Spiritual intelligence is "the ability to construct meaning through intuitively seeing interconnectedness between life-world experience and the inner spheres of the individual psyche" ([81], p. 54). Spiritual intelligence enables a researcher to understand the way human being relevance the supernatural beings deeply rooted in culture [82]. Spiritual intelligence contributed to the ability to identify and understand the spiritual beliefs, values, and ritual practices of the indigenous people understudy. The spiritual intelligence will help the researchers to develop deep knowledge of the indigenous religious beliefs and practices, and adopt appropriate attitudes vital in researching the indigenous population.


**Comment:** Scholars and practitioners should obtain information about the spiritual values and practices of the indigenous people to avoid conflicts of interest.

Cultural intelligence, emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence have important roles to play in the management of behaviors or attitudes of scholars and practitioners. These skills are displayed in the communication, interaction and relationship while researching indigenous people in an indigenous setting.

#### **9. Conclusion**

This chapter attempted to address the concepts vital in researching indigenous people in contemporary times. The terms like indigenous knowledge, epistemologies, philosophies, cultural values and practice that inform perceptions of realities were discussed and their place in research on indigenous people was presented. The chapter considered the research methodology and paradigm suitable for researching African indigenous people. The chapter contained a few activities to create a better understanding of the issue under discussion.

*Researching African Indigenous Population in Contemporary Times: What Scholars… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.107591*

#### **Author details**

Eucharia Chinwe Igbafe African Indigenous Sustainability Research Education and Consulting Foundation (AiSRECF), Bayelsa State, Nigeria

\*Address all correspondence to: igbafeeucharia@gmail.com

© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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#### **Chapter 14**

## Framing Indigenous Perspectives through Emic and Etic Approaches

*Clarence St.Hilaire*

#### **Abstract**

This chapter seeks to present indigenous perspectives from emic and etic frameworks to ascertain how cross-cultural studies fit within a new explorative paradigmatic realm. The role of context to understand how the human relationship in all social settings adopts a pluralistic and inclusive mantra is paramount to address. Discussions on specific lenses of the emic and etic approaches, looking at indigenous concepts will be presented to highlight the agency and cultural tentacles deeply rooted in the emic and etic pathways. Nine key pillars are considered: 1) succinct international and indigenous emic and etic perspectives, 2) indigenous perspectives of conflict resolution, 3) shared trends in emic and etic perspectives, 4) clarification of concepts, 5) cross-cultural perspectives and community settings, 6) indigenous population resiliency, 7) social adaptation and affirmation, 8) healthcare disparities, and 9) philosophical and theoretical perspectives.

**Keywords:** shared trends in emic and etic perspectives, cross-cultural perspectives, emic and etic indigenous pathways, healthcare disparities, philosophical and theoretical perspectives

#### **1. Introduction**

The *emic* and *etic* concepts were first coined by Pike [1] in linguistic terms. The emic view relates to a culture within a particular context and considers the internal useful dealings of only one individual or culture. The *etic* viewpoint looks at behavior from an external perspective [1, 2]. In seemingly simple terms, Buckley et al. ([3], p. 309) defined emic as culture-specific and etic as universal. Additionally, Engler and Whitesides [4] posited:

*Within a religious context, the emic/etic distinction postulates a hierarchical relation. Emic refers to concepts used primarily by members of a particular religion, and the etic concepts are used primarily by scholars of religion and related disciplines (p. 2).*

The emic and etic concepts have been analyzed in cross-cultural replication (from one cultural context to another) in social psychology [5]. Etic traits, using studies from America and Europe explored in deciphering personality and personality disorders among people in the Caribbean, showed serious cultural differences along national and ethnic lines [6].

Framing indigenous perspectives through emic and etic approaches is a worthwhile and difficult endeavor due to the intellectual rigors that one must adhere to, and many misconceptions that are shared, and promoted by some intellectuals considering indigenous peoples as individuals without an advanced way of life. This problem needs to be reframed since we must realize the impracticability of such assertion in this changing, volatile, and uncertain world. In 2002, more than six thousand distinct groups were scattered around the globe with their own culture, the meaning of their culture, lived experiences, and worldviews [7]. According to the United Nations' Chief Executives Boards for Coordination, indigenous peoples represent 6.2% of the world population, with 370 million people in the world identified as indigenous in 2019, and in 2022, 476 millions indigenous peoples worldwide covering 90 countries [8, 9].

