The Impression of Hybridised Indigeneity: A History of the United Nations’ Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues and the Emergence of a Globalised Construction of Indigeneity

The purpose of this article is to examine how the work of the United Nations (UN) nurtures hybridised constructs of indigeneity, especially through the activities of the United Nations’ Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII). This article surveys particular aspects of the literature relating to cultural and indigenous hybridisation, and then applies this to the activities of the UNPFII as a means of interpreting the contribution of the organisation’s work and objectives to portrayals of indigeneity, drawing in the experiences New Zealand’s indigenous Maori as a case study. It concludes that the UNPFII—as a globalising agent—simultaneously promotes the rights of indigenous peoples while masking many of the cultural differences between its constituent members, resulting in a broad conception presented to outsiders of a single, hybridised indigeneity in the international sphere, which is defined and only exists in the hegemonic space created by the UN. Dimensions of Indigeneity The emphasis in this article is not on the hybridisation of indigenous cultures per se (that is, through encounters at a domestic level between indigenous cultures and the usually dominant culture of the colonising other (Said 1979)—although elements of that phenomenon inevitably surface at certain points). However, what is evident, and is addressed in relation to the emergence of supra-state hybridity in the United Nations (UN), is that the roots of this hybridity can be found in the development of forms of indigenous political activism within nation-states, which then spill over into international forums as activists seek redress or attention to their concerns outside the nation-state. To a degree, indigenous groups can therefore be complicit in the manifestation of a hybridised indigeneity, of the sort that has been fostered through the work of the UNPFII. In the case of indigenous Maori identity, the emergence in recent decades of Maori health providers (under the state system), mandatory Maori representation in local authorities, Maori television and radio stations, Maori educational institutions, Maori social services, and Maori businesses have given the impression of a revived sense of Maori indigeneity. However, these developments have generally been of a pan-tribal nature and, therefore, have hybridised the notion of Maori itself (Durie 1995; Stuart 2003).