(I am sharing SandHIll and FANA member Kevin Inglesby’s article regarding our attendance at the April 2024 United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, 2024. He is currently enrolled in a PhD program for Applied Anthropology and Cultural Heritage.)
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The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (hereafter UNPFII) held its 23rd session this year, in April 2024. The theme for this year's forum centered on the engagement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) while emphasizing the voices of indigenous youth. One way to successfully approach this year's theme may be informed through social theories of language like the concept called chronotope, in other words, the linguistic interplay between personhood (person/identity), time, and space. Ahead of this year’s forum, in March 2024, I attended a UN training session. It was an excellent opportunity for me to gain knowledge and skills in understanding the UN organization, its dialogues, and effective participation strategies. I am now better equipped to engage in UN discussions and make meaningful contributions towards shaping a better future for all. At this UN training, one of the main points brought up bridged the connection between what the UN can do as an entity and how representatives should go about expressing their reasons for taking part in the forum.
At that point, I recognized that the UN seeks to advance its own linguistic pattern of personhood (people/identities), time, and space; one of self-determination, solidarity, and empowerment. Thus, for the theme this year, the importance lies in one's knowledge of UNDRIP that influences its practical application in our world to provide an effective platform for pursuits of balanced dialogue to unfold in the conference rooms and general assembly. As a representative of the Sand Hill Band of the Lenape and Cherokee Indians and the Federation of Aboriginal Nations of the Americas (FANA) I brought forth my developing sense of how to advance conversations directly connected to UNDRIP and indigenous youth. In our increasingly connected world, the general assembly first addressed the matter of how to intergenerationally transmit traditions whilst defending against the veils of infrastructural, economic, and uneven resource distribution. Calls to decolonize governmental arenas and address centuries of greed and the exploitation of indigenous peoples accompanied assertions to return to a more ecologically balanced orientation of governance- governing ourselves as the planet does- through regenerative and restorative foundations.
As I listened, rapidly took notes, and pondered feasible paths forward through these circumstances, a key element remained in my mind. How can we shift entire sagas of dialogue? The UN’s conversational structures that focus on specific times and spaces can be a major player for these shifts to accelerate, yet, there are still other highly important variables that must merge in with the UN’s initiatives to advance success. Those tribes, nations, and communities present at the forum, organized through the time leading up to those weeks, must be moments to create a robust, encompassing, and systematic dialogue that can effectively express issues at hand. Here, one does not have to look far to directly illuminate their awareness of the fact that the Sand Hill Band and FANA are doing exactly that. Through legal innovation, indigenous wisdom, and community development initiatives the Sand Hill Band and FANA occupy a critical, constructive, and highly influential position in the UNPFII community.
Through panels on the criminalization of indigenous peoples, social and cultural regions that promote integral principles of self-determination, and generative methods to strengthen exchange and solidarity- a common thread became apparent. If we as human beings are to redress centuries of oppression, our ontological dispositions or our modes of existence in the world, must undergo significant shifts to promote a more developed reflection of the vast potentials the human condition may yield. As the Sand Hill Band and FANA progress discourse from the local to global levels, we establish communicative settings centered upon holistic and culturally reflective developments that are mobilized in the proper forums, in the appropriate manners. Another major concept embedded in this year’s UNPFII regards the creation of dialogic sequences that promote a critical contextual arrangement that accounts for all the cultural, political, and social layers that found the world we find ourselves in today.
Pushing that concept forward, the Sand Hill Band and FANA continually contribute towards a new generation of evolving interactions of knowledge. UNPFII provides a very crucial arena to advance these initiatives associated with spoken practice. For example, the promotion of intergenerational discourse was a key component in the context of linguistic revitalization measures. Methods ranging from the use of open source platforms, decentralized datasets with appropriate intellectual property safeguards, and the development of other digital resources provide an exponential path for linguistic progress to flow through.
Creating levels of accessibility to these sorts of tools can be addressed through deliberate conversations around the topic, in other words, a focused reference of specific times and space. Still, the moment we find ourselves necessitates that we must strike a balance between adapting technologies, community engagement, and property rights. In this way, UNPFII provides a very beneficial environment for organized and developed organizations like the Sand Hill Band and FANA to advance our community initiatives among a global network of highly proactive, engaged, and diligent people from a wide variety of communities.
Another mobilization of intersecting networks was revealed through the Indigenous Media Zone at UNPFII wherein Mazatzin Casas Acosta, Norris Francis War Turtle Branham, and I each participated in interviews with the Indigenous-led nonprofit called Cultural Survival. Here, Norris and I spoke about different ways to implement linguistic revitalization measures to varying degrees. Mazatzin spoke about repatriation, specifically through his collaborative project; The Return of the Sacred. These platforms support conversations that solidify solidarity, provide updates for ongoing projects, and serve as points to actively expand blossoming discourse.
First and foremost, these experiences are an honor to participate in. The rich diversity, range, and expertise brought to the table by UNPFII participants provided enlivening conditions to contribute towards. These elements aid in the advancement of dialogue of mutual benefit, for all. Thus, my experiences at UNPFII this year pointed to something that has been ongoing; FANA’s motto, “Strength Through Unity”. So, as I participated, took notes, and listened intently, that common thread was strengthened through each moment of reflection. One way to promote the advancement of cultural integrity, continuity, status, and standing will proceed through conversations.
As we solidify our ways to engage and approach our ever-evolving world, those with resonance will find arenas of rapid development, support, and critical inquiry. In this way, each United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues provides a nexus point to bring our developed conversations to the forefront, in ways that will contribute to the mobilization of systems thinking and engagement that has tremendous byproducts of active world building. Though UNPFII23 comes to a close, the Sand Hill Band and FANA communities hit the ground running, traversing the next mountain of dialogue as we create the world we want to see.
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Please click the links below to learn more about the experiences of the FANA and SandHill Band of Lenape and Cherokee Indians members attending the UNPFII23
Kevin
https://youtu.be/-PNXisdZMfE?feature=shared
https://youtu.be/Hccum5_X5Qg?feature=shared
Mazatzin
https://youtu.be/laxNDgwcFvQ?feature=shared