It is paramount to argue that a population of this magnitude warrants international efforts, and intellectual insight to comprehend and tackle some of the dire problems indigenous peoples worldwide face, such as health care disparities, lack of access to sexual and reproductive health, non-participation in decision-making, lack of land delineation and titling, climate change, displacement, infant mortality, minimal access to education, human rights violations, harassment, violence, systemic discrimination, and poverty ([10], p.1; [11, 12]).

A core concern elucidated by the UN is the rights of the indigenous peoples to be considered "equal to all other peoples, while recognizing the right of all peoples to be different, to consider themselves different, and to be respected as such, that all peoples contribute to the diversity and richness of civilizations and cultures, which constitute the common heritage of humankind, and affirming further that all doctrines, policies, and practices based on or advocating superiority of peoples or individuals on the basis of national origin or racial, religious, ethnic or cultural differences are racist, scientifically false, legally invalid, morally condemnable and socially unjust" ([12], pp. 2–3).

While this chapter considers nine components for the indigenous perspectives, it is also critical to recognize the role of culture as an important signifier to frame the perspectives about indigeneity [identity of native, and non-native] Sium et al. [13], in terms of decolonizing the mind, or deconstruction to appreciate indigenous methods of learning, knowing, cultural literacy, conflict resolution, peacemaking, leadership and decision making, social practices, and health disparities.

This type of deconstruction has produced several forms of expressions from indigenous peoples, such as resistance, expressed as art, songs, literature from many indigenous writers, indigenous popular beliefs, and movements around the globe as shared emic perspectives. In Latin America, during the mid-nineteen century, the indigenous movement was represented in political and social ideas, literary and artistic expressions, as a gateway to eliminate racial and ethnic differences among people [14]. Proponents were Carlos de Siguenza y Gongora, Espinoza Medrano, Miguel Hidalgo, Jose Maria Luis Mora. For the Latin Americans, it was the American continent that the Creoles considered their true country. For the indigenous peoples, the indigenous person ceased to exist when he or she became a citizen of a particular country they were not considered creoles (belonging to the European race). One is considered either as wealthy or poor [14]. Nonetheless, the Métis was considered a new man having a total conception of nationality. According to Andersen [15], the Métis is an individual with mixed ancestry. Métises were classified as *roto* in Chile, *caboclo* in Brazil, *gaucho* in Argentina, *cholo* in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador ([14], p. 34).

#### *Framing Indigenous Perspectives through Emic and Etic Approaches DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106728*

The indigenous perspectives in Latin America did not rely on a monolithic assertion of ethnicity, but on a racialized form of identity, a form of racial legitimacy construed upon historical experiences, a type of *habitus*. The Métis considered himself or herself different from the Indians. According to Haitian historian Thomas Madiou Fils [16], in Haiti, the Métisses were considered "sang-mêlés" (people of mixed ancestry).

In the Caribbean, another concept was espoused by *the Indigenous school* depicted in the Haitian literature during the 1915 era that resisted the American occupation. *The indigenous school* promoted the defense of indigenous cultural values and reasserted that the Haitians are predominantly African, and the ancestral heritage cannot be forgotten. The influential thinkers were Jean- Francois Briere, Jacques Roumain, Leon Laleau, Jacques Stephen Alexis, Roussan Camille, Carl Brouard, Francois Duvalier, and Jean Price-Mars. *The indigenous school's perspectives* are still ideologically vibrant today. The poet Leon Laleau [17] echoed:

*This obsessive heart does not correspond not with my language and my costumes and on which bite like a crampon borrowed sentiments and customs from Europe do you feel the pain and this despair has no equal to tame with words from France this heart that came to me from Senegal (p. 239).*

Alfred ([18], as cited in [13]) opined this form of resistance can be achieved through the renaissance of an *indigenous consciousness*.

#### **2. Specific lenses of the emic and etic perspectives**

The emic perspective considers the indigenous peoples' native point of view. Forms of expression are important. They sometimes manifest as storytelling, cultural and spiritual beliefs, and legends that create awareness to eliminate what Haitian physician, diplomat, educator, historian, and ethnographer Jean Price-Mars considered as "legends' jumble," and "the corruption of the fables" deriving from the Western civilization ([19], p. 32). Chinua Achebe in *Things Fall Apart* added that the outside perspective (external perspective, a Western way of thinking) may destroy a country or continent's heritage and is about the colonial enterprise of "depoetization" and "desacralization" of Africa [20]. It is not surprising that what Avruch [21] termed *cultural bias in the mind* continues to exist. Although the etic approaches offer cross-cultural strategies, there is more that needs to be done because etic schemes developed from a Western standpoint do not always reflect shear interpretations of cultures, societies, or religious beliefs. One way to establish a clear emic-etic connection is through proper contexts, discursive channels, and cultural discussions that are not easy to establish.

