JWSR Volume 10, Number 1, Winter 2004


153

The Futures of Indigenous Peoples: 9-11 and 
the Trajectory of Indigenous Survival and 
Resistance*

journal of world-systems research, x, 1, winter 2004, 153–197
Special Issue: Global Social Movements Before and After 9-11
http://jwsr.ucr.edu/
issn 1076–156x 
© 2004 Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon

I N TRODUC TION

Many writers have predicted the end of indigenous peoples, globally, and 
especially for native nations in North America. Th omas Jeff erson Morgan, 
Commissioner of Indian Aff airs, in the late nineteenth century said, “Th e great 
body of Indians will become merged in the indistinguishable mass of our popu-
lation” (Iverson 1999: 16–17; see Cadwalader and Deloria, 1984). However, they 
are not only “still here,” but also one of the fastest growing segments of the pop-
ulation of the U.S. (Snipp 1986, 1989, 1992; Nagel 1996). Globally, indigenous 
peoples number some 350 millions, and possibly more depending on how one 
defi nes “indigenous” (Wilmer 1993; Stavenhagen 1990: Ch. 8; Smith and Ward 
2000; Sponsel 1995a). However, confrontations and confl icts between states and 
nonstate peoples are as old as states themselves (Hall 1983; Chase-Dunn and 
Hall 1997). Clearly, states have been singularly successful in displacing, absorb-
ing, incorporating, assimilating, or destroying nonstate peoples for the fi ve 

Th omas D. Hall
James V. Fenelon

Th is paper explores the past, present, 
and future resistance of indigenous peoples to 
capitalist expansion. Th e central argument is 
that the survival of indigenous peoples, their 
identities, and their cultures, constitutes strong 
antisystemic resistance against global capital-
ism and against the deepening and the broad-
ening of modern world-systemic or globaliza-
tion processes. Furthermore, we argue that 
recent events often touted as turning points in 
history—the collapse of the Soviet Union, the 
9-11 attack on the twin towers, and even the 
war on Iraq—are at most “blips on the radar” 
in a larger trajectory of change and resistance. 
Rather, the important features of indigenous 
survival are: (1) Indigenous peoples, despite 
an immense variety of forms of cultural and 
social organization, represent non-capitalist 
forms of organization. Th eir continued sur-
vival challenges the fundamental premises of 

capitalism and its increasingly global culture. 
(2) Indigenous people’s challenges to global 
domination succeed less on economic, politi-
cal, or military force, and more as fundamental 
challenges to the underpinnings of the logic 
of capitalism and the interstate system. (3) In 
order to learn from these resistance models, 
it is necessary to ground our understanding 
in two seemingly antithetical forms of knowl-
edge: (a) information arising from indigenous 
cultures and values and (b) research about how 
the longue duree of the world-system shapes 
the form and timing of such movements. (4) 
Indigenous successes may serve as models and/
or inspirations for other forms of resistance. 
An important task is to discover what is unique 
to indigenous resistance and to specify what 
indigenous resistance has in common with 
other forms of resistance.

abstract

Th omas D. Hall
Department of Sociology & Anthropology
DePauw University
Greencastle, IN 46135
thall@depauw.edu
http://acad.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm

James V. Fenelon
Department of Sociology
California State University, San Bernardino
SB-327
5500 University Parkway
San Bernardino, CA 92407-239
jfenelon@csusb.edu
http://csbs.csusb.edu/sociology/

* We have developed parts of this argument in various papers given since 1998. As is typical, 
we owe a great deal to a number of scholars who have commented on these eff orts, including the 
reviewers for this version. As is usual, remaining problems and errors are our responsibility.

http://jwsr.ucr.edu/
http://acad.depauw.edu/~thall/hp1.htm
http://csbs.csusb.edu/sociology/


Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon154 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 155

thousand years that they have existed. Yet, despite myriad dire predictions, and 
more importantly repeated military and social actions directed against them by 
states, nonstate or indigenous peoples have not been obliterated. Admittedly, one 
response to this observation might be, “Not yet, but soon!” But this moment, this 
“soon,” is now several centuries long. So the question remains, how and why have 
indigenous peoples survived the onslaughts against them? In particular, how have 
they survived into the late twentieth and early twenty-fi rst century when there 
are no regions remaining outside global capitalism, and no regions that have not 
been claimed by one or more states?

Th e question of indigenous survival and resistance may, at fi rst glance, 
appear to have little or no bearing on assessing the impacts of 9-11 and like events. 
However, we argue there are several ways in which the two connect. First, what 
occurs at the fringes of the world-system is still part of the world-system. Indeed, 
some processes are best, and only occasionally, observed in the far peripheries 
(Hall 1989a, 2000, 2002a). Second, we concur with the arguments of Dunaway 
(2003), Podobnik (2002), and Wallerstein (2003) that 9-11 has had little impact, 
which is to be expected since it is not a deviation or change in world-systemic 
processes but a logical, if extreme result of those processes. More specifi cally, fol-
lowing the arguments of Clark (2002) on the intensifi cation of world-systemic 
processes, especially the broadening and deepening of system processes (often 
glossed as globalization), makes “normal accidents” more, not less, likely. Tight 
network interconnections mean that small events reverberate quickly through 
the system. Th is would seem to contradict the fi rst point, but actually sustains it, 
in that “normal accidents” are just those normal or typical events of system func-
tioning. Th ey are not exceptional. Th ird, following the arguments of Dunaway 
(2003b), while ethnic confl ict may not have become more common since the 
end of the cold war, it has become more costly to core states and a larger threat 
to system stability. Hence pressures are intense to minimize ethnic confl ict. As 
Dunaway argues, ethnic confl ict, too, is a normal result of system functioning. 
Yet the attempts to minimize it may well create more space within which indig-
enous peoples may survive and resist the inroads of global capitalism and the 
ideology of consumerism (Sklair 2002). Fourth, as Wickham (2002) argues, 9-11 
and the war on terrorism could easily transmute into a new, global, and virulent 
form of “manifest destiny” in which the United States seeks to export its form 
of democracy and neoliberalism to the entire planet. Finally, if 9-11 does have 
impacts on some parts of the system, but not others, this too is important to 
study and understand. We argue that examination of indigenous survival and 
resistance is one avenue for such explorations. 

We draw many of our examples from the western hemisphere, especially 
North and Central America where “Indian” nations actively resist social ordering 

processes from western, capitalistic society. Our rationale is quite simple: colo-
nial expansion into the western hemisphere is tightly connected to the rise of 
the modern world-system from European states. Th is usually violent expansion 
included a land take-over literally on a continental scale, massive labor exploita-
tion systems including genocide or slavery, natural resource extraction that fueled 
industrialization, and development of large states. Th e mythos of an American 
Revolution misses this central fact which becomes determinative of whether 
the indigenous peoples become violently incorporated, or not, into and by these 
states, which are dominated by the United States. We will return to these issues 
after presenting our answers to the puzzle of continual indigenous survival.

We begin our exploration with brief sketches of a sample of ways indigenous 
peoples have survived. To increase the precision of the discussion, we will then 
turn to some conceptual and defi nitional issues. Th ese, in turn, will require the 
re-examination of theoretical and empirical issues concerning indigenous sur-
vival Th is re-examination will entail questions about the origin, nature, and 
functioning of the capitalist world-system. It also directs attention to a second, 
related, puzzle, why ethnicity and ethnic confl ict, remain the major sources of 
war and confl ict in the last few decades. We will illustrate these issues with a 
few suggestive examples. Finally, by exploring the puzzle of how people without 
massive resources, numbers, or weapons can curtail the transformative and often 
destructive eff ects of global capitalism we will speculate on the general lessons 
about resistance to the expansion of global capitalism.

EX A M PLE S OF I N DIGENOUS R E SISTA NCE TO GLOBA L 
CA PI TA LISM

Indigenous resistance to global capitalism is world wide, diverse, and yet 
loosely interconnected.¹ Many forms of resistance are covert, echoing Scott’s 
concept of “weapons of the weak” (1985);they often transmute and/or masquer-
ade as something else. For instance, the events in Chiapas have often been cast in 
the light of a regional, a peasant (and hence a class), or a caudillo driven rebellion. 
Th ey are less often discussed as an indigenous Mayan rebellion.² Movements in 

¹. Among key sources are: Bodley 1988, 1990; Burger 1987; Gedicks 2001; Perry 
1996; Smith and Ward 2002; Sponsel 1995a, 1995b; Wilmer 1993. Barry Gills’s (2000) 
collection examines all types of antiglobalization movements as does Bennholdt-
Th omsen et al. (2001). Th e entire Greenwood Press series on Endangered Peoples is also 
valuable. 

². Some examples of the latter approach can be found in McMichael 2000; Boswell 
and Chase-Dunn 2000; Collier 1999; Katzenberger 1995; Mignolo 2002; Morton 2000.



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon156 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 157

something of a mixed bag; although in the fi rst decade of the twenty-fi rst century 
alliances seem to be becoming more common and antagonism, less so.³

Another form of resistance has been the overt, conscious eff orts to maintain 
“traditional culture.” Here, we use “traditional culture,” not as static and unchang-
ing, but rather as evolving according to the desires of group members resisting 
domination, rather than in accord with desires or directions of outsiders (see 
Smelser 1992). Th at is, “traditional culture,” like all other social forms and struc-
tures evolves and changes continuously, if sporadically and unevenly (Fenelon, 
1998a: 27–30, 72; Smith and Ward 2000). According to Smelser (1992) culture, 
and hence “traditional culture,” are best thought of in relation to domination and 
dominant groups that change in world-systems according to success or failure 
of their expansion. Munch and Smelser (1992) propose rebuilding paradigms 
inclusive of these constructs, which is what we attempt to do with respect to 
indigenous peoples.

Culture building can be another form of resistance. For instance there are 
33 tribal colleges in the U.S. (American Indian Higher Education Consortium 
2000; Boyer 1997).⁴ Th ese are institutions of higher education, typically equiva-
lents of junior colleges, run by various Native American groups. Th ey diff er from 
the typical U.S. junior college in the number of courses they off er that promote 
traditional culture, language, crafts, and customs. In some cases, language pro-
grams have been aimed at reviving or reinvigorating a language that has fallen out 
of use. Indeed, these are often their key missions. Th at is, tribal colleges are often 
one institutional means of preserving and enhancing “traditional cultures.”

