AlterNative Vol. 7, no. 3 out now

Country: 
International
The new issue of AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples(volume 7, number 3)is available, and even though the topics and geographical areas are diverse, indigenous peoples’ claims for resource rights and the challenges they face in achieving recognition are central to all six articles. 
Eduardo Jiménez Mayo examines the violence that continues to affect the Maya peoples of Guatemala even after the United Nations-brokered peace accords of 1996. The second Latin American contribution is written by Luciano Barraco who re-examines the Miskitu insurgency and the struggle for autonomy on Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast (1981–1987).
The status of literacy education of the San of Botswana, Southern Africa’s first indigenous peoples, is discussed in an article by Lone Ketsitlile. Ketsitlile highlights the need for inclusive-language policies that include indigenous languages as national languages in all realms of public life in order to empower and liberate the San peoples.
This volume also includes two scholarly contributions about Aotearoa New Zealand. Wendy and Remana Henwood’s article “Mana Whenua Kaitiakitanga in Action: Restoring the Mauri of Lake Ōmāpere” provides a context for the environmental collapse ofLake Ōmāpere and shows how a climate of environmental mobilisation follows when mana whenua knowledge and experiences are at the forefront of restoration.
In their article “Tino Rangatiratanga and Mana Motuhake: Nation, State and Self-Determination in Aotearoa New Zealand,” Australian-based scholars Charles Hawksley and Richard Howson are in conversation with Ropata Paora, Teanau Tuiono and Te Ururoa Flavell. The authors use a Gramscian framework to examine Māori activist politics in relation to operations of hegemony in modern New Zealand.
Asebe Regassa Debelo’s article provides an in-depth analysis of the politics of recognition and indigenous people’s rights. Debelo reveals contrasting paradigms behind the politics of recognition and shows how they can be barriers for indigenous peoples to assert their human rights and autonomy. He proposes a new post-colonial relationship between indigenous peoples and governments, which puts an end to treating indigenous peoples as mere objects of international law and national policies and instead paves the way for real recognition of indigenous peoples’ distinctive culture, ownership of land and empowerment of their traditional political institutions.
Finally, this issue also has one book review. Elena Mihas reviews Janis Nuckolls’ book, Lessons from a Quechua strongwoman: Ideophony, dialogue, and perspective. Nuckolls’ book focuses on the communicative function of ideophones which animate the native universe by giving a voice for expression to both human and non-human life-forms in the Runa dialect of Ecuadorian Pastaza Quichua (a variety of Quechua).