Anna M. Mackowiack considering the Indonesian way of unity in diversity (the *bhinneka, tunggall ika, and agama*) determination during the Lingsar Temple festival, advanced that scholars ought to establish a meta-dialog about how emic perspectives are entrapped with indigenous, national, and religious communications [4]. However, using the etic approach in indigenous communities requires

clear assessments that harm is abated, an assertion that the "non-civilized man or woman" has always been civilized. Claims of the so-called civilized societies claiming privileged humanity from one exclusive race and or culture, exposed by objective tribulations [22] throughout history, appear to be no longer strong because of the world's global compass, and multicultural embrace. However, for the Heiltsuk Nation in B.C, an indigenous group of the Northwest Territories of the Newfoundland province in Canada, there are unresolved grievances to be settled. A striking discriminatory reality surfaced during Britain's Prince Charles and his wife's visit on May 16, 2022. The indigenous groups of Newfoundland and Labrador raised concerns about reconciliation, the impacts of colonization on the residential schools, the displacement of more than 150,000 indigenous children between 1831 and 1966, labeled as cultural genocide, and harsh conditions [23]. In Canada, the Métis concept is not a one-size-fits-all because one who is indigenous may not be a native of Canada ([15], p. 24).

The development of theories about the structure of society failing past integration among oppressors and oppressed individuals has changed. Structural slavery no longer exists on the global world stage. But admonitory measures need to be analyzed as a doubled-edge sword. An important concept to consider was the *trial of colonialism*, a powerful theme in the African literature of the 1960s considered as the "literature of testimony" [Littéraure de témoignage] (Letembet-Ambily [24], as cited in [20]). This literature seems to consider the dualism existing between racial category and identity. Damas ([25], as cited in [20]) resisted the Western civilization attempting to assimilate his identity with a clear conscience, and claimed his freedom in the following poem entitled *Solde* (Clearance):

*I have the impression of being ridiculous among them accomplice among them pimp among them cutthroat frighteningly with red hands of the blood of their civilization (p. 153)*

This poem suggests a diasporic experience rooted in an African indigenous perspective that is strong and provides a proper cultural context that can be respected across nation-states' boundaries. Indigenous voices from Caribbean poets, authors, and painters echoed a dualism between western civilizations and the négritude movement [the recognition of being Black, and the acceptation of Black historical and cultural heritages]. Haitian poet Kiki Wainwright wrote [26]:

*The poet spits his challenge in the face of executioners called civilizers (p. 31).*

The famous poet Aimé Césaire [27] from Martinique echoed:

*My négritude is not a sheet of dead water on the dead eye of the earth my négritude is neither a tower nor a cathedral it plunges into the red flesh of the ground, it plunges into the fiery flesh of the sky, pierces the opaque despondents of his upright patience*

#### **2.1 Succinct international and indigenous emic and etic perspectives**

Some contradictions created typologies of conflicts that are eclipsed by an international system still considering structural disagreements resulting in contradictions between countries from the center to the ones at the periphery. The center is referred to as wealthy and powerful countries, while for the countries at the periphery we find less powerful and developed ones. The wealthy countries use exploitation and domination of those at the periphery through "economic imperialism social imperialism, and political imperialism" ([28], p. 98). It is a world of political power and societal dominance with deep tentacles of disparities. Indigenous peoples are caught in the middle. They are vulnerable. Sium et al. [13] claimed that the indigenous future will continue to resonate due to internal threats in the home country, and the outside world. Currently, there are 70,000 Maasai people of the Loliondo division of the Ngorongoro district in Tanzania who face eviction by the Tanzania government's armed forces [29].

Consistent with international laws, and the United Nations' Article 10 of the UN Declaration "Indigenous peoples shall not be forcibly removed from their lands or territories. No relocation shall take place without the free, prior, and informed consent of the indigenous peoples concerned and after agreement on just and fair compensation and, where possible with the option to return" ([29]. p. 1). The following questions should be raised:


The importance of family and well-being has been explored by many researchers who found that Western cultures have appreciated the concept of family cohesion and communication [30]. The Maori group of New Zealand has prioritized family orientation and relationships as deep anchors for their survival. For them, family relations are tied to their well-being. New Zealand is a vibrant country where multiculturalism flourishes. The largest groups consist of White (74% of the population), Maori (15%), and others represented as Pacific, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern (Statistics New Zealand [31], as cited in [30]). There are other relevant cultural concepts prioritizing family.