Resistance can also take the form of building other localized institutions 
that conform to traditional cultural values. Th e Diné (Navajo) have several 
such institutions. Th e tribal police force, while acting much like any other rural 
police force in the U.S., is also culturally sensitive to Navajo traditions and works 
within them. More direct are the “peace maker courts” which avoid adversarial 

the United States, such as American Indian Movement (AIM), are often seen 
solely in terms of localized ethnic, urban, or racial rebellions. Indigenous resisters 
are often far ahead of those who report about them—connected via the United 
Nations, a large variety of their own organizations, and the internet (Langman et 
al. 2003; Smith and Ward 2000). Anna Tsing’s, (1993) In the Realm of the Diamond 
Queen, can be read as an account of ways in which local people, in this case 
Dayaks in Kalimitan, resist state incorporation. Indeed, Tsing’s account along 
with Stoler’s (1995) account of plantation resistance in Sumatra or Peluso’s (1992) 
account of forestry “management” in Java, have as a key component—if not the 
driving component—the struggle for the survival of indigenous cultures, identi-
ties, organization, and economies. Th is applies to indigenous peoples throughout 
Southeast Asia (e.g., Steinberg 1987, Sponsel 2000a, 2000b) and Asia in general 
(Barnes et al. 1995). In other cases traditional culture and organization itself is a 
resource that facilitates resistance and survival (Champagne 1989, 1992; Fenelon, 
1998a). Indigenous resistance struggles are occurring all over the world, even in 
Europe as, for example, among the Saami (Eidheim 1969). Kurdish activities in 
West Asia and Miskito resistance in Nicaragua have long been noted as indig-
enous movements (Gurr and Harff  1994). Gurr’s, (1993) Minorities at Risk, is a 
catalog of such movements and Linda Smith’s, (1999) Decolonizing Methodologies, 
is itself an act of resistance against the hegemony of European rooted social sci-
ence concepts. Her work is rooted in her Maori community and her academic 
experiences. 

Th ese movements are so diverse, so fl uid in organization, goals, and methods 
they all but defy summary. Probably the most salient diff erence between typical 
class based forms of resistance, as opposed to global capitalism forms of resistance 
is the emphasis on local community, identity politics, land claims, and rights to 
a variety of traditional practices, which include alternative family organizations 
such as matrilineality and/or polygyny, communal ownership of resources such 
as land, the use of land for sacred ceremonies, and indigenous knowledge, that 
occasionally includes use of psychoactive substances. Many of these practices 
contradict, challenge, or threaten deeply held values in state-based systems. Th e 
most fundamental challenge to capitalism, though, comes from communal own-
ership of resources because it denies the legitimacy of private property rights. 
Contrary to what many early explorers, missionaries, and colonizers thought, 
and unfortunately many so-called development experts today may think, it is 
not that indigenous people do not understand individual ownership. Rather, 
they have long recognized what many environmental movements are beginning 
to force capitalists to accept: resources are always partially, if not wholly, “public 
goods” (to use the terminology of economists) and are thereby sites of contesta-
tion. Th e interactions of environmentalists and indigenous peoples have been 

³. Gedicks (1993) provides an early view of indigenous and environmental 
movements in the context of Wisconsin. Gedicks (2001) provides a global summary, and 
clearly shows that the budding movement toward alliances is a global movement, often 
tied, if at times ambivalently, with antiglobalization movments. Nesper (2002) provides 
a detailed summary of the fi shing controversies in Wisconsin.

⁴. Boyer (1997) actually reports 31 such colleges, but two others have opened since 
that report was published.



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon158 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 159

techniques of Anglo courts by pursuing resolution of disputes, among Navajos, 
through means that are in accord with Navajo concepts of harmony.⁵

Other forms of resistance are less institutionalized, but nonetheless impor-
tant. Ward et al. (2000; and Baird-Olsen and Ward 2000) analyze how women 
among the northern Cheyenne have adapted conventional 12 step programs 
that address alcohol abuse or spouse abuse to Cheyenne culture, promoting 
Cheyenne family values. Miller (1994) and Chiste (1994) discuss the ways in 
which Native women are producing new feminisms within changing tribal gov-
ernments. Another common institution among Native Americans in the U.S. 
is maintenance of matrilineal family systems, especially through the ownership 
of property. Th is often comes at a great price, as missionaries and bureaucratic 
functionaries have repeatedly attacked matrilineality as “barbaric,” unchristian, 
or chaotic. Native American feminism often organizes in ways that oppose more 
mainstream feminist movements. Typically Native American feminists focus on 
issues of identity and cultural preservation as prior to more narrowly focused 
feminist concerns ( Jaimes and Halsey 1992; Shoemaker 1995). 

Religion can be yet another form of resistance. Maintenance of religious 
practices over massive attempts to destroy them, asserts an entirely diff erent way 
of approaching the supernatural and the sacred. Among the most critical of these 
practices are lands that are sacred and necessary for religious ceremonies. Th is 
leads to confl icts over use of the land for sacred functions versus “productive” 
and/or “recreational” use (McLeod 2001). Today as “new agers” have begun to 
practice various forms of shamanism, Indian groups have protested such attempts 
to appropriate Native traditions (Churchill 1994, 1996; Rose 1992). 

Th e revival of older traditions, such as the Sun Dance (see for example, 
Jorgensen 1972; Fenelon 1998a: 114, 288–294), can be another form of religious 
resistance. Th ese revivals hark back to many revitalization movements: the 
Longhouse religion of the Iroquois (Wallace 1969), the Ghost Dance movement 
(Brown 1976; Champagne 1983; DeMallie 1982; Landsman 1979; Th ornton 1986, 
1987), and the Native American Church (La Barre 1964; Aberle 1982; Stewart 

1987), etc. Th ese movements, all of which are somewhat syncretic, preserve many 
traditional values and have all met with some success in combating the destruc-
tiveness of incorporation into the capitalist world-system. Th e Longhouse reli-
gion has been a source of strength among Iroquois. Russell Th ornton (1986) 
argues persuasively that adoption of the Ghost Dance Religion helped many 
small groups that had suff ered severe demographic loss, due to disease, to recover 
both demographically and culturally. More recently the Native American Church 
(also known as the peyote religion) has been very successful in helping individu-
als recover from alcoholism. Also NAC has won several court battles that allow 
members to use peyote (Iverson 1999: 181–182).

All of these religious traditions are vastly diff erent from the various monothe-
isms found in the states of the modern world-system. Th eir survival and growth 
is an important form of resistance to the ideologies of the modern world-system 
and to pressures for increasing homogeneity of culture due to various globaliza-
tion processes. Moreover, they are tied to “traditional” culture in important ways 
for continuing resistance to hegemonic domination.

Some of the most signifi cant forms of resistance are the various ways that 
resources are managed collectively, for collective good. Phrased alternatively, 
there are various ways of pursuing collective rationality. Here one must be care-
ful not to read this as conventional “public goods” administration. Th is goes 
much further, in collective ownership of goods—land and livestock most com-
monly—that are typically individually, privately owned commodities in the capi-
talist world-system.

One of the more dramatic examples of such resistance is the continu-
ing eff ort of Lakota peoples to regain control of the Black Hills. Several court 
decisions, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have determined that the terri-
tory of the Black Hills was illegally taken from the Lakota peoples (Lazarus, 
1991; Iverson 1999:117; Churchill 1996:69–80). In accord with U.S. jurisprudence 
the settlement of this claim has been monetary. Th e Lakota peoples, however, 
have steadfastly refused such commodifi ed settlements and have insisted on the 
return of the land that they consider sacred. Th e intensity of this commitment 
is underscored by the relative poverty of Lakota people. Shannon county, South 
Dakota, where Pine Ridge reservation is located, (the reservation closest to the 
Black Hills) has been, since 1980, the poorest county in the U.S. Despite the 
temptation to take the cash settlement, the Lakotas have continued to reject such 
a settlement and continue to struggle for the return of their land.

Running through all these discussions for Indigenous Peoples in the U.S. 
has been the issue of sovereignty. Because of initial treaty agreements, indigenous 
peoples in the U.S. have a special relationship, directly with the U.S. federal gov-
ernment (Deloria and Wilkins, 2000). It is on this legal status that many actions 

⁵. Peacemaker Court – Th e foundational principle of the Peacemaker Court is 
k’e, or “respect, responsibility and proper relationships among all people.” ...Based upon 
traditional Navajo ceremonies that seek a common goal among groups of individuals, 
the Peacemaker Court assists disputants in the healing process by fostering a mutually 
benefi cial agreement. http://tlj.unm.edu/resources/navajo_nation/ Th is is well 
illustrated in the video, Winds of Change: A Matter of Promises. PBS documentary, 
1990.

http://tlj.unm.edu/resources/navajo_nation/


Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon160 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 161

of Native American groups rest. Indeed, sovereignty issues are often the basis of 
challenges to states around the world and cut to the heart of the interstate system 
built on the Peace of Westphalia (1648) (Wilmer 1993, 2002; Alfred and Wilmer 
1997). John Stack (1997) argues that various ethnic movements continually chal-
lenge the structure and processes of the interstate system and our understand-
ings of it.

Although Native peoples have met with some success in maintaining 
sovereignty, they have had to fi ght on European grounds—within European law 
(for detailed examples from northern New Spain see Cutter 1995a, 1995b). We 
will discuss the sovereignty issue in more detail later. Recently, one of the more 
outstanding successes has been to use the doctrine of sovereignty to build various 
gaming operations (Mullis and Kamper 2000; Fenelon 2000). By exploiting the 
contradictory desires for access to gambling and a desire to forbid it, American 
Indians have begun to turn considerable profi ts. But for other groups, such as 
the Choctaw, this success is fragile and volatile and subject to federal redefi nition 
(Faiman-Silva 1997).

Th e question remains, how much they have had to give up to win these vic-
tories. By fi ghting European civilization on its own turf, they have had to accept 
some of the premises of that turf. Th omas Biolsi argues that the law is “a funda-
mental constituting axis of modern social life—not just a political resource or an 
institution but a constituent of all social relations of domination” (Biolsi 1995, 
p. 543). Th us, courts have been a leading institutional means of commodifying 
everything; especially land (Biolsi 1995, 2001). Still, indigenous peoples continue 
to use legal systems to resist incorporation and global capitalism, when they are 
available with direct access. Here we must note an important diff erence between 
indigenous struggles in the core or “fi rst” world and those in the “third world” or 
peripheral areas. Th e rule of law carries much more force in the fi rst world, or 
core, and so is a more useful tool there. Th is diff erence holds as a “rule of thumb” 
but fi nds exceptions in both directions. Most notable when making this distinc-
tion is acknowledging temporal analysis, since North American genocides were 
common well into the second half of the nineteenth century (Th ornton 1987), 
even as Canada and U.S. indigenous “sovereigns” were internally recognized 
(Fenelon 2002).

