Indigeneity in Waiting: Elusive Rights and the Power of Hope

This event was an informal roundtable, in which Dr Lindroth and Dr Sinevaara-Niskanen discussed their research project, Indigeneity in Waiting: Elusive Rights and the Power of Hope, and invite comment and discussion.  

To the unaided eye, it seems that political power is being redistributed and a change has occured in how such power is exercised. This understanding has taken root in the current international discussions on indigenous peoples and their rights. The present research project investigates the nature of this alleged shift. It argues that the promise of a change for the better has engendered a new form of power that operates specifically through hope. The project will draw on critical research in the fields of biopolitics, indigeneity and law and will produce both new empirical knowledge on the ways in which indigeneity is governed globally and new conceptual openings for studying the operation of power. Questions of rights, hope and indigeneity will be studied in three contexts that represent different parts of the world and different stages of ‘progress’ in indigenous issues: Australia, Finland and Greenland.

Marjo Lindroth is a postdoctoral researcher of international relations at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Finland. Her previous work has dealt with the ways in which indigeneity is governed globally, especially in the United Nations. Heidi Sinevaara-Niskanen is a postdoctoral researcher based at the Unit for Gender Studies, University of Lapland, Finland. Her previous research has focused on the social dimension of sustainable development in Arctic politics, particularly its intersections with gender and indigeneity. Jointly, they have published on question of indigeneity and biopower in international politics. Lindroth and Sinevaara-Niskanen conduct their postdoctoral research in the research project “Indigeneity in Waiting: Elusive Rights and the Power of Hope”, funded by the Academy of Finland (2016-2020).