"Indigenous peoples" as a constructive concept: discourses and practices

Abstract

The authors of the article, having considered a series of migrations of large and small peoples to different regions of the world, found out that the change of territories of their habitat during periods of long duration was a permanent historical process. Throughout the history of mankind, individual ethnic groups and sometimes even entire peoples have changed their places of residence for one reason or another, moving in many historically recorded cases to the territory already inhabited by other peoples, coming into contact with these peoples and developing in each case various (constructive or destructive) forms of interaction. This was the case in the past, these processes continue in the present and there is every reason to assume that this will happen in the future. The term "indigenous peoples" has a certain meaning only within the framework of colonial and postcolonial discourse, outside of these limits, this term is either heuristically meaningless, or acquires an instrumental-biased and even speculative character. Nevertheless, the vagueness and dubiousness of the term "indigenous peoples", oddly enough, does not prevent its use in scientific discourses, in solving identity problems, in ethnopolitical, socio-economic and international legal spheres.      The authors have revealed that this is due to the processes of mythoconstruction of national histories by small and large peoples and, to a certain extent, geopolitical interests.The more you delve into the analysis, the more you become convinced that the concept in question is not only not heuristically significant in scientific terms, but is also often used in large-scale socio-cultural myth-making, for political and geopolitical purposes, in fueling interethnic conflicts, in inciting national enmity and other similar situations. This dubious concept is anti-historical and dangerous for the process of preserving the peaceful and sustainable existence of peoples within and between States.