Urban Indigenous Peoples And Migration

"The material originates from an international Expert Group Meeting on Urban Indigenous Peoples and Migration held in Santiago, Chile, March 27-29, 2007. It seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of migration by indigenous peoples into urban areas from a human rights and a gender perspective. In this work, particular attention is paid to the varying nature of rural-urban migration around the world, and its impact on quality of life and rights of urban indigenous peoples, particularly youth and women."--Publisher's description.

"The material originates from an international Expert Group Meeting on Urban Indigenous Peoples and Migration held in Santiago, Chile, March 27-29, 2007. It seeks to provide a comprehensive analysis of migration by indigenous peoples into urban areas from a human rights and a gender perspective. In this work, particular attention is paid to the varying nature of rural-urban migration around the world, and its impact on quality of life and rights of urban indigenous peoples, particularly youth and women."--Publisher's description

As migration has not commonly been considered as part of the indigenous experience, the prevalent view of indigenous communities tends to portray them as static groups, deeply rooted in their territories and customs. Increasingly, however, indigenous peoples are leaving their long-held territories as part of the phenomenon of global migration beyond the customary seasonal and cultural movements of particular groups. Diverse examples of indigenous peoples' migration, its distinctive features and commonalities are highlighted throughout this report, and show that more research and data on this topic are necessary to better inform policies on migration and other phenomena that have an impact on indigenous people' lives.

Research on Indigenous issues rarely focuses on life in major metropolitan centres. Instead, there is a tendency to frame rural locations as emblematic of authentic or “real” Indigeneity. While such a perspective may support Indigenous struggles for territory and recognition, it fails to account for large swaths of contemporary Indigenous realities, including the increased presence of Indigenous people in cities. The contributors to this volume explore the implications of urbanization on the production of distinctive Indigenous identities in Canada, the US, New Zealand, and Australia. In doing so, they demonstrate the resilience, creativity, and complexity of the urban Indigenous presence, both in Canada and internationally.

The report discusses three main topics: special distribution trends of indigenous peoples in Latin America, with emphasis on the urbanisation process and the spatial pattern of this population within selected cities; internal migration of indigenous peoples, with emphasis on rural to urban flows and living conditions of indigenous peoples, with emphasis on inequalities between urban and rural areas.

Increasing numbers of Indigenous peoples are living in cities, yet the vast majority of studies focus solely on rural Indigenous populations. This is the first book to look at urban Indigenous peoples globally and present the urban Indigenous experience--not as the exception but as the norm. Dismissing the false idea that indigeneity is only "authentic" when it is practiced in remote rural areas, these wide-ranging essays show that a vigorous, vibrant, and meaningful indigeneity can be created in urban spaces too and offers perspectives and tools to understand a contemporary Indigenous urban reality.

Since the 1970s, Aboriginal people have been more likely to live in Canadian cities than on reserves or in rural areas. Aboriginal rural-to-urban migration and the development of urban Aboriginal communities represent one of the most significant shifts in the histories and cultures of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. The essays in Aboriginal Peoples in Canadian Cities: Transformations and Continuities are from contributors directly engaged in urban Aboriginal communities; they draw on extensive ethnographic research on and by Aboriginal people and their own lived experiences. The interdisciplinary studies of urban Aboriginal community and identity collected in this volume offer narratives of unique experiences and aspects of urban Aboriginal life. They provide innovative perspectives on cultural transformation and continuity and demonstrate how comparative examinations of the diversity within and across urban Aboriginal experiences contribute to broader understandings of the relationship between Aboriginal peoples and the Canadian state and to theoretical debates about power dynamics in the production of community and in processes of identity formation.