Frank Sowa is a Researcher at the Institute for Employment and Research (IAB), Nuremberg, Germany.
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Relations of Power & Domination in a
World Polity
:
The Politics of Indigeneity & National Identity in
Greenland
Frank Sowa
Established in 1979 as Home Rule and replaced in 2009 as self-government, the Greenlandic Inuit have developed
the most advanced form of self-government. Concerning the status of the Greenlandic Inuit, this process of nation-state
building may have an influence on being indigenous. The focus of this article is to answer the question of how
indigenous peoples are affected by the existing relations of power and domination in a world polity. Taking the
continued permission to hunt whales of the Greenlandic Inuit as an example, the article will demonstrate that
Greenlanders adopt the projected images of otherness as their own because of the fear of losing the rights exclusively
reserved for indigenous peoples. The early and later versions of a working paper by an international group of experts
commissioned by the Greenlandic self-government illustrate the debate about the cultural self-images in Greenland.
While the narration of the Greenlandic Inuit as indigenous peoples secures rights in international fora, a second
narration of a collective identity of a small Nordic nation emerges and is discussed. The later version of the working
paper emphasizes Greenland‘s indigenous status. The analysis shows the authority of global models since the categories
of world polity dominate discourses on the cultural collective identity of the Greenlandic Inuit.
Introduction
The protection of indigenous peoples‘ ways of life is one of the key concerns of international law
and underscores respect for cultural difference and recognition of culturally specific grounds as a
basis for legitimation. These rights within global society are generally for groups of indigenous
people who did not, as former colonized communities, acquire the status of an own nation-state and
hence do not comprise the majority in a society within the framework of such a state. Indigeneity is
thus linked to a special status that guarantees participation in the various committees of the United
Nations as well as other international forums and additionally comprises self-government or rights