Th ere have been many forms of symbolic resistance. For instance, political 
pressure has led to several national and/or state parks reserving some areas for 
traditional Native American ceremonies, such as Bear Butte, Devil’s Postpile, 
Medicine Wheel, etc. (McLeod 2001). Another example has been the movement 
against the use of Native American images as sports mascots (Fenelon 1999), or 
the national movement to remove the term “squaw” from many place names. Th e 
expansion of the Powwow circuit is also a vital form of asserting Indianness that 

both reinforces Indian identity and presents Indianness to a general audience 
(Mattern 1996; Lassiter 1997).

In recent decades there have been movements that have challenged globaliz-
ing capitalism (Wilmer 1993). Th ese movements have included those by NGOs 
such as Cultural Survival, International Work Group on Indigenous Aff airs, the 
Center for World Indigenous Studies, or the United Nations Working Group 
on Indigenous Populations. Th ere are also several Indigenous organizations (see 
Wilmer 1993: 227–229; Smith and Ward 2000). Most of these movements and 
organizations represent indigenous peoples on both the social group level and 
collectively, with great variation in their approaches toward issues, the nature of 
resistance, and the amount of their participation in political spheres. 

Th e Zapatista movement centered in Chiapas (EZLN) has been one of the 
most dramatic. Th e Zapatista ideology, and to a large extent Zapatista practices, 
contradict the logic of capitalism. Th ey reject modernization and development 
(Ross 1995; Katzenberger 1995; Collier 1999). Mignolo (2002) argues that the 
Zapatista movement constitutes an alternative to greco-roman legacies of state 
making. Th e Zapatistas seek to maintain traditional life ways in the face of over-
whelming forces to assimilate to capitalist culture and practice in opposition to 
NAFTA and FTAA. Th e recent march to Mexico City and the demonstrations 
in the Zocalo, (March 13, 2001) accompanied by a huge outpouring of civil soci-
ety in support of the Zapatistas, are some indication of the growing impact of 
such movements. 

To facilitate further discussion of indigenous survival we present some defi -
nitions, concepts, and observations. All these are backed by extended arguments, 
made elsewhere, but not recapitulated in detail here.

DEFI N I TIONS , CONCEP TS , OBSERVATIONS

Th e category, “indigenous peoples,” itself is a gross simplifi cation of an 
immense variety of types of social organizations (Champagne 1999a; Stavenhagen 
1990; Wolf 1999). Th is diversity is arguably greater than the diversity of types of 
state organizations found throughout the 500 year history of the “modern world-
system,” or even the 5000 year history of all states (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997, 
1998; Frank and Gills 1993; Hall 1989b: ch 3; Sanderson 1999; Smith 1999). 

Either term, “indigenous peoples” or “non-state society,” lump this diversity 
into an overly simple category that emphasizes these diff erences from states, but 
little else. Yet, these diff erences are key . First, these are not state-based organiza-
tions. Th is, however, does not mean that they did not have identities and political 
structures. Nor is this to deny that there were indigenous states in North and 
South America prior to European contact—there were: Aztecs, Maya, Inka, etc. 



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon162 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 163

American groups is a challenge to the capitalist conception of states. However, 
the challenge is not only political-economic, but also cultural. 

Culture and identity politics have become very highly contested issues in 
recent decades. Within these debates, the names of indigenous peoples are par-
ticularly contested.⁸ Th us, it is useful to explain why we use some terms and 
eschew others. Such things can become especially insidious when their roots are 
lost. In order to avoid both reading the past into the present and the present into 
the past requires distinctions that enable us to describe changes with some preci-
sion. On the one hand, some argue that to label chiefdoms “nations” confounds 
a profoundly modern form of social organization with a much older, and very 
diff erent form of social organization. On the other hand, others argue that varia-
tions among “nations” are suffi  ciently distinguished by diff erentiation from the 
concept of “nation-state.”⁹

Th e term “indigenous” is inherently troublesome and should be accepted as 
such, (Snipp 1986, 1989, 1992; Stavenhagen 1990: Ch. 8; Hall and Nagel 2000). 
For instance, in mainland Southeast Asia almost everyone is both indigenous 
and usurped, and typically several times in each role. It is a region where peoples 
have crossed and recrossed, conquered and reconquered each other for millennia. 
An ethnic map of Southeast Asia looks like a Jackson Pollock painting (Lebar et 
al. 1964). Who is indigenous cannot be settled by conceptual parsing. History is 
complex and messy. If we are going to construct theoretical accounts to deal with 
it, they must recognize that complexity and messiness.

We use “indigenous” to refer to people who “were in that place” when some 
others came and usurped some or all of their political control and power and 
their economic resources. Th ey should have been there for several generations. 
However, this, too, is politicized. At times, apologists for usurpation of indig-
enous territory by the U.S. have argued that this or that “tribe” had just recently 
conquered their traditional territory from some other “tribe.” Th is argument is 
conceptually inaccurate, often factually wrong and sometimes downright bogus. 

(Chase-Dunn and Hall 1998; La Lone 2000). Furthermore, some indigenous 
societies took on, and sometimes lost state-like qualities, including the Cahokia 
(Forbes 1998; O’Brien 1992) and the Haudenosaunee peoples (Iroquois, see 
Snow 1994). Th e point is, diff erences in social organization are crucial, but they 
are avowedly not assertions about claims to rights, or international status, which 
we will discuss later. Second, all these forms of social organization are non-capi-
talist, a term often glossed as “pre-capitalist.” Th e latter term has two unfortu-
nate connotations. On the one hand, it refers to organizations that preceded the 
advent of capitalism, taking for the moment that capitalism, as a mode of accu-
mulation is less than 500 years old. A second, dysfunctional connotation is that 
such organizations are precursors of capitalism. Th us, at best they are “primitive” 
forms, and at worst outmoded and outdated. Our point is that these forms of 
organization are fundamentally rooted in modes of organization, production, 
and accumulation that have little to do with capitalist accumulation of capital, 
and thus resist assimilation into those kinds of systems.⁶

Th at said it is critical to recognize, as Eric Wolf argued so persuasively 
(1982), that these peoples do, and did, have histories separate and distinct from 
those of Europeans states, and, indeed, all states (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997, 
1998). Furthermore, indigenous peoples have been forced to deal with waves of 
European expansion and the increasing globalization of capitalism over the last 
500 years. Many peoples have been incorporated into the capitalist world-system, 
but far from completely. Many have resisted incorporation heroically, and untold 
numbers have died doing so.⁷

A key aspect of this argument is that indigenous peoples who struggle to 
preserve much, or some, of their noncapitalist roots—for example, communally 
held property rights—constitute, by virtue of their continuing existence, a form 
of anti-capitalist resistance to incorporation into the world-system, and a chal-
lenge to the assumption of the state as the basic political unit of human social 
organization. Th is is yet another way in which the claim to sovereignty by Native 

⁶. Capital accumulation refers to amassing wealth in any form, capitalist accumulation 
to “the amassing of wealth by means of the making of profi ts from commodity production” 
(Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997, p. 271). For more elaborate discussions of the changes over 
last 5,000 years see Chase-Dunn and Hall (1997) and Frank and Gills (1993).

⁷. For detailed examples of such resistance see Dunaway 1994, 1996a, 1996b, 1996c, 
1997, 2000; Faiman-Silva 1997; Fenelon 1997, 1998a; Hall 1986, 1987, 1989a, 1989b; Harris 
1990; Himmel 1999; Kardulias 1990; Mathien and McGuire 1986; Meyer 1990, 1991, 1994; 
Peregrine 1992, 1995; Peregrine and Feinman 1996; Pickering 2000.

⁸. Th is discussion draws extensively from Hall and Nagel (2000), Chase-Dunn 
and Hall (1998:25-27), Nagel (1996: xi-xiii; 3-42), Riggs (1998a, 1998b, 1998c) and Hall 
(1998a). Stephen Cornell (1988) emphasizes political incorporation in his discussions. 
Other general literature on identity politics includes: Benedict Anderson (1991), Jonathan 
Friedman (1994, 1998, 1999), Mike Featherstone (1990); Featherstone et al. (1995), 
Anthony D. King (1997), Roland Robertson (1995).

⁹.  On the former see: Hall 1998a, 1998b; Riggs 1994, 1998a, 1998b, 1998c. On the 
latter see: Fenelon 1998a; Deloria and Lytle, 1984; Deloria and Wilkins 2000.



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon164 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 165

For instance, with respect to the founding of the League of the Iroquois see 
Mann and Fields (1997); or with respect to Lakota claims for the Black Hills see 
Goodman (1992).

All this is compounded by the political/ideological use of such terms. Th is, 
of course, is what some of the postmodernist critique is about, the power to 
make and enforce names. Th is is compounded by at least two uses of the term 
“tribe”: (1) a generic term that is more-or-less synonymous with “nonstate”; (2) 
a technical legal term that refers to treaty-sanctioned and recognized peoples in 
the U.S. With respect to usage (1), but defi nitely not (2), “tribes” (1) are not states. 
Rather, they are diff erent forms of social organization (see, for example Fried 
1975 or Hall 1989b: Ch. 3). A good deal of confusion is generated by the popular 
and persistent, yet erroneous, use of “nation,” “state,” and “nation-state” as syn-
onyms. With respect to “tribe” (2) most of the treaties made by the U.S., and in 
most cases by those colonizing forces of expanding world-systems entering into 
such agreements, were made with “nations” and not tribes. Th at is, the treaties 
recognized them as political equivalents, regardless of social organization. 

Finally, all of these social structures have, themselves, evolved over consider-
able time. Th ey transform from one thing to another. An indigenous group that 
continues to exist today is not a “living fossil.” Rather, it too has evolved, often 
having changed and adapted to a context in which it has been surrounded by 
one or more, typically hostile, states (Smith and Ward 2000). Indeed, one of 
the powerful insights from world-system theory, modern or ancient, is that the 
fundamental entity evolving is the system itself and that the evolution of any 
component of a system must be understood within the context of system evolu-
tion. Indeed, Rata argues, for the Maori people; their very concept and especially 
the practice of indigenousness is changing. Th e salient context today, and into 
the 21st century is that it is a capitalist world-system that is continuing to evolve 
and change. 