While the Maasai people of Tanzania face displacement, the Abuja peoples of Nigeria are alienated in their lands by their government, which ensured Abuja land's exclusive rights to the government [10], thus creating compulsory termination of customary land rights for the indigenous people of Abuja. It is worthwhile to note that the development of exclusive rights to the government through the categorization of customary rights of occupancy, and statutory rights, elucidated by Barnabas [10], creates what Wallerstein's historical analysis referred to as economic and political power disparities among states. In the case of the Abuja peoples, it is a structural position claimed by the government showing power imbalances. The landowners were classified as farmers, hunter-gatherers, fishermen, and pastoralists. Since there was not a clear definition of indigenous people in Nigeria, what resulted was pure human rights violation. One could make a case for colonialism.

The indigenous Abuja peoples' perspectives, as indigenous peoples highlighted peace, and no conflicts seemed to arise. A further consideration is found in Linda Alcoff's article "*The problem of speaking for others"*. The Nigerian government acting as a legitimate authority seems to have spoken for the indigenous peoples of Abuja who were less privileged and had no power. In speaking about the lands in Abuja, three key questions linger:


The above considerations may produce a concept of mutual dependence required for the emic and etic frameworks to work. Cultural factors are critical, and individualism should yield to collectivism within this framework. It is pertinent to address these questions: What would an indigenous emic perspective consider banishing selfish interests in a conflictual situation? What would an etic action or group be willing to sacrifice for the common good?

Examples of the Igbo concept of "*Ihe Nkétá" or "òkè*" typify the dualism between indigenous perspectives of land, and heritage conservation [32]. Igbos' view of heritage is tied with traditions, cultural norms, and practices held by a group of people about land attachment, a type of indigeneity (Ugwuanyi [33], as cited in [32]). To some extent, heritage offers a symbolic stance for the custodians of the land within the communities who consider themselves attached to it and see the land as tangible and intangible assets (p. 3). This view is shared by the entire community, and any attempt to remove indigenous peoples from the land is deemed to be uprootedness or detachment. The land is also a symbolic living space with communal memories, a known space, Nnebedum ([34], as cited in [32]) noted. It is a form of symbolic interactionism (SI), Blumer [35] would contend.

Symbolic interactionism is a sociological theory positing that people make sense of things, based on the meaning attached to them, and through social interactions. SI is derived from George Herbert Meade's American pragmatism.

The removal of indigenous peoples in Africa from their lands under the pretext of heritage preservation and restoration is a form of exclusion, isolation, and marginalization, Onyemechalu and Ugwuanyi [32] posited. It is a form of social interaction capable of creating tensions but destroying the meaning of the Abuja peoples' lived experiences who were the first to occupy the lands, before colonial rule ([10], p. 434).

The heritage discourse entails for the Igbo indigenous person, a cultural heritage that encompasses value association, a link to the present with continuity connecting to the past, evidenced by social identity, interactions, and values. Cultural heritage also refers to various traditions, norms, and cultural practices jointly secured by a group of people ([32], p. 7) Corollaries to the heritage discourse are information value, esthetic value, and economic value, asserted Wangkeo ([36], p. 190, as cited in [32]). Information value refers to the historical belief associated with a land that is communicated through generations for future use. The esthetic value expresses a cultural property that provides convenience or satisfaction, and economic value is tied to a land's propensity to generate value [32]. The Igbo peoples in Abuja seem to

have lost this heritage. The Nigerian government-orchestrated land theft and minimized a communicative process that could have generated mutual understanding during social interactions between the indigenous Igbo peoples of Abuja, and the government agents.

Indigenous peoples in protected areas in Nepal, Thailand, and China have had opportunities to retain their protected lands when governments participated in partnerships that promoted land and park planning. The governments of Nepal, Thailand, and China have implemented policies to safeguard indigenous peoples' customary rights, and values [7]. While there are no international comparative perspectives according to the literature, common characteristics of the populations in these countries reveal that subsistence in agriculture and forestry was essential. According to Nepal [7], poverty, lack of education, and low level of infrastructure development are the main characteristics. Contrary to the indigenous Igbos of Abuja, the indigenous peoples of Nepal, Thailand, and China, participate in local communities supporting area management, and various conservation projects. However, there are wildlife conservation violations noted among the Hmong in the Doi Inthanon National Park (DINP) in southern Thailand, resulting in encroachment, and illegal hunting of tigers (p. 754). The DINH was created without the presence and approval of inhabitants of the hill near the parking area.

