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2
CONSIDERING THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE CONCEPT OF INDIGENEITY FOR LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN CAMBODIA, THAILAND, AND LAOS
Ian G. Baird
The concept of “indigenous peoples”—which is today often linked to emancipatory support for ethnic minorities—is relatively new to Asia. Of course, the word “indigenous” has been used in Asia by Europeans since at least the nineteenth-century European colonial period, but during that time it was used to distinguish between colonial Europeans and colonized “natives,” regardless of ethnic background. In other words, it was an Othering tool of European colonialism, deployed in the defense of colonial power. For example, the British in Burma used the term “indigenous” to distinguish the British from Britain from colonial subjects (Keyes 2002). In French Indochina, the Garde Indigène (Indigenous Guard), a military unit made up of people of Asian descent, was specifically employed to help protect colonial power (Baird 2015). The United States government similarly applied the concept of “indigenous” during the postcolonial period, and in 1975—as the communists were taking over Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam—Americans working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were ordered to assist with the evacuation of “Key Indigenous Personnel.”1 The CIA in Cambodia also referred to all Cambodians as “indigenous” during the same period (Conboy 2013). In both of these examples it was citizenship, rather than ethnicity, that was the focus. But since the 1980s and 1990s, some Asians have begun to adopt a new concept of indigeneity, one previously largely restricted to the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. This new concept is fundamentally different to those previously used. First, it recognizes and identifies groups based on ethnic difference, not on their country of origin. Second, it is based on self-determination (at least at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues),2 something that was not previously the case (see ILO 1989). Third, in Asia it is now frequently associated with those who have historically been “colonized people” (Baird 2008, 2011b; Erni 2008; Gray 1995). It is also a term that is becoming globalized (Dirlik 2003); thus, the concept of indigenous peoples is being exported to various parts of the world, including Southeast Asia. It is becoming increasingly translocal, with intensely global and local elements, hybridized in particular ways depending on the context (Baird 2015). These new meanings of indigenous peoples make it possible for even relatively recent migrants to cross present-day national borders and claim to be indigenous, especially if they were historically dominated or oppressed by those in neighboring countries. It allows for “indigeneity without borders.” For example, the Hmong in Thailand and Laos, even though