INDIGEO is a bibliographical database on Indigenous Geographies.
The expression “indigenous geographies” intuitively refers to different ways of spatially recording Indigenous peoples and their identities, representations, and geographical imaginaries. By extension, it also refers to a specific area of Indigenous Studies centred on the analysis of socio-spatial realities of Indigenous peoples. While Indigenous Geographies “naturally” take their lead from the geographical discipline, they must nonetheless be considered a nexus of many other subjects, such as History and Anthropology, which share reciprocal interests with Geography. The INDIGEO database therefore fulfils a dual function. It must first offer anyone who, for whatever reason, is interested in issues concerning Indigenous peoples and their territories, access to an up-to-date and as far as possible comprehensive state-of-the-art compendium of research carried out on this subject worldwide, in different languages, and in different periods. Alongside this, the structuring of this state-of-the-art information into a database constitutes a tool for assessing the interest the scientific community holds in the socio-spatial realities of Indigenous peoples and for asking oneself since when, where, why, and how have these issues been of interest.
By drawing contours for Indigenous Geographies, the INDIGEO database becomes part of a two-pronged epistemological approach. First, it can highlight the interest of analysing socio-spatial indigenous realities in subject areas—especially geography—that see themselves closely related. Next, it can help highlight and interrogate the scope of these analyses for Indigenous peoples. It also implies obviously that a cross-indexed reading of the references inventoried in the database will give body to the notion of indigeneity and what is meant by “Indigenous people”.
To this end, it is important to clarify that the planned compilation work was founded on a broad understanding of indigeneity, as put forward by the Hypergeo encyclopaedia as “a status claimed by many peoples from various regions of the world whose common characteristic lies in their having been involved in historical and ongoing colonisation processes whereby they witness a vast appropriation of their lands, most often through the establishing of settler colonialism.”
In such a definition, indigeneity is understood to be an adaptable political category that should not be reduced to its purely etymological meaning of “first to originate from”. The term can then be used by peoples whose indigenous status is not necessarily established or acknowledged but who have nonetheless suffered forms of exclusion and vulnerability whereby they can be identified as dominated political groups inside the countries where they are located.
In this sense, the INDIGEO database reflects the plural dimension of indigeneity, that there are different ways to be and to claim to be Indigenous, from which it follows that there are just as many ways to be in and with space. It is therefore important to maintain the expression Indigenous Geographies in the plural, as it reminds us there are as many geographies as there are Indigenous peoples and that these peoples can furthermore experience a broad variety of socio-spatial dynamics.
Since the purpose of the INDIGEO database is to serve the widest and most diverse audience possible, to facilitate the “knowledge of” and “access to” output in the field of Indigenous Geographies, this website exists in four languages: English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Enjoy browsing!