#### **2.2 Indigenous perspectives of conflict resolution**

Cross-cultural perspectives play a vital role in conflict resolutions among indigenous peoples. Culture is at the core of conflict resolution. Thus, recognizing cultural differences is a good start in negotiation. While some positive social and behavioral scientists claim that the cultural concept is too subtle, it is plausible to argue that culture offers a stable platform because it connects with experiences, social actions, although it can also be a source of conflict [21].

Going back to Alcoff's dilemma of speaking for the other, typologies of conflicts cannot only be assessed through the essential philosophical nature and society. Koko [37] also summarized the conflict phenomenon with different dominant variables such as social, political, ethnic, and religious conflicts by considering the agents and the issues. Thus, the views or perspective of the other is highly paramount. To frame this perspective, one needs to eliminate preconceived ideas, biases, and stereotypes about the "other." Alcoff explains that privileged or discursive notions of one group or person speaking for the other are dangerous and may result in the reinforcement of oppression of the "group spoken for" ([38], p. 7).

The western view of conflict resolution, peacemaking, and negotiation has failed to consider the indigenous perspectives and researchers need to learn from them [39]. Practices of peacemaking and conflict resolution are continually active in African societies. The ethnocentric worldview of the West is insufficient to solve conflicts in many worldwide circles. Various case studies show effective mechanisms of conflict resolution in African societies [37, 40–42].

Tusso [41] presented the case of the Oromo society in Ethiopia. The Oromos suffered from colonialism by the Abyssinians during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century and were on the verge of extinction by emperor Haile Selassie who attempted to eliminate the vestiges of the Cushitic cultures, including the Oromos (p. 80). The Habesha culture considered "God's chosen people" was imposed on the Oromo society, while the Oromos were referred to as "Gallas," which means" uncivilized, savage, and cruel in the Amharic language. They lacked education,

freedom, and means of transportation, did not participate in national affairs, and the language and cultural aspects of their survival were at stake (p.81). However, in this society, conflicts are resolved through a community of elders known as the *Jarsa biya* whose work encompasses preventing, managing, and solving conflicts through reconciliation, justice, and punishment. Thus, the conflict resolution model is based on the following pillars [42]:


It is incredibly important to appreciate the fact that in the Oromo society, jails, and death do not exist in the administration of justice. These governing conflict resolution principles are aligned with the Oromo political structure called the *Gada* **system**, religious customs, termed as the *kallu system*: the elaborate apparatus of reconciliation or *arara*. This system of conflict resolution surpasses divisions along regional lines, clans *(gossa*), and governs the political system.

The Oromo society has been described as democratic and collectivist by scholars according to Tusso [41], and their worldview of social justice and conflict is very novel. The Oromos considered that conflicts create imbalances in human relations. There is a public culture that requires investments in human capital in terms of time, energy, and reputation to manage conflicts. This indigenous perspective of conflict resolution offers a viable lens for western scholars to explore conflict resolution beyond the alternative conflict resolution modalities such as arbitration, mediation, negotiation, litigation, and conciliation.

During my undergraduate years at the City University of New York, Bernard M. Baruch College, I took a course titled "Power and conflicts in tribal society." The textbook: *Europe and the people without history*, captivated my attention and created in me profound cultural shocks, due to the author's ostensibly bias. I realized then that some Western anthropologists were on a mission or traveling on a different path in history. It took me years during my graduate studies to realize that the perceptions of "the other" is what are rooted in deeply held negative values beyond the veil of crosscultural perspectives. Indeed, the people without a history have their history, perspectives, and emic views, which negate cultural ignorance and racism. Koko [37], pp. 108–109), brilliantly researching conflict resolution from an African standpoint, exposed the following conflict resolution models:


#### *2.2.1 Shared trends in emic and etic perspectives*

One quality of an emic perspective is found in native terms selection or institutional buy-in, Avruch [21] contended. A word such as "friendship" in Chinese *you-y*i suggests an interpersonal construct that is pervasive in human relations and infers a mutual obligation, Avruch [21] further elucidated. What is cleverly not enunciated, is the meaning of the linguistic ramification of the emic concept if we consider a person's communication evolves in a particular context and culture. For example, there can be cultural adaptations, and new meanings of the word friendship in English, Spanish, Japanese, French, Haitian Creole, Igbo language, etc., resulting from social, political, and institutional correctness or pressure as etic elements that may create a new emic phenomenon. Such a line of reasoning propels the following questions:

a.Are internal/native understanding or views influenced by external forces?

