Staging indigeneity and autochthony in Northern Eurasia

Abstract

The article analyzes the interaction between autochthony, or ethnic groups’ claims of first occupancy, and the promotion of indigenous rights. The article addresses this interconnection in Russia and Ukraine and considers the stakeholders’ major modes of framing and political opportunities structure in both countries. The empirical findings do not prove the assumption that demands and actions based on autochthony and indigeneity inevitably reinforce each other and boost political contentions. The author identifies three major cases of such interactions and concludes that most actors refrain from promoting ethnic autochthony and demonstrate reluctance in exploiting the rhetoric of indigenous rights. Russian government and ethnic activists have jointly marginalized autochthony and in fact tacitly decoupled it in public discourses from indigenous issues. Russia despite its comprehensive legal framework effectively curtails indigenous rights and confines them to the protection of subsistence economy. Ukraine, previously being reluctant to pursue an indigenous policy and to support autochthonous claims, after 2014 has been using indigenous agenda and conflating it with autochthony to contest Russia’s control over Crimea. The existing discursive and normative framework of indigeneity does not necessarily entail and fuel territorial claims but rather provides governments and non-state actors with room for de-politicizing maneuvers.