Genocide, Ethnocide, and Culturicide¹⁰
Within these evolutionary processes there are many ways an ethnic or an 

indigenous group might be destroyed. Genocide, ethnocide, and culturicide 
share an element of intentional destruction of a group. Genocide is probably the 
most familiar, and certainly the most brutal: the outright murder of all members 

of an identifi able descent group, or the attempt to do so. In contrast ethnocide 
and culturicide involve attempts at to destroy a group’s identity, and/or culture, 
without necessarily killing individual human beings.

Ethnocide is an attempt to destroy the identity of a group. In its ideal-typi-
cal form it would entail full assimilation of individuals into the dominant group, 
although some cultural elements might still persist.¹¹ A key feature here, besides 
the obvious internal contradiction of destroying an identity but allowing some 
of its “content” to remain, is that the group, qua a group, disappears. In contrast, 
culturicide is an attempt to kill a culture, whether or not its members survive, 
and whether or not they retain a separate identity (Fenelon 1995, 1997, 1998a). 
A notorious example is that of Richard Pratt, founder of the Carlisle Indian 
School, whose explicit goal for the school was “to kill the Indian, but save the 
man” (Adams 1988, 1995). While Pratt seems seriously retrograde at the begin-
ning of the 21st century, he was a humanitarian reformer in the context of the late 
19th century, when many still called for outright genocide (Hoxie 1984; Adams 
1995). Here the separate identity may survive, but the cultural content is elimi-
nated.

Ethnocide and culturicide are somewhat overlapping processes. Each pro-
cess, and indeed which process operates, are largely conditioned on the degree 
to which group distinctions are racialized. Obviously, to the degree that readily 
visible phenotypically distinctive features mark a group, maintenance of identity 
in face of destruction of the culture is more possible. Ethnocide, and especially 
culturicide, are often intimately intertwined with racialization processes. Th ese 
interconnections warrant further analysis, but we leave that task aside for now.

As already noted, ethnocide is closely similar to the older concept of assimi-
lation; in which one group adjusts its culture to become progressively more like 
that of another group. Th e diff erence is the clear intent to eliminate the group 
identity. Culturicide, on the other hand, does not need to destroy the identity 
as long as the “content” of the identity becomes nearly the same as that of the 
dominant group, and thus subordinate to the socio-economic goals, practices, 
and ideologies of those in power.

¹¹. Ortiz (1985, 1984) analyzes relations in Central and North America using a 
rubric of ethnocide, refl ected in analysis by Stavenhagen (1990). While ethnocide has 
been practiced extensively in Central America, except where resistance has been more 
successful, culturicide appears more closely related to policy constructs in modern states 
that do not want to appear genocidal to the external world. Culturicide also applies to 
non-indigenous people, connected as policy to racially subordinated groups and race-
based slavery in the United States.

¹⁰.  Th is discussion draws heavily on the work of James Fenelon (1995, 1997, 1998a, 
1998b, 1999) who developed the concept of culturicide. Clastres (1980) makes the earliest 
use of the term ethnocide, albeit not with this precise meaning.



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon166 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 167

as system-wide processes, and especially the complex interactions between the 
two (Hall 1989b). Incorporation is a two-way, interactive process. To label this 
entire range “incorporation” masks important variations and makes it more dif-
fi cult to understand diff erent processes and outcomes that occur on the frontiers 
of world-systems.¹³

Some changes induced by incorporation may be reversible, others are not, or 
only with great diffi  culty. For instance Dunaway cites comments by a Cherokee 
chief who lamented in the 1700s that young men had become so dependent 
on guns that they could no longer use, not to mention produce suitable bows 
and arrows. Another common result is that indigenous peoples are relocated to 
“reserve” areas. Th ese go by many names: reservations, reserves, domestic nations, 
establiciementos de paz, etc. Th ese are often “temporary,” where “temporary” can be 
a century or more (for a global survey see Perry 1996). States seek to abolish 
such reserves for a variety of reasons. Frequently reserves become attractive for 
further development especially when some formerly unknown or “useless” min-
eral, such as oil or uranium, becomes valuable due to new technological devel-
opments. States may tire of the administrative and economic overhead of such 
special status areas and/or peoples. Both have been common in the United States 
where the special legal status of American Indians generates all sorts of legal and 
political problems. Eras when a drive for a “national culture” increases can create 
extensive pressures for assimilation to the dominant culture. One legacy of the 
obsession with nation-building, common in 20th century third world countries, 
is for states to become “embarrassed” by the continued existence of “backward” or 
“primitive” population segments. Th eir typical response is vigorous, often coer-
cive, drives for assimilation (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997; Hall 1998a).

Th e extension of world-systems theory into precapitalist settings suggests 
additional refi nements of the analysis of incorporation, which shed some light on 
commonalities of incorporation in the modern world-system (Chase-Dunn and 
Hall 1997; Hall 2002b). First, incorporation is not one-dimensional, but multi-
dimensional, refl ecting four types of world-system boundaries. Th us, incorpora-
tion can be economic (for either bulk goods or luxury goods), political/military, 
or cultural. Th e latter assumes that culture, however defi ned, is a type of infor-
mation. Second, incorporation often creates multiple frontiers, corresponding to 
each of the boundaries (see Hall 2000, 2002a). Th ird, ceteris paribus, incorpora-
tion will begin at the furthest boundaries, information and luxury goods, and 

So how is it that indigenous peoples have resisted attempts at ethnocide or 
culturicide? As already noted, one way is by remaining small, and therefore rela-
tively nonthreatening, at least to the point that the costs of pursuing ethnocide 
or culturicide have not been worth while. Another form of resistance has been 
via relative isolation. Th is, however, is most often an accident of history—being 
located within a region of little interest to the state or world-system, owning or 
controlling resources seen to have no or little value to the larger system. Building 
upon, or using, a recognized land base to keep the community viable are also 
resistance forms, but these forms are more of the order of passive resistance. 

We listed many other more active forms of resistance at the start of this paper. 
How eff ective they will be in the long run (whatever we mean by “long”) remains 
unclear. Clearly, resistance that focuses on symbols runs the risk of allowing cul-
turicide to proceed; in that the identity, via the symbols, is maintained while its 
content becomes progressively more assimilated to the dominant culture.

However, some of the other forms noted above preserve not only symbols, 
but also material practices that contradict how capitalism is practiced. Th ey rep-
resent alternative ways of organizing human life. What is far from clear, however, 
is whether these too can ultimately become “merely symbolic.” Is an American 
Indian nation which insists on tribal sovereignty, which administers resources 
according to principles of collective rationality, yet, which externally participates 
in a capitalist world-system according to capitalist principles, resisting global-
izing capitalism, or slowly evolving into an alternative form of capitalism? Th is, 
it seems, is the key question in the survival of indigenous peoples everywhere. 
However, such processes are not exclusively modern, but have, as we noted, 
occurred since states were fi rst invented some fi ve millennia ago.

I NCOR POR ATION I N TO WOR LD SYSTEMS : A NCI EN T OR 
MODER N

When a world-system expands, new areas are incorporated, and boundar-
ies are formed and transformed.¹² Incorporated areas and peoples, even when 
incorporation is relatively limited in degree, often experience profound eff ects 
from incorporation and occasionally devastating ones. Th ey also react against 
and resist these eff ects to whatever degree possible. Th us, the study of incor-
poration entails close attention to local conditions, actors, and actions as well 

¹².  Major discussions of the concept of incorporation may be found in: Wallerstein 
1974, 1989; Hopkins, et al 1987; Markoff  1994; Carlson 2001; Hall 1986, 1989b; Hall 2002b. 
Herein, “land” issues including control and sovereignty are obscured by Manifest Destiny 
ideologies, often erasing knowledge of land tenure systems of indigenous peoples.

¹³.  Th e analysis of frontiers as zones of incorporation may be found in: Hall 1986, 
1989b, 2000, 2002a; Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997: Ch. 4.



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon168 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 169

proceed to narrower, more intense forms along the political/military boundary 
and fi nally along the bulk goods dimension. Fourth, relations among the dimen-
sions of incorporation are complex theoretically and empirically.

For instance, many of the American Indian groups we know today were built 
from an aboriginal base of loosely connected living groups during the process 
of incorporation, e.g., the Diné (Navajo) (Hall 1989b, 1998b). While language, 
customs, and a sense of being the same “people” predate the arrival of Europeans, 
Diné-wide institutions such as the Navajo Tribal Council were developed only 
well into the incorporation process,. Stephen Cornell (1988) argues that in early 
stages of United States expansion, identity for Native American groups was typi-
cally larger than any political organization (as among the Diné or Lakota)and 
subsequent political incorporation often reversed this relationship typically cre-
ating sub-group as well as supra-group identities. 

Just how and why this works is problematic. To illustrate, the Lakota were 
not just loosely connected groups, but quite literally had diff erent sets of socio-
political connectedness that allowed for greater fl uidity of local and regional 
decision-making. Th at is, Lakota peoples may not have been bands, but had an 
organization more akin to a segmentary lineage system. Th ese systems allowed 
Lakota to successfully fi ght U.S. intrusions, and forced the U.S. to use the term 
“nation” during treaty-making. Th e same pressures further forced designation 
of “chiefs” (since they did not exist in that manner earlier) who would head up 
“tribal councils” that ultimately turn into the form designated in 1934 Indian 
Reorganization Act reconstructions (Biolsi 1992). Identity and political organi-
zation are undiff erentiated for the Lakota until after 1868, when their divisions 
became a form of cultural domination (Fenelon 1995, 1998a, 1998b, 1999). 

In other parts of the world, the process of attempted incorporation and 
resistance to it is much older. Indigenous resistance to expanding world-sys-
tems, empires, states, and individuals is ubiquitous and has been continual since 
states were fi rst created. Th is carries several important implications for analysis 
of resistance to world-systemic processes. First many of the putative evolution-
ary sequences and/or so-called pristine forms of organization are highly suspect. 
Th ey are, more often than not, themselves products of long interactions. Second, 
this suggests caution in always attributing the deleterious consequences of incor-
poration to “capitalism.” Rather, there is more continuity in this area between 
tributary and capitalist world-systems. Th ird, what does seem to be diff erent in 
the capitalist world-system is the overwhelming power of states relative to indig-
enous groups, its truly global reach, and the preponderance of capitalist reasons 
for expansion. Th e latter include expansion especially for resources, labor, and 
markets. Fourth, the concomitant rise in nation building in the modern world-
system, as noted above, has led to much stronger attempts at assimilation of 

incorporated groups than was common in tributary world-systems (Hall 1987, 
1998a). Finally, following Eric Wolf (1982), the histories of these encounters are 
almost exclusively written from the point of view of expanding state systems. 
Almost universally, these histories take as axiomatic that state-based systems are 
inherently superior to nonstate systems, and that transforming the latter is “help-
ing” them.