We are living in a pluralistic world promoting the acceptance of one's "personal" or "group" views, which one may consider as "generalized", attempting to create a new culture with its own identity.

b.Is there a path for the emic concept to survive in such a culture?

This is a problematic condition calling for a new cultural anthropology. The important gain of the emic concept is that its roots an individual deeper in relevant cultural contexts that are changing.

#### c.What is the future of the emic perspective around the globe?

I would argue that it depends on the values defined by each culture. However, it is difficult to answer such a question due to the influences of the globalization culture affecting indigenous peoples worldwide. There are cultural data from innovative technologies and social media platforms in cultural spheres capable of changing the cultural template for the emic and etic perspectives to evolve. This is not an easy development.

#### *2.2.2 Clarification of concepts*

Emic and etic concepts offer a cultural space where different views are explored. There is a possibility to negotiate between actors using both perspectives. They represent speakers seeking collective understanding through a clear communicative process. When there is no room for common ground in unresolved issues, emic and etic perspectives can also be the roots of conflicts. Zartman (1982) explained that communication must be more than a question of the sheer difference in communication types. It is also necessary that actors minimize their inadequate cultural tenets, by not imposing their views on others, but embracing cultural differences.

Avruch ([21], p. 58) opined that a cultural differences continuum must be about the quality of difference when actors or individuals express their perspectives and problems in quest of solutions. Cultural differences are important when the aim is to educate or prepare the other. The notion of contexts in which communication takes place is paramount to an emic and etic scale. In high-context communication, language is expressive, whereas, in low-context communication, it is instrumental (p. 64).

#### *2.2.3 Cross-cultural perspectives and community settings*

In this chapter, I addressed the emic and etic perspectives, considered the notion of shared trends, and clarified some concepts. I presented relevant appraisals of indigenous thoughts under an intellectual lens which posits that different ethnic groups establish their own mechanisms to resist forms of alienation, potential or actual harm (or endangerment) from etic judgments ([43], as cited in [22]), or external interventions. It was necessary to do so, due to issues of etic vulnerability that indigenous peoples continually deal with, such as displacement from their lands, lack of education, health-related issues, etc.

In principle, as well as in applied terms, we have seen that there is a framework used by etic agents such as governments using socio-economic policy to disenfranchise many populations (The Maasai people of Tanzania, Igbos in southern Nigeria, the Abuja peoples, indigenous populations in Nepal, Taiwan, China, and indigenous populations in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada). Thus, the vulnerability also exists from both emic and etic perspectives. Emic vulnerabilities represent the experience of exposure to harm by indigenous populations. This section focuses on cross-cultural perspectives, as a model that does not use etic approaches to cross-cultural interpretation because diverse cultural groups have different emic-etic perspectives. As a result, it would be futile to adhere to etic interpretations that are not a one-size-fits-all fix.

At the center of the cross-cultural scheme, culture must be considered and defined. Avruch [21] offers an interesting definition from Theodore Schwartz that fits well within the cross-cultural context:

*Culture consists of derivatives of experiences, organized, learned, or created by the individuals of a population, including those images or encodements and their interpretations (meanings) transmitted from past generations, from contemporaries, or formed by individuals themselves (p.37).*

This definition implies culture is connected to experiences, and embraces changes. Considered in this fashion, one may find it reasonable to move away from inadequate definitions implying that culture is homogenous, a thing, uniformed distribution among a group, customs, individuals possessing a single culture, and is timeless [21]. Another definition proposed by Stead [44] highlights culture in the following terms:

#### *Culture is a social system of shared symbols, meanings, perspectives, and social actions that are mutually negotiated by people in their relationships with others (p. 392).*

Within this frame of clarification, a keen understanding of ethnicity is needed. For instance, colonizers in Africa and America of native and non-native individuals, indigenous, and non-indigenous have used race and ethnicity as tools of containment during slavery. As Sium et al. ([13], p.656) posited, indigeneity came along the race line and ethnicity, although the difference between race and ethnicities was distinct from the division between colonizers and colonized.

