Decolonizing Self-Determination: Haudenosaunee Passports and Negotiated Sovereignty
| Author | Sheryl R. Lightfoot |
| Published date | 01 December 2021 |
| Date | 01 December 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/13540661211024713 |
https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661211024713
European Journal of
International Relations
2021, Vol. 27(4) 971 –994
© The Author(s) 2021
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/13540661211024713
journals.sagepub.com/home/ejt
E
JR
I
Decolonizing Self-
Determination:
Haudenosaunee Passports
and Negotiated Sovereignty
Sheryl R. Lightfoot
Political Science, University of British Columbia, Canada
Abstract
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP)
recognises both Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination and simultaneously
offers protections in regard to states’ right to sovereignty and territorial integrity vis-
à-vis Indigenous peoples’ claims. Often, this is considered an internal inconsistency
of the UNDRIP, and another common critique is that Indigenous peoples were only
recognised as having a diminished right to self-determination, which is less than
what everyone else enjoys. This article stands in contrast to these two lines of
critique, arguing that the UNDRIP’s articulation of self-determination is potentially
ushering in a broadening, and possible reshaping, of self-determination, which has
been increasingly decoupled from singular Westphalian notions of ‘sovereignty’
and ‘territoriality’ in ways that require ongoing negotiation between peoples and
states. This case study of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy’s issuance and use of
their passports, based on original fieldwork including a set of qualitative interviews
with key informants, demonstrates how the Haudenosaunee Confederacy is pushing
the practice and understanding of self-determination in multiple, new directions
to include plural sovereignties in deeply significant ways concerning International
Relations in both theory and in practice.
Corresponding author:
Sheryl R. Lightfoot, Canada Research Chair of Global Indigenous Rights and Politics, Associate Professor,
Political Science, Indigenous Studies and Public Policy and Global Affairs, University of British Columbia,
Buch C-425, 1866 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T1Z1, Canada.
Email: sheryl.lightfoot@ubc.ca
1024713EJT0010.1177/13540661211024713European Journal of International RelationsLightfoot
research-article2021
Article
972 European Journal of International Relations 27(4)
Keywords
Indigenous rights, self-determination, sovereignty, Haudenosaunee Confederacy,
passports
Since the United Nations (UN) General Assembly officially adopted the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) (2007),1 it has represented
the global consensus for the minimum international standard of Indigenous peoples’
rights. Unlike a treaty or an international human rights convention,2 the UNDRIP oper-
ates like other human rights declarations (e.g. the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights [UDHR]) in that it articulates a set of principles, which all states are morally and
politically obligated to respect and protect (Lightfoot, 2008; Lightfoot, 2010; Hartley
et al., 2010). The meaning of these rights and principles in practice is often subject to
interpretation, evolution and ongoing negotiation between various parties at the global,
international and domestic levels. If a right is more controversial, it necessarily entails
greater variance in its interpretation, which results in both ongoing assertions and resist-
ances, and often negotiations, of that right. One of the most controversial elements of the
UNDRIP is Article 3, which states, ‘Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determina-
tion. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue
their economic, social and cultural development.’ UN Member States, and particularly
the United States and Canada, have struggled with this right and have long suspected that
it was a mask intended to legitimise and enable potential secessionist movements or to
create new Indigenous states, in the Westphalian sense. Article 46 of the UNDRIP
addresses this concern by affirming state sovereignty and territorial integrity so that
‘decolonisation’ means either the pursuit of full statehood, through the usual UN decolo-
nisation processes or, more commonly in Indigenous contexts, the decolonisation of set-
tler colonial states. As Tuck and Yang (2012) remind us, decolonisation in the settler
colonial context must not be easy and superficial (i.e. ‘a metaphor’) but rather, it should
mean much deeper processes that bring about the ‘repatriation of Indigenous land and
life’ (1).
UNDRIP expects that Indigenous peoples’ right to self-determination is respected,
equal to all other peoples. Meanwhile, however, Indigenous self-determination cannot
disrupt the sovereignty and territorial integrity of existing UN Member States in their
exercise of that right. Several questions emerge from this seeming dichotomy. Can asser-
tions of Indigenous self-determination include elements and practices that have, since
the Treaty of Westphalia, been considered the exclusive domain of states yet also stop
short of full statehood? Must sovereignty and its key elements – citizenship, borders and
the right to issue passports – be static and state-centric or are other forms possible?
Further, does this mean that the concept of self-determination can be de-colonised and
shift away from a strict tie to territorially bounded state sovereignty, with Indigenous
peoples’ rights leading the way globally to a more open understanding?
I argue that some Indigenous practices of self-determination are actively de-colonial
and are ushering in a broadening and re-shaping of its meaning that breaks through the
To continue reading
Request your trial