Beyond Capitalized Nature: Ecological Ethnicity as an Arena of Conflict in the Regime of Globalization

A Strategic Approach to Multistakeholder Negotiations

“…Language itself constrains the imagination and limits the types of decisions that can be made, often in intensely political ways. There are many examples of language and information used in political ways in discussions about forests and the people that use them (Field, 1994;Parajuli, 1998;Sioh, 1998). Science, of course, has been identified as a neutral language that could help frame a rational discussion of stakeholder interests.…”

“…More often, however, powerful stakeholders take the upper hand using the legal and extra-legal means available to them. The results for disadvantaged groups have often been devastating, including displacement, cultural disintegration, dramatic material deprivation, and violence (Anderson and Grove, 1987;Hecht and Cockburn, 1989;Parajuli, 1998). Negotiations would seem to benefit disadvantaged groups in particular by publicly acknowledging their claims, creating a forum to reach compromise between them and other stakeholders, and legitimating compromises with formal agreements.…”

Working Together to Carry Water: Research Ethics when One of Two Parents is Indigenous

“…The claim that Newars in general, or Tuladhars as a special kind of Newar, are Indigenous is a claim to a certain privileged status on the world stage, made within a context of oppression, violence, and struggles for constitutional recognition in the modern state of Nepal as well as a millennia-long history of dwelling in the region around what is now the Kathmandu Valley. This claim is based both on political oppression and on ecological ethnicity, two criteria among a shifting set that recur in attempts to define or negotiate the term 'Indigenous' Corntassel 2003;Gomes 2013;Parajuli 1998;Postero 2013). Tsing captures the peculiarity of this term: 'promising contradictions' of 'authenticity and invention,…”

“…That relationality is challenged and balanced by a deep connection to place/territory/country that is utterly specific to each Indigenous community, asserted by Corntassel thus: 'a close relationship with their ancestral homelands/sacred sites, which may be threatened by ongoing military, economic or political encroachment or may be places where indigenous peoples have been previously expelled, while seeking to enhance their cultural, political and economic autonomy' (Corntassel 2003:92). Parajuli was one of the first theorists to link Indigenous stewardship of place to political disenfranchisement and coined the term 'ecological ethnicity' to capture the connection (Parajuli 1998). Attachment to place includes the mobile experience of nomads and transhumant pastoralists (omitted by Parajuli), communities that are among the first to be denied access to their places by nation-states and landlords.…”

At the Crossroads of Autonomy and Essentialism: Indigenous Peoples in International Environmental Politics

“…These national and international political processes have given indigenous peoples an established status as actors and experts in environmental debates. Parajuli (1998Parajuli ( , 2004 goes so far as to describe indigenous peoples' relationship with environmental questions as nothing less than an identity. This "ecological ethnicity" takes shape in the livelihoods that the peoples practice, which depend on their relationship with the environment.…”