It is not surprising, Fetvadjiev et al. [30] argued about the necessity to find cross-cultural research emphasizing an emic etic approach relying on empirical and universal models, with much less research done on cross-cultural replicability of indigenous models. An emic or culture-specific perspective requires a cultural context interpreting the occurring phenomena. In the etic case or culture-general, research assumptions usually are made from the outside to inside contexts [45].

A cross-cultural international business research, using emic and etic approaches, provided light on the elimination of a dichotomous focus of the emic and etic concepts, seeing them as complementary [3]. The dichotomy resides in the emic concept being considered culture-specific, and etic is universal. This has led to the view that cross-cultural comparisons have been ethnocentric, Buckley et al. [3] stated. However, one needs to understand the profound differences in culture, and cross-cultural research using emic and etic approaches are vital options to get meaningful results.

Furthermore, in multicultural communities, emic perspectives, and meanings of terms such as family, diversity, loneliness, and self-esteem may have different interpretations than in the English language, although similarities in the meaning of the terms may exist [5, 13, 30]. As a result, an etic approach to cross-cultural understanding and research can be limited, due to diverse cultural contexts. There is a platform to consider cross-cultural emic and etic perspectives, not in terms of universal assumptions. Research in these domains warrants a contextual restraint and an unbiased outside outlook.

Another consideration is to apply the tenets of cultural competence, which consists of developing individual knowledge and skills to allow for effective engagement, and judgments when dealing with other cultures. Cultural competence is a great tool in cross-cultural environments, research, and fosters a better understanding of other cultures. Related terms such as cultural safety, cultural sensitivity, cultural humility, cultural responsiveness, and transcultural care, are commonly used [11].

#### *2.2.4 Indigenous population resiliency*

Indigenous population resiliency is a fascinating concept. Resiliency is the ability to recover after a major struggle, or a crisis. It involves the restoration of a prior state of wellbeing [46]. Several perspectives found in the literature deal with behaviors and attitudes linked with familial and culture-specific issues, cultural resiliency among native Americans in California in Tomales Bay, adversity and resiliency in native Hawaiian elders, the Makushi indigenous peoples in South America, and the Gullah people of South Carolina and Georgia [46–51]. However, there is a void in the literature about an emic-etic approach. Resiliency is a complex concept requiring a clear understanding that can be perceived or defined differently depending on the context, by groups, individuals, and agencies, and there is not a simple continuum [46].

Considering the effects of land displacement or expulsion that many indigenous peoples in the chapter encountered, there are assumptions of psychological harm, stress, and collective trauma, aspects of spirituality, and cultural values as factors of resiliency to be made [52]. In the United States, indigenous peoples such as native Hawaiians, Americans, Indians, and Alaska natives share a history of involuntary assimilation, displacement, and experienced trauma as colonized peoples [47].

What do indigenous peoples consider resiliency?

One can advance that culture is vital for resiliency due to its dynamic characteristics. Resiliency also implies dynamism. There is an interdependence between culture and resiliency. Life misfortunes experienced by the Maasai of Tanzania may create stronger bonds among them due to a traumatic context and psychological effects. But what aspect in their material culture provides relief, and are there intangibles? The answer can be found in the Igbo culture since their cultural heritage preservation is deeply rooted in a knowledge-based system that is transmitted from one generation to another [32].

The Gullah Geechee community, an enclave in South Carolina, shows an example of resiliency. The Gullah Geechee people are descendants of the western coast of Africa who were enslaved in Georgia, and South Carolina. They keep on inhabiting the farm coastal plains and sea Islands since the post abolition of slavery era in 1865. Due to transportation challenges, the Gullah Geechee peoples created their language, which they still use today. They are a marginalized community facing cultural displacements from dangers of development, climate change, and access to natural resources, putting at risk the heritage they contributed to centuries ago. For them, resiliency is a pressing need in shaping and keeping their culture. So, the public must be made aware of the challenges of this minority group. A larger sense of community resiliency is to be created, meaning their capability to foresee solutions for their challenges, learn from past ones, and integrate their understanding to minimize their vulnerability ([48], pp. 1–2). For the Makushi indigenous Carib-speaking people of Guyana and Brazil and the Amerindians, resiliency consists of dependence on cassava farming practices, eating, and preservation of cultural norms [51].

Native Hawaiian Elders (na kupuna) from 1975 to 1984 established a resiliency model consisting of a cultural renaissance, which prioritized language, hula, and spiritual practices. One of the effects of the cultural renaissance was the development the indigenous health services alleviating health risks in this population, Browne et al. [47] reported.

