Indigenous governance of cultural heritage: searching for alternatives to co-management

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we critically examine the co-management of Indigenous peoples’ cultural heritage as simultaneously a driver and product of the culturalisation of Indigenous peoples: the reduction of complex legal-political orders, anchored in specific lands, value systems, rights, and practices, to material cultures. Co-management has been hailed as a defensibly imperfect, ‘tweakable’ system that benefits both Indigenous and state parties, and moreover, a stepping stone to Indigenous self-determination. Departing from these analyses, we argue that co-management is not just an administrative arrangement but also a state-ratified international rights regime, and accordingly, that it cannot do other than undermine Indigenous self-determination and imperil Indigenous peoples’ cultural heritage. We suggest that cultural heritage can only thrive by being actively engaged with in situ: via the living practice of Indigenous governance. Operationalising our argument, we first consider the challenges of cultural heritage protection in Sápmi; specifically, the co-management of Laponia, in Sweden, and the unprotected sacred area of Suttesája in Finland. We then discuss a more promising framework: the Quechua ‘Biocultural Heritage Territory’ of the Parque de la Papa, in Peru. Finally, we apply the lessons of the Parque to Suttesája, showing how this opens up governance-based avenues to safeguarding Indigenous sacred areas.

KEYWORDS:

• Cultural heritage
• world heritage
• co-management
• Indigenous peoples
• self-determination
• settler colonialism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. We would respectfully point out, however, the apparent trend towards government abandonment of the term ‘co-management’ specifically because of the implication that it means the state is ‘sharing power’ (Clark and Joe-Strack 2017). Further, at least one official, in a region with a relatively lauded history of co-management, has implied that such arrangements are ‘undemocratic’ (Clark and Joe-Strack 2017).

2. http://whc.unesco.org/en/about/.

3. Since they both have roots in critiques of centralised, top-down management, neoliberalism was able to borrow the emancipatory language of sustainable development and marry it with market-based efficiency and self-interest arguments to craft an ostensibly ‘win-win’ scenario in heritage co-management.

4. The co-management approach has been discussed under a number of other monikers: joint, cooperative, collaborative, participatory, and multiparty management, among others.

5. The very first edited volume on co-management generally was published in 1989; by the mid-2000s a significant portion of the literature was devoted to Indigenous-state arrangements (Plummer and Armitage 2007; Pinkerton 1989).

6. In Taiwan, for example, federal legislation mandating such arrangements has been circumvented at the regional level by administrators who lack motivation to engage with tribal groups, and agencies that eschew losing control over conserved areas and conservation generally (Lu, Chueh, and Kao 2012).

7. In determining whether a site is already managed, states work from historical, almost always non-Indigenous sources, and the inquiry overall is guided by longstanding biases about the status of ‘traditional livelihoods’ as a significant environmental threat (Berkes 2008; Ross 2011).

8. The Inuvialuit Self-Government Agreement-in-Principle ‘provides the Inuvialuit with jurisdiction and a broad scope to manage their cultural heritage in ways that they see as appropriate for their particular needs’ (Ford 2017, 206); the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement provides ‘principles for the various aspects of Inuit cultural heritage in Nunavut’ including managing the archaeology of the territory (207); and the Labrador Inuit Land Claims Agreement provides the Nunatsiavut government ‘jurisdiction and control over the creation of laws to protect archaeological and cultural material’ (211).

9. See https://www.samediggi.no/Balvalusat2/Biras-areala-ja-kultursuodjaleapmi#section-Kulturmuittut.

10. These include not only the money from cultural heritage tourism, but also often significant employment opportunities, in establishing, restoring, and running the site (Ween 2012).

11. ‘Transhumance is a term referring to the seasonal movement of people with their livestock, elsewhere called ‘pastoralism’ or ‘nomadism.’

12. Of the 1,073 currently listed World Heritage Sites, 35 (3%) are classified as ‘mixed.’

13. Personal communication, 14 June 2011.

14. Note, though that this recommendation still characterised Sámi as local, rather than Indigenous; further, this accords with the Swedish government’s construction of Sámi ‘special’ rights as flowing from minority, versus Indigenous status.

15. Personal communication, 14 June 2011.

16. Personal communication, 14 June 2011.

17. Personal communication, 14 June 2011.

18. Personal communication, 14 June 2011.

19. More specifically, the parties include two municipalities, nine Sámi reindeer-herding communities (through Mijá Ednam, which in Sámi means ‘our land’), the Norrbotten County Administrative Board and the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

20. Personal communication, 6 November 2017.

21. In 2017, the lease was not granted because segment of the affected area in the application was within the protected Natura 2000 area. In 2018, the applicants had revised the affected area but this time, the lease was declined on the grounds of ‘very strong local Sámi opposition’ (Paltto 2018).

22. These include, inter alia, the Convention on Biodiversity, the ILO Convention 169, and the UNDRIP.

23. This CIP protocol is noteworthy for setting several precedents in the assertion of Indigenous law as/through Indigenous governance. Under the Parque-CIP Biocultural Protocol, any access to the genetic resources of the communities must be carried out according to the local vision of prior informed consent, and said access does not allow for any type of gene privatisation, patenting, or GMO application (since these compromises, whether directly or in principle, the communities’ ability to produce food and to fulfill their obligations to the land). Further, CIP came to the negotiating table after being approached by the communities about the institute’s past violations of Quechua law in the Urubamba Valley – namely, collecting landraces and crop wild relatives from the territories of the six communities without their consent and without sharing the fruits of subsequent research. The protocol thus holds the International Potato Centre accountable to the communities’ own law, while CIP’s efforts represent (albeit voluntary) restorative justice for what was, under any other system, a perfectly legal act. In the case at hand, then, the biocultural protocol helps to ensure that Quechua farmers may continue to freely grow food and protect agrobiodiversity, while establishing that this has been their right and responsibility for generations. They are thus an important means by which to protect the Parque communities in the present and ensure the continuity of their knowledge-practice in the future. The researching and negotiation of the instrument also enlivened intra- and inter-community discussions about local knowledge-practice and Quechua governance.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sam Grey

Sam Grey (ORCiD 0000-0002-5651-7266) Sam Grey is the Director of University and Lifelong Learning at Six Nations Polytechnic and a doctoral candidate in Political Science at the University of Victoria, where her dissertation explores the roles of emotion and virtue in Indigenous-Settler (ir)reconciliation. She has published on gender and truth commissions, decolonisation and peacemaking, and Indigenous women’s rights; and is the editor of three books on Indigenous knowledge, governance, and rights-based advocacy.

Rauna Kuokkanen

Rauna Kuokkanen is Research Professor of Arctic Indigenous Studies at the University of Lapland, Finland. Prior to that, she was Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and Indigenous Studies Program at the University of Toronto (2008–2018). Her main areas of research include comparative Indigenous politics, Indigenous feminist theory, Indigenous women’s rights and Arctic Indigenous governance and legal and political traditions.