Universal Rights in Conflict: ‘Backlash’ and ‘Benevolent Resistance’ to Indigenous Land Rights
Author(s)
Mackey, Eva
Abstract
The emergence of indigenous rights movements throughout the world reflects, in part, the increasing legitimacy of human rights regimes and ideologies. Human rights are ‘now universal’ in the sense that ‘virtually all states have formally endorsed them’ and citizens and organizations of all kinds ‘invoke them.’ Indigenous rights are important on a global scale and are also deeply controversial issues at national and local levels. This paper examines conflict over land rights based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork in two local conflict zones, namely western New York State (USA) and western Ontario (Canda). Here I explore how land rights and belonging are contested in these local sites.