#### *2.2.5 Social adaptation and affirmation*

Additionally, concepts such as social support, and social adaptation in indigenous populations can be relevant regardless of displacement or challenges. In indigenous

#### *Framing Indigenous Perspectives through Emic and Etic Approaches DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.106728*

Australian communities, and other indigenous Haitian communities in Miami, Florida, community-based participatory research (CBPR) has proven to be an effective intervention [50, 53]. The CBPR is linked with the theory of resilience that recognizes intrinsic power in individuals and communities (Chapin et al. [54], as cited in [47]). The indigenous Haitian community in Miami, Florida is well socially supported, and politically adapted.

#### *2.2.6 Healthcare disparities*

The literature is scant about healthcare disparities among indigenous peoples. A contextual approach is necessary it seems. The research reviewed showed one key factor of disparity is poverty which creates vulnerability in health [55]. In the indigenous communities of Nigeria, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and indigenous groups in Miami, poverty is considered a key indicator of health disparities. The main tenets of health disparities or healthcare inequalities consist of social and indigenous inequalities,and shortfalls deriving from past experiences of colonization, globalization, acculturation, land displacement, and loss of indigenous languages [49].

Two problems that many indigenous populations are confronted with are good health, and lack of healthcare access. Their daily activities depend on them. While western researchers and the World Health Organization rely on social determinants of health and psychological factors associated with good health, it is noteworthy to consider the role of culture and culture in health belief formation. Social determinants of health are generally seen as responsible factors for the poor state of indigenous health. Policymakers must consider health behaviors, coupled with sociocultural contexts in health care. The impact of ethnomedical beliefs, customs, traditions, knowledge, and intuition about sickness and treatment, in sum traditional medicine should not be underestimated. Notions of health, diseases, and healing are highly paramount [56]. Future research must address the issues of health disparities and vulnerability in healthcare, in an international healthcare system lacking equity.

#### **3. Philosophical and theoretical perspectives**

The overarching philosophical theory is the human-cultural perspectives in psychology . The human-cultural perspectives are concerned with the nature of personal and cultural rules, meaning systems, and therefore establish the "realm of reasons", whereas the natural sciences perspective is based on natural laws and the "realm of causes" ([57], p. 113). The dualism of the emic-etic approaches fits well with the human-cultural perspectives. It may also suggest a quest for a new paradigm. Kuhn ([58], p.15) posited that out of crises, new paradigms occur.

Another philosophical concept is John Rawls's [59] *Theory of Justice as fairness*. Rawls developed a theory linking utilitarianism with Kantian theory. For Rawls, governments must preserve and promote the liberty and welfare of their people. Conferring arbitrary rights to one entity, individual, or group, at the expense of others, is unjust. Thus, principles of justice as fairness are crucial.

In Rawls' reasoning, there is a hypothetical position known as "the original position". The original position invites us to think of ourselves in a position of equality, in which we are unaware of most of the socially significant facts about ourselves: race, sex, religion, economic class, social standing, natural abilities, and even our conception of the good life. He termed such a phenomenon the "veil of ignorance". Undoubtedly, both

philosophical theories are relevant to the issues indigenous populations face worldwide. The adversities such as displacement, poverty, human rights violations, discrimination, etc., not the mantra of "the good life" the indigenous populations face worldwide should propel rapid interventions, and efficient policies of deterrence, I argue.

The theoretical perspective considered is the cultural/symbolic perspective asserted by Eckensberger [57]. This perspective considers culture vital in understanding human development, perspectives, meaning, and institutions. It requires a pluralistic approach to human systems, and both emic and etic perspectives are captured within this theoretical perspective.

#### **4. Conclusion**

I have examined indigenous perspectives through an emic-etic pathway looking at social, cultural, health, political, and economic challenges, using a cross-cultural portal. Both emic and etic perspectives suggest the need for a progressive indigenous paradigm providing context in which, disparities and unjust practices by agency powers can be lessened. This requires proper interventions, global awareness, and allocation of resources from various actors in this rapidly globalizing world. It is plausible that positive results will follow. This chapter also underscores the need to understand indigenous voices from within (an emic call) because cultural preservation and selfdetermination values can be effective drivers for the indigenous population around the globe to survive. Further research is needed.

#### **Conflict of interest**

The author declares no conflict of interest.

#### **Author details**

Clarence St.Hilaire College of Integrative Medicine and Health Sciences, Saybrook University, Eureka, CA, United States of America

\*Address all correspondence to: csthilaire@saybrook.edu

© 2023 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Section 4
