The Right to Be Free of Fear: Indigeneity and the United Nations

Abstract

F A L L 2 0 1 4 W I C A Z O S A R E V I E W Indigenous daily lifeways are directly altered and, at times, devastated by climate change; from the habitable Arctic landbase losses, to glacial melt that is washing away centuries of sustainable agriculture in Bolivia, to rising ocean levels that contaminate through salination of major food sources such as breadfruit or coconuts, or completely washing away island territories such as Tuvalu and the Cook Islands. This research bears witness to the active engagement and challenges that the process and integration of Indigeneity provides. Indigeneity confronts the constant paradox of the visibleinvisibleness in climate change policy development by identifying the policies/practices as forms of colonization and explicit/implicit challenges to sovereignty and survivance. Significantly, what occurs through the (re)naming process is a positioning and advocacy of communities disproportionately and gravely impacted by climate change rather than existing as objects or material artifacts of colonial acts. Ultimately, we argue for the right to be free of fear of catastrophic environmental loss and climate change complications rather than merely providing a response to that catastrophe.