Incorporation into the modern world-system can also have divisive eff ects. 
For the White Earth Anishinaabeg (Chippewa or Ojibwa), increasing incor-
poration fractured old clan and band distinctions and created a new division 
between more and less assimilated Anishinaabeg, or in local parlance, between 
full- and mixed-bloods (Meyer 1994). Sandra Faiman-Silva (1997) fi nds much 
the same processes among the Mississippi Choctaw. Indeed, the full-blood/
mixed-blood distinction is an important consequence of incorporation into the 
European world-system with far-reaching legal consequences. Th at is, blood 
quantum becomes covertly connected with development of highly racialized 
policies (Smedley 1999) that act directly and institutionally indirectly, as agents 
of domination and subordination. Even splitting into factions can be the result of 
the policies, actions, and resistances to incorporation and domination. 

Partial incorporation can simultaneously transform indigenous peoples and 
contribute to state building. Kristine L. Jones (1998) argues that trade among 
indigenous peoples and between indigenous peoples and Spanish settlers in 
the Pampas helped in the process of state-building by fostering increased trade. 
Pekka Hämäläinen (1998) makes a similar argument for the role of Comanches 
in the southwestern Great Plains. He argues that trade with indigenous peoples 
helped strengthen New Mexico while also building a tribal political structure 
among Comanche bands.

Gender roles and gender relations are also reshaped by incorporation. 
Women are often harmed by incorporation even while men may at times benefi t, 
although the entire group usually suff ers. Th ere are gender and class diff eren-
tials in contraception (Bradley 1997), fertility (Ward 1984), labor force partici-
pation (Ward 1990), and household structure and function (Smith et al.1988). 
Th e key process here seems to be that new resources are diff erentially accessible 
by gender, usually giving increased power to men, and decreasing social power 
and changing the social roles of women, although that is not always the case (see 
studies in Bose & Acosta-Belen 1995). Both Dunaway (1996a, 1997, 2000) and 
Faiman-Silva (1997) fi nd this to hold for Cherokee and Choctaw. Th e impacts of 
incorporation on the social construction of gender and gender relations remain 
poorly studied. Clearly, however, studies of incorporation and resistance are an 
excellent venue for taking gender issues seriously, as called for by Ward (1993), 
Misra (2000), and Dunaway (2001).



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon170 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 171
THE PUZZLE S OF I N DIGENOUS SU RV I VA L A N D PER SISTI NG 
ETH N IC CON FL IC TS

Even though resistance to incorporation is old, survival of indigenous groups 
remains problematic. Th is survival is one of two persisting puzzles: 1) the per-
sistence of ethnic groups and 2) the persistence of indigenous groups. Both are 
distinctive in that they are organizations not based on capitalist relations. Let us 
hasten to say, before someone jumps up to beat us about the head and shoulders 
with the “primordialist” or “essentialist” bludgeons, that we claim neither. Rather, 
we claim that both types of groups have their fundamental social links around 
kinship and community, irrespective of how they make their livings. Here we 
must confront a basic misunderstanding by Marx, that ties of common work 
experiences—relations of production—are often not suffi  ciently powerful to 
overcome completely ties of kinship and face-to-face community. Th is is why 
both nations and movements adopt metaphors of kinship to build solidarity; or 
to invert Benedict Anderson, that is why the “imagined community,” the nation-
state, must be imagined. Th is is not to gainsay that such a transformation might 
happen, but rather to note that it has not happened completely.

When these ties of kinship and community coincide with ways of making 
a living, they become extremely powerful in binding people together and in 
maintaining a sense of solidarity. Th is is precisely what happens within most 
indigenous communities. Even where members participate in the wider capital-
ist economy and its wage-labor processes, they remain tied to their indigenous 
communities. Th us, it is no accident that the most successful of such groups are 
ones with a continuously existing land base—even if it is a land base from which 
they have become widely dispersed. In the homeland, means of making a living, 
or of surviving, are tied to that land base: tribal identities linked to reservations 
in the U.S.; to traditional lands elsewhere.

Phrased alternatively land still maintains for many indigenous peoples mean-
ings that preceded what Polanyi called the “Great Transformation.”¹⁴ Again, we 
are not asserting some sort of “primitiveness,” but alternative ways of viewing 
land, not as a commodity, but as something much broader. Th is comes out again 
and again in the resistance statements of indigenous peoples, especially those 
called “Indians” on the North and Central American continents.

 Keeping the particular in mind as the ultimate reference point of Indian 
knowledge, we can pass into a discussion of some of the principles of the Indian 

forms of knowledge. Here power and place are dominance concepts—power 
being the living energy that inhabits and/or composes the universe, and place 
being the relationship of things to each other (Deloria 2001:22–23).

Deloria is referencing, in Lakota, power as “wakan” (as a living mysterious energy), 
and place as “maka” (the earth, but used in sacred language as “unci maka” or 
the earth as our grandmother, now the direct reference to “ina maka” or “mother 
earth”), thus establishing connectivity and relationships. Experientially and theo-
retically, commodification of land and resources is the polar opposite of these 
philosophies.

Indigenous peoples were not so much unable to understand private prop-
erty or land boundaries and established monetary value, but were in fact reject-
ing those concepts as invalid along both spiritual and social value systems. Th at 
rejection continues, whether found in Crazy Horse’s statement: “One does not 
sell the land which the people walk upon”, to the Zapatista’s rejection of pri-
vate ownership of the plantations, and is exemplifi ed, for the White Mountain 
Apache, in Basso’s (1996) “wisdom sits in places”. Each of these traditions, repre-
sents resistance of the highest order to early globalization, (Lakota, 1860–1990; 
Apache, 1870 and on, and the EZLN contemporary).

 Indian accumulation of information is directly opposed to the Western 
scientific method of investigation, because it is primarily observation. Indians 
look for messages in nature, but they do not force nature to perform functions 
that it does not naturally do… [Indian students] must always keep in mind 
that traditional knowledge of their people was derived from centuries, per-
haps millennia, of experience. Thus stories that seem incredible when com-
pared with scientific findings may indeed represent that unique event that 
occurs once a century and is not likely to be repeated. Western knowledge, 
on the other hand, is so well controlled by doctrine that it often denies expe-
riences that could provide important data for consideration (Deloria 2001: 
28).

Here we see how knowledge systems are constructed, defended and expressed 
by both dominant groups and those in resistance. This is profound and dem-
onstrates even deeper issues, though they certainly relate to the land and the 
cosmos. Fenelon’s experience with the Spirit Lake Nation (Devil’s Lake Sioux) 
in the Dakotas exemplifies this well. Apparently, “traditionalists” had been tell-
ing engineers, especially the Army Corps, “the waters” (minnewakan) rose every 
seventh generation (approximately one hundred years) and cleansed the land for 
renewal. The Corps called that “old Indian talk” until the waters did indeed, rise 
in the 1990’s, and rise all the way to state and federal governments requesting 
massive intervention. In response, the Corps proposed to build huge pumping 
stations on the trust reservation lands and dump the excess (some would say 
polluted runoff ) over the ridge into the Cheyenne River, which flows into the 

¹⁴. Th e literature by and on Polanyi is enormous. We base our comments on the 
following writings: Dalton 1968; Polanyi 1944, 1957, 1977; Polanyi, Arensberg, and 
Pearson 1957.



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon172 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 173

porated or encapsulated groups are, or recently were, organized according to the 
logic of a diff erent mode of accumulation. 

Th e point we wish to emphasize here, while in some ways obvious, is in other 
ways obscure. Because such groups are organized according to a diff erent logic, 
they are more of a threat to the overall system than challengers who are more 
powerful—economically, politically, or militarily—because they are proof that 
the logic of the dominant system is not “natural,” “normal,” “manifest,” or “inevi-
table,” but rather has been constructed by human beings, whether consciously 
or not. In short, by their very continued existence, indigenous peoples are con-
crete empirical proof that shouts of TINA [Th ere Is No Alternative (to global 
capitalism)] are patently false (see Bennholdt-Th omsen et al. 2001, for further 
examples). More germane to this discussion is how “manifest destiny” ideologies 
have informed, if not distorted, much social analysis of indigenous peoples in 
North America and elsewhere.

Currently, with the end of the cold war and the collapse of any sort of imme-
diately viable socialist alternative to capitalism as an organizing principle for 
human society, these challenges increase in salience. Th is, of course, makes the 
puzzle of their continuing survival all the more puzzling. If they off er such a threat 
to ideological hegemony of the current system, why have they not been summar-
ily crushed? In part, the answer is that many have. But within capitalist culture’s 
self-conception, wholesale slaughter of human beings for the “crime” of being dif-
ferent has become unacceptable, or at least “gauche.” Discriminatory treatment, 
ranging from death to social isolation, follows a similar pattern.¹⁵ Th us, other 
techniques have been tried, most have failed miserably, and often have backfi red, 
strengthening oppositional identities. But also, as in tributary states where the 
primary concern was that ethnic “others” deliver tribute, not conform, the same 
is true within the capitalist system where the primary concern is that “others” 
enter the market and play by capitalist rules. Furthermore, even when such chal-
lengers use whatever they gain from “playing the capitalist game” (as with Native 

north-running Red River, which goes through Fargo and Grand Forks and then 
into Canada. Although the coalition defeated the project (primarily through 
sovereignty issues) and the ridiculous notion of dumping water into one of the 
nation’s worst flooded river basins, experiential knowledge known only through 
the oral tradition not only predicted this water run, but also observed the benefi-
cial qualities. In this respect, both resistance and cultural survival are important 
resources, albeit mostly at odds with a system of capitalist accumulation and 
values based on monetary worth.

