A Call for Attention to Indigenous Capitalisms

• Main Author: Alexis Celeste Bunten
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: New Proposals Publishing Society 2011-11-01
• Series: New Proposals
• Subjects: Indigenous; Capitalism; Corporations; Self-Determination; Indigenous studies
• Online Access: https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/newproposals/article/view/2271

Indigenous Capitalisms are rooted in local concepts of wealth, accumulation and distribution, but they must operate within current global markets. Indigenous Capitalisms reflect Indigenous peoples’ shifting political relationships to settler colonial states and the supranational organizations that drive international policy. As such, articulations of Indigenous Capitalisms can be measured as indices of self-determination, demonstrating to the world that Indigenous political entities engaging in global commerce will likely not simply dissolve into a multi-cultural body politic. Future research in this area should offer new ways of understanding the ties between economic issues and Indigenous lives, challenging existing stereotypes about Indigenous peoples’ stakes in the global economy contributing to the growing discipline of Indigenous Studies.