By extension, we can learn a great deal from studies of pre-modern-world-
system ethnic relations. States, since they were fi rst invented, have necessarily 
been poly- or multi- ethnic. Th e ethnically unitary nation-state is a chimera—in 
the ancient and the modern world (McNeill 1986; Gurr 1993, Hall 1998a, Laczko 
2000). States, or more properly the world-systems within which they are located, 
always expand. Hence, even if states and world-systems are ethnically homoge-
neous at their fi rst formation, they quickly incorporate new peoples and become 
diverse. In tributary world-systems, constituent states often do not attempt to 
assimilate those who are ethnically diff erent to the dominant ethnic culture, 
though some do, they never succeed completely. Rather, they are concerned with 
the collection of tribute. Clearly, the constituent ethnic groups, within any one 
state, are hierarchically organized. Egalitarian situations are rare. Th ey are arti-
facts of peculiarly balanced social forces. Over time, groups do, however, change, 
transform and transmute into diff erent forms. In tributary systems, such changes 
are typically slow, often imperceptible in the short term, so identities are easily 
confl ated with both territory and biology. In recent times these processes have 
generally sped up, so that situational, reactive, or socially-constructed ethnic-
ity is now not only obvious to most observers, but all too typically perceived as 
“normal,” or “natural.” Th ere are also abundant examples of the content of identi-
ties converging even while the boundaries between then are reinforced (Barth 
1969). Barth argues, “that a drastic reduction of cultural diff erence between ethnic 
groups does not correlate in any simple way with a reduction in the organiza-
tional relevance of ethnic identities, or a breakdown in boundary-maintaining 
processes” (Barth 1969: 32). But a closer look at most ethnic changes reveals that 
they typically take generations or centuries to occur, and are often accompanied 
by much confl ict. 

One consequence of the space-time compression (Harvey 1989) associated 
with increasing globalization and the various cyclical processes of the modern 
world-system, especially in recent decades, has been that these pressures for 
change of identity have become more overt, explicit, and obvious. Hence, not 
surprisingly, so too have the eff orts to resist those pressures become more overt 
and explicit. Th e clashes and confl icts seem to be most extreme when the incor-

¹⁵. In early August 2002 the Turkish Parliament, after vociferous debate, abolished 
the death penalty and gave greater rights to the Kurds. Both moves were prompted by 
a desire on the part of a thin majority of members to join the EU. Presuming the law 
stands and is enforced [which may be rash assumptions], this will incrementally improve 
the lives of Turkish Kurds, but is not a move to a “golden age” of Kurdish autonomy. 
Yet, this is an example of how changing global climate can change the playing fi eld in 
the struggle for indigenous rights. However, regional and perhaps global concerns about 
Iraqi Kurds’ insurrection sit within four states (Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and Syria) all of which 
are vested in not having any form of a Kurdistan.



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon174 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 175

American gaming operations) to preserve their non-capitalist organization (such 
as when Native Americans use profi ts from gaming operations collectively for 
collective goals) they have not been perceived as a severe threat to the overall 
system. Th ere are at least two aspects to this. First, they do not challenge the 
system in an attempt to replace or overthrow it. Rather, they seek to carve out a 
niche within it. Second, most are relatively small—demographically, politically, 
economically, in resource endowments, etc. Th us, the threats of their existence 
as alternatives to the dominant mode of organization are outweighed by the self-
contradictions that would be made manifest by overt attempts to destroy them.

Within this, however, we should not lose sight of the very skillful eff orts of 
indigenous leaders to play upon precisely these contradictions to defend their 
niches within the world-system. Franke Wilmer (1993) has observed that one 
source of indigenous survival in the latter part of the twentieth century, derives 
from the skills of indigenous leaders to articulate that any justifi cation for elimi-
nating their existence as separate groups, is also a repudiation of the Peace of 
Westphalia (1648) and such “treaties” and therefore the entire interstate system in 
the modern world. So far, this has been too high of a price to pay. Following Biolsi 
(2001), we further note that the law can also increase local animosities because it 
can obviate locally developed modi vivendi and force groups into stronger con-
tention than might otherwise have occurred.

However, other processes are also at work. In order to discuss them more 
precisely it is useful to introduce a few more distinctions. 

STATE S A N D SOV ER EIGN T Y 

Wallerstein (2002) has identifi ed the strong reliance of global capitalism on 
the nation-state system, and its multitude of connections to military-political 
networks (Chase-Dunn et al. 2002; Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997) that prop up 
and enforce the economic systems and domination. Sklair (2002) argues that 
now the global system is more important than states. While recognizing that 
world-system analysis has many insights into the global system, he still faults it 
for relying too much on the state as a unit of analysis. While the disagreement is 
relatively mild, our position is intermediate. Even as transnational capitalism and 
the emerging transnational capitalist class (Sklair 2001) seeks to subvert and/or 
transcend the state in many ways, they also use it extensively. While the processes 
remain far from clear, the world is in the midst of a considerable shifting of rules 
and processes that derived from the peace of Westphalia (1648). Th ese changes 
will require further modifi cation of our analysis of sovereignty. 

We argue that the eff orts of indigenous groups, as individual groups and as 
collectivities, are part and parcel of these changes and will play a signifi cant role 

in them—a role that cannot be ignored. Th is is because most indigenous peoples 
represent an alternative to capitalist accumulation (we pointedly do not mean 
Marx’s primitive communism, but a literal and real distributive political-econ-
omy) that by its very nature poses a perplexing problem, if not a fundamental 
challenge, to formal state sovereignty. Even as the dialectic outlined above plays 
out in terms of confl icts between states, indigenous peoples resist from outside 
the system, often while forced to enact political solutions within individual state 
structures and regimes.

Th e United States arguably has the most well-developed and codifi ed rela-
tionship with its indigenous peoples, “Indians” who have survived wars and con-
quest under the treaty system, with Canada following closely over the last two 
hundred years. Some analysts argue that the Canadians have surpassed the U.S. 
by recognizing the oral traditions of their “First Nations” (Perry 1996). While 
nearly all colonial systems conducted forms of genocide, extending over a fi ve 
hundred year period well into the nineteenth century, most did not develop 
treaty based legal systems, but many in Central and South America incorporated 
American Indian peoples into systems of racial subordination, segregation and 
partial assimilation as minority groups.

As the state system moved throughout its violent growth and development, 
it utilized two important concepts in its expansion over the western hemisphere, 
the Doctrine of Discovery and the Princes Rights to Conquest (Deloria and 
Lytle 1984; Wilkins 1997, 2002; Fenelon 1997; Deloria and Wilkins 1999). Th ese 
colonial to Indian relationships were at fi rst with very strong Native Nations, 
including the early U.S. Some were predicated on treaties and various “non-inter-
course” acts, meant to contain and control indigenous peoples with a state actor 
in the expanding world-system. Within the United States such relationships 
were known as “tribal sovereignty” for those indigenous peoples surviving the 
conquest eras, and being able to demonstrate political presence over the next two 
hundred years.

What then evolved in the United States was a complex set of doubled-
up Dual Sovereignty relationships (Fenelon 2002) with Federal sovereignty 
supreme, fi rst with 13 and later up to 50 individual states’ sovereignty, along with 
the contested notions of tribal sovereignty. Th e newly developing nation-states of 
the western hemisphere, including the United States, believed they could extin-
guish tribal claims to sovereignty at a later date. Th at has not proven to be the 
case. However, indigenous resistance to sovereign and capitalist domination has 
taken on many forms, which generally relate to hegemonic systems in their clas-
sic world-systems typologies. 

In reviewing the many examples and cases of indigenous peoples in the west-
ern hemisphere, we have observed that there is a relationship between the legacy 



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon176 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 177

• Nature of any autonomous relations over political, economic and 
cultural realms of social life, again with states and hegemonic 
systems;

• Status as “minority” peoples relative to cultural domination and 
claims to differential treatment, again within nation-states and 
hegemonic systems.

Th e eff ects of hegemonic cycles in core areas are diff erent than those in 
peripheral areas. Th ey are mediated through cycles of nationalism and nation-
building and also are part of the larger tributary to capitalist shift. Survival is 
also highly problematic, especially in the contemporary world-system (Hall 1987; 
Carlson 2001). We elaborate on applications to Table 1 later.

In Table 2, “Eleven Indigenous Societies in Comparative World-Systems 
Analysis” we identify eleven indigenous peoples from the western hemisphere 
and suggest levels of domination, current status, and world-system position. 
Based on earlier work (Hall and Fenelon 2000, 2003), we argue that these cases 
represent the legacy of systematic domination and resulting socio-political status 
of colonized and conquered societies. Th ese historical and contemporary socio-
political positions in the world system are tightly connected to hegemonic system 
decline, discussed on a case-by-case basis.

Until two decades ago when the Canadian courts and political processes gave 
more credence to both historical treaty rights and contemporary laws concern-
ing separatist sovereignty, the Mohawk of Canada (referred to now as a “First 
Nation”) have been relegated to a subsumed and segregated reserve status fol-
lowing the U.S. policy treatment. During their three or four hundred years of 
cultural domination, they experienced the full range of relationships, including 
an exchange of gunfi re with the military as late as the 1990’s. Th e Mohawk exist 
under diff erent laws but similar status on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border, 
and thus make a fascinating case of transnational historical ethnicity divided by 
artifi cial political borders imposed on them by the dominant groups.

Th e Lakota (Sioux) represent about two hundred years of confl icts rang-
ing from war, (regionally until 1890 and on smaller scales well into the 1970’s)to 
formal treaty-making with the United States in spectacular negotiations clearly 
and primarily revolving around claims to sovereignty and control over land (see 
Plate 1). Th e Lakota were forcefully broken up into six diff erent reservation 
groups only roughly conforming to tribal relationships and without recognition 
of the 1868 treaty lands or rights. Recently, anti-hegemonic social movements, 
from the 1960’s have brought these agreements, broken by the United States on 
multiple occasions, back to the table, and the courts.

Th e Cherokee were militarily removed under genocidal conditions by the 
U.S. military; this move was orchestrated by President Jackson in direct opposi-

Table 1 – Levels and Types of Indigenous Survival within Hegemonic Nation-
State Systems

Level 1: Sovereignty Recognized – SR
 Political – systems recognized by nation-state and even by hegemonic regimes
 Economic – limited or in some cases full control over internal institutions
 Cultural – intact or assimilated, no longer under strict cultural domination

Level 2: Sovereignty Contested – SC
 Political – quasi- or no recognition by nation-state or by hegemonic regimes
 Economic – trade and land tenure contested externally, internally controlled
 Cultural – assimilated or hidden, under legalized cultural domination (policies)

Level 3: Autonomy Bounded – AB
 Political – boundaries noted internally by nation-state or by hegemonic regimes
 Economic – all trade and land tenure under external controls, contested internally
 Cultural – segregated, assimilated or secreted, legalized cultural domination

Level 4: Autonomy Contested – AC
 Political – boundaries shaped and penetrated by nation-state / hegemonic regimes
 Economic – trade, land tenure, and property under external and internal controls
 Cultural – segregated, assimilated, suppressed or secreted, cultural domination

Level 5: Minority status Defined – MD
 Political – no boundaries, relations defined by nation-state / hegemonic regimes
 Economic – trade, land tenure, and property under total dominant group policies
 Cultural – dominated, suppressed or secreted, (language policy, group property)

Level 6: Minority status Subsumed – MS
 Political – no separate legal status, as defined by nation-state / hegemonic regimes
 Economic – trade, land tenure, property dominated by elites & nation-state law
 Cultural – distorted, suppressed or secreted, (discriminatory systems encouraged)

of systemic domination type, individual socio-political statuses (tribe/nation/
minority-group) and their contemporary socio-political position in the world-
system (especially as that may be connected to any hegemonic system decline, 
presented in Table 2). Th ese relationships may be fairly tightly circumscribed 
within the Americas, although it is speculative as to how strongly they may be 
held with various indigenous peoples in other parts of the world, with diff ering 
histories and political systems. 

Th is is illustrated in Table 1, where we identify six levels of indigenous sur-
vival and resistance, within hegemonic state systems. Th e key concerns arise in 
the aforesaid relationships between systemic domination (historically located as 
a “legacy”), socio-political statuses (individually noted in each system by its own 
nomenclature) and contemporary socio-political position (discussed earlier as 
within the world-system of states, perhaps as “third world” and “industrialized” 
or “fi rst” world). Th ese levels include three primary distinctions:

•  Presence or absence of sovereignty claims by indigenous peoples 
and recognition by states within the existing hegemonic systems;



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon178 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 179

tion to Supreme Court rulings and all legal and moral constraints of the time in 
respect to the Five Civilized Tribes, forcing what many analysts believe to be the 
single best example of a constitutional crisis, in that all three sovereigns were in 
play—federal, tribal, state—and all three divisions of the U.S. government were 
at odds, with raw power to remove Indian peoples winning out. Th e primary 
result was the United States ignoring its manufactured crisis over sovereignty, 
mainly for the purposes of expanding its realm of control and limiting Indian 
Country. 

Table 2 – Eleven Indigenous Societies in Comparative World-Systems Analysis

Society,
People or
“Nation”

Legacy of
Systematic
Domination

Socio-political
Statuses (i.e.
tribe/nation)

Historical and Contemporary Socio-Political
Position in the World System (connected to
hegemonic system decline)

Mohawk
U.S.A.
(Canada)

Treaty – US
Brit.Colonial
Reserve - FN

segregated
Canada (US)
reserves

First Nations sovereignty claim in Canada,
internal semiperipheral status, mixed self-
determination controlled by state structure

Lakota
regional
(Dakotas)

Treaty – US
Int.-Colony
Reservation

reservations
(separated) 6
tribe/nation

Indian tribal sovereignty in the United States,
Treaty-based claims with self-determination,
state-controlled internal semiperiphery

Cherokee
removal
(U.S. – S.E.)

Treaty – US
Relocation
Reservations

spatial tribe
segregation 2
tribe/nation

Indian tribal sovereignty in the United States,
self-determination, state-controlled internal
colonial, assimilated semiperiphery

Puyallup
urban
(U.S. – N.W.)

Int.-Colony
Treaty with US

reservations
(separated)
tribe/nation

U.S. tribal sovereignty, with some treaties,
current self-determination, state-controlled,
internal assimilation as “minority”

Pequot
Wampanoag
(U.S. – N.E.)

Genocide,
dependence
after US

reservations
(separated)
tribe/nation

U.S. tribal sovereignty, lost and recognized,
current self-determination, state-controlled,
assimilated as “minority” special legal claim

Yaqui
Tarahumara
(U.S. – S.W.)

Colonializing
Int.-Colony
Mexico/US

Y-US “tribe”
status unclear
in Mexico

U.S. tribal sovereignty, some later treaties,
Mexico ejido system, all state-controlled, non-
assimilation & “minority” status

Mayan
Guatemala
(in Chiapas)

Colonial, I.C.
genocidal,
conquests

suppressed
rural groups
w/o legality

Subordinated status with little recognition,
revolutionary struggle in Chiapas gaining limited
autonomy,

Miskito
Honduras
(Nicaragua)

Int.-Colonial
conquest by
colonializing

recently won
autonomous
status – legal

Subordinated “minority” recently winning limited
autonomy under armed struggle, socio-economic
inclusion as internal colony

Yanomami
Brazil
(Venezuela)

“Genocidal”
Int.-Colony
current

Separated
territory few
protections

Recent conflicts mediated by state controls,
Brazil genocidal, Venezuela limited “tribal”
protections, isolated territories

Quechuan
Ecuador
(Peruvian)

Colonial long-
term, Int.-
colonial

Suppressed
minority
populations

Dispersed broadly based general population,
recent separatist movements increasingly
mediated by state structures

Hawaiian
Native

conquered
neo-state,
Int.-colonial

Suppressed
minority,
factionalized

Submerged “minority” assimilation, recently
reinvigorated indigenous sovereignty, treaty-like
claims U.S. constitutional law

Plate 1 – Reservations Boundaries in North / South Dakota

Reservations boundaries (yellow) in North / South Dakota, United States of America. Outside the 
bounded areas, American Indians have no “special” rights as a group or class. Inside bounded 
areas, both non-Indians (whites) and “Indians” contest for territory, jurisdiction, rights, land claims 
and sovereignty issues. While “trust” status would seem to confer special protection, within the 
bounded areas, in fact that becomes something negotiated with dominant and elite groups, often 
as a matter of law. Therefore, weak as the bounds may appear, they are important in terms of 
maintaining an historical presence of cultural traditionalism and social difference.



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon180 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 181

Th e Puyallup make another good example of what starts out as another 
treaty-tribe (essentially over the environs of what is now Tacoma) and though 
driven out of existence, make a stunning comeback in the late twentieth century 
to reclaim portions, albeit small, of their earlier claims. Th e Pequot make an even 
more compelling story, though eliminated for over three hundred years before 
the creation of the U.S.A., receive formal recognition partially by Congressional 
fi at, and then build a legal anomaly entirely on sovereignty into a stunning eco-
nomic success through Indian Gaming,. Wampanoag people represent the fl ip 
side of that story, from once great nations fi rst supporting and then warring with 
English colonists, and then only getting a limited partial recognition through the 
court system, with little claims and only nominal sovereignty.

Th e Yaqui complete the United States examples, straddling the border with 
Mexico, sometimes warring with both countries, and ultimately getting a forced 
recognition, although growing substantially in the last two decades in terms of 
its territorial claim. Mexico, although historically an assimilative nation toward 
indigenous peoples, treated most of their “Indians” with segregated and discrimi-
natory repression. Th e Tarahumara peoples, (Chihuahua) having often diffi  cult 
relationships within the ejido system of rural land tenure, represent nation-state 
control over these bounded peoples.

Further to the south, and into Guatemala, Mayan descent Indian peoples 
in Chiapas, Mexico, represent combined armed and socio-political resistance 
to U.S.–led globalization, stating their struggle has been for “500 years” and is 
against transnational capitalism, hemispheric hegemony, and the repression of 
the peasant Indian for economic profi ts. Primarily with sovereignty and claims to 
the land as its basis, revolutionary struggle has linked with indigenous resistance 
and has percolated over hundreds of years under various regimes and economic 
domination. Legal, socio-economic, and cultural factors drove mountain indige-
nous peoples to use arms, illustrating how world-systems shape micro-economic 
relations, especially when hegemonic decline changes their positions and the 
activities of dominating elites.

Th e Miskito in Nicaragua perversely show these contentions in a reverse, 
namely, that a socialist armed revolutionary government also tries to impose con-
ditions, boundaries, and in a late-stage forced removal, modernized conditions in 
the world-system, albeit not capitalist. Th e Sandinistas were, no doubt, respond-
ing to hegemonic forces that attempted to employ Miskito people in Honduras 
to support the Contras. However, the central concerns were against incursions 
over a limited but existing sovereignty, or in the Miskito case “autonomy” over 
their lands and socio-political life. While the capitalist systems tend to be more 
invasive of both cultural and political forms of autonomy, socialist systems are 
also attempting to exercise their sovereignty over societies, and therefore over 

indigenous peoples, making it incumbent on them to resist the corrosive eff ects 
of dominating systems. When hegemonic systems are in decline, these patterns 
become more apparent.

Reacting to an artifi cially imposed state political border with real eff ect, the 
Yanomami people in Venezuela demonstrate similar issues of an “internal colo-
nialism” spreading out as an arm of a predatory economic system, markedly in 
Brazil, where it is mostly genocidal. Venezuela, on the other hand, has developed 
bounded reserve areas, similar to North American patterns, with limited protec-
tions but a still invasive market economy with trading posts and timber compa-
nies. Gold mines and mineral companies operate freely in Brazilian economic 
expansion, building peripheries out of Yanomami land where they cannot even 
be a minority group. Hegemonic decline seems to hasten these activities, and put 
reserved lands and laws in Venezuela into contention, over sovereignty or limited 
autonomy. Th is has been contentious since the IMF accords infl uenced Amazon 
development strategies.

Th e Quechuan people in Ecuador, and in a more complicated set of relation-
ships in Peru, maintain a sizable demographic presence that at times must be 
taken into consideration. For example, in the recent elections followed by a near 
military coup, indigenous groups were key to swinging political parties behind 
one side or another. However, once the immediate objective, always associated 
with political machinations connected in some manner or form with natu-
ral resource extraction, has been achieved, defeated, or no longer matters, the 
Quechuan peoples are subsumed into the general population again. Separatists’ 
movements, as in Peru, Venezuela and Colombia with diff erent tribal groups, 
attempt to make short-lived coalitions similar to the above dominant groups 
operating as nation-states.

Finally, the Native Hawaiians, who have achieved limited sovereignty and in 
one case territorial autonomy through the practice of legal and political recog-
nition. In this case, we also observe that states believe the international system 
of trade forces them to recognize minority separatist groups with documented 
claims, such as a treaty or formal agreement. Ironically, core countries such as the 
United States, fi nd themselves no longer able to forcefully eliminate or assimilate 
indigenous peoples undergoing incorporation processes, instead they enter into 
negotiations that abide by previous contractual or treaty-like rules, similar to the 
contracts of international trade and economic development. 

What remains to be sorted out is how these patterns are shaped and aff ected 
by changes in the hegemonic cycle. A key component to this survival is the degree 
of autonomy or sovereignty. As we noted above and in Table 1, sovereignty is a 
complex legal-political relationship. 

When systems are in hegemonic decline, there are opportunities to take the 



Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon182 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 183

relationships described above, primarily of sovereignty/autonomy with a nation-
state in a world system governed by international laws and economic agreements 
upon which capitalism relies, and force (or tease out) new political relationships 
more advantageous to indigenous peoples. However, states may also contract and 
respond with greater oppression toward indigenous peoples if they will upset an 
existing status quo, or simply to nail down those parts of their society under their 
total control. When indigenous peoples straddle borders these issues become 
more acute, depending on the particular states involved and the relative strength 
of the region. Th us hegemonic decline provides both potential opportunities and 
sometimes grave threats for indigenous groups.

In Table 1 six levels of indigenous survival were identifi ed with respect to sov-
ereignty, autonomy, and minority status. Table 1 further analyzes three distinct 
social spheres of domination—political, economic, and cultural. Levels 1 and 2 
(sovereignty is formally recognized or at least legally contested) seem to off er 
the greatest opportunity during times of hegemonic decline, with some caveats. 
Th e primary observation herein is that the nation-states appear to be core coun-
tries or their close affi  liates who benefi t from the international system of trade 
and economic dominance. Another factor seems to be that existing treaties or 
legal documents can be put into play. Th e Mohawk, Lakota, Cherokee, Puyallup, 
Pequot, perhaps Yaqui, and Native Hawaiian cases appear to be operating in all 
three spheres on these levels.

Levels 3 and 4 (with autonomy in two or more of the social spheres bounded, 
or at least when undergoing formal contestation) are both fraught with peril and 
are loaded with opportunity. Th ese peoples are much more likely to be involved 
in an armed struggle, when assets such as land and mineral rights, or labor and 
trade rights, are being determined by an internal struggle that is characterized by 
extreme domination. Th ey often break laws and mores of the society itself. Levels 
of development and position in the global economy of the particular nation-state, 
regionally defi ned, seems to also have an aff ect, with poorer countries much more 
likely to employ military forces against their indigenous peoples. Th e Mayan and 
the Miskito cases appear to be on these levels, with high degrees of violent con-
fl ict.

Because a “minority status” is dependent on the dominant policies of the 
state, levels 5 and 6 hold the most dangerous possibilities for indigenous groups, 
unless they can engineer movement to the higher levels by gaining some form of 
autonomy or even limited sovereignty. (Miskito against the Sandinistas in the 
1980’s achieved this). Historically, being forced into an oppressive minority status 
was a common feature in the European expansion over the western hemisphere, 
but currently, less developed or poorer countries are most likely to oppress 
their indigenous peoples through such defi nition, or a complete subordination 

of political, economic and cultural rights. Among the cases we consider in this 
analysis, the Yanomami and Quechuan peoples appear to be on this level, and are 
thus in highly vulnerable positions.

Th is brief discussion suggests that the consequences of degree of sover-
eignty can diff er in political, economic, and cultural spheres. Obviously, these 
three areas overlap and interact. We further question whether and to what 
degree these various eff ects are diff erent in core, peripheral, or semiperipheral 
regions. While it will take further research to confi rm this, we also suggest 
that core states have developed highly codifi ed laws relative to the nation-state 
system (witness the UN’s International Peoples Working Group [IPWG], 
http://www.un.org/partners/civil_society/m-indig.htm; see too Biolsi 1995, 
2001) that they must acknowledge on some level. Th us, they are more likely to 
off er recognition of some form of autonomy or sovereignty. However, in periph-
eral states, the reverse appears to be the case. Indeed, extralegal and state violence 
(direct or indirect) is much more common.

While the relations are not entirely clear, this evidence supports an observa-
tion that a pattern of relationships does appear, suggesting that a global historical 
survey will be necessary to tease out the nuances of the relations among indig-
enous survival, indigenous movements, hegemony, and world-system position. 
We suspect that these relations are quite sensitive to world-system time. Th at 
is, location in a declining hegemon in the late 18th century is very diff erent from 
location in a declining hegemon in the late 20th or early 21st century.

With all these suggestive fi ndings we draw some provisional conclusions.

CONCLUSIONS : LE SSONS FOR THE T W EN T YFI R ST CEN TU RY

What then can we learn about resistance to globalization from this examina-
tion of the survival of indigenous peoples? First and foremost, we must recognize 
that the issues of resistance and survival are immensely complex. As both the 
world-system, and possibly its underlying logic, continue to evolve, so too do its 
various constituent units. Here we confront the age old conundrum of—if some-
thing is changing, is it still “the same thing?” When does adaptation and change 
shift from quantitative adjustment to qualitative diff erence? Th e key issue seems 
to be persistence of forms of social organization that are non capitalistic, or that 
reject capitalism, development, or modernization explicitly.

Will indigenous peoples continue to be such alternatives? If they are a threat, 
we can expect that pressures on them to change or to assimilate will mount. 
Based on what has already happened, some or many will succumb. But equally 
important, we might expect some to continue to survive. Th is is most likely when 
they exist as encapsulated enclaves somehow walled off , or at least partially sepa-

http://www.un.org/partners/civil_society/m-indig.htm


destroy them. Th e most successful, however, are not likely to be frontal attacks, 
but more invidious erosions via media exposure, increasing dependence on the 
products of capitalism, and incremental increases in participation in the global 
economy.

Th is is why the EZLN may be so prophetic. It is addressing such forces 
directly. Th us far, it has succeeded in gaining converts and fellow travelers among 
the middle classes of the world, and linking with other anti-globalization forces. 
Indeed, as Plate 2 indicates, they may be moving into a position of global lead-
ership in resisting globalization. Th e banner, “todos somos indos del mundo” [we 
are all Indians of the world] seeks to build solidarity with others on the basis of 
recognition that all individuals are being crushed by global capitalism. 

Whether this, or any other movement will succeed remains unknown. 
Predictions of the imminent demise of capitalism are only slightly less frequent 
than predictions about the impending demise of indigenous peoples. Both are 
still here. If one takes a short-run view, over the era of capitalist domination of 
the last few centuries, evidence would suggest capitalism will win in the end. If, 
however, one takes a very long-run view, many types of indigenous organiza-
tions have withstood assaults of states, not for centuries, but millennia. Hence, 

Th omas D. Hall & James V. Fenelon184 The Futures of Indigenous Peoples 185

rated from global capitalism. To the extent that human rights remain key issues 
for global middle classes, the likelihood of any complete destruction of indige-
nous peoples is lessened. Furthermore, the 9-11 inspired war on terrorism, which 
already has become the rationale of choice for a large number of actions that have 
little or no connection with terrorism, may indeed foreshadow a resurgence of 
“manifest destiny” on a global scale (Wickham 2002).

It is tempting to dismiss this as a minority issue. Indigenous peoples are some 
350 millions, approximately 5 of the world’s population. But here we should 
take note of both biological and sociocultural evolutionary processes (Sanderson 
1990). New forms typically evolve from precisely such “minority” populations. 
Note that even in fi ctionalized accounts, change is seen to come from small 
groups (Wagar 1999). Th e array of surviving indigenous populations is a range 
of alternatives to capitalism. Furthermore, it is a range that is far broader than 
the narrow range of oppositions that have grown up inside the capitalist world-
system, which are, more often than not, either negations of one or another aspect 
of capitalism, or “kinder, gentler” redistributions of it resources. Indigenous peo-
ples present a panoply of alternatives.

In this paper we have drawn heavily on examples and experience in North 
America. While much of the resistance and survival discussion is similar for 
indigenous peoples globally, experiences of colonization, or sometimes simple 
nationalization projects, for other indigenous peoples varies widely. For instance: 
the Warli people in India have only recently become recognized as colonization 
eff ects of England are only now being transformed; the Kurds in Iraq, Turkey 
and Iran have contended with colonization and constructed state structures by 
European powers; and so on the complexities go, whether discussing the Saami 
in Scandinavia, the Maori in New Zealand, Iban in Sarawak, Malaysia, or per-
haps even the Pashtun in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Five hundred years of experience with colonization followed by nationaliza-
tion projects in the western hemisphere, as complex and diverse as they are, remain 
somewhat more open to analysis because of the shared parts of their experiences, 
than attempting to describe indigenous peoples globally. Nonetheless, it is our 
contention that very similar processes occur wherever globalization meets resis-
tance by indigenous peoples. We readily acknowledge that many more detailed 
studies are needed to delineate the entire range of alternatives and resistances that 
indigenous peoples present. Our key conclusion here is that these resistances are 
multiple. Th e EZLN is one form of resistance to globalization. Th ere are many 
more in North America, in Central and South America, Australia, Southeast 
Asia, South Asia, Europe, and East Asia. All need to be studied more fully.

It is also reasonable to expect that to the degree that indigenous peoples do 
succeed in resisting capitalism, they will call down stronger attempts to change or 



the evidence would suggest indigenous peoples will survive. If one looks further 
into the rise of the capitalist world-system, seeing capitalism coming to domi-
nate from little pockets scattered here and there for millennia, and recognizes 
that modern capitalism is an amalgam of older forms and newer forms, then one 
might expect that whatever the world-system transforms into will be built on the 
various models that already exist. And here, clearly, indigenous peoples represent 
the widest range of alternatives, and continuously adapting forms from which to 
build a more inclusive new world.

Now we can return to the issue of the impacts of recent events—the collapse 
of the Soviet Union, the Iraq war, and especially the attacks on 9-11. Th e preced-
ing analysis and discussion suggests that to ask about the impacts of these events 
is to ask the wrong question. Why should such events, spectacular though they 
have been, impact these centuries, and even millennia long processes? At most we 
would expect slight perturbations in a trajectory of resistance, along the lines of 
those documented by Podobnik (2002). Our argument follows that of Dunaway 
(2003a) and Wallerstein (2003) that such events are part and parcel of the normal 
processes of capitalist dynamics. Here we are seeing the fruits of globalization 
beginning to ripen. As Clark (2002) argues, the intensifi cation, the speeding up, 
the increasing interconnectedness of global capitalism makes a large variety of 
“normal accidents” more, not less, likely. Indeed, precisely because they so often 
try to exist outside the system, many indigenous groups may be better insulated 
from such “normal accidents” than members of societies fully integrated into the 
capitalist world-system. Furthermore, as ethnic confl ict has become more costly 
to the system, there may well be less pressure to integrate indigenous peoples 
more fully into the capitalist world-system. Indeed, to the degree that global 
elites increasingly attend to the rising risk of “normal accidents” they may pay 
even less attention to indigenous peoples. If so, the impact of 9-11 and other such 
recent events may actually enhance the probability of their continued survival. 

Th ere are many contingencies in the foregoing analysis. Depending how 
they become manifest in concrete social terms, our guess and predictions will of 
necessity need modifi cation. In the scale of centuries and millennia, it is far too 
soon to draw any fi rm conclusions on the impacts of